Interview with Jon Bouche, Vice Chairman of the Montgomery County Republican Party
December 20, 2022 | Montgomery County, TX
The Montgomery County Republican Party participated in mediation on Sept. 30, led by Republican Party of Texas Chairman Matt Rinaldi and State Republican Executive Committee Member Matthew Patrick. Click here to read the concerns that led to mediation.
We recently sat down with Vice Chairman Jon Bouche to find out how the party plans to move forward.
You now serve as Vice Chairman of the party. What made you decide to take on that role?
I believe in the Republican Party principles and work hard to educate voters. I was honored as Volunteer of the Year for the Republican Party of Texas in 2019 and have served the Republican Party in many different roles over the last several years, including as a Precinct Chair, Steering Committee Member, a delegate at the senatorial and state conventions, and I even served as the Chairman of the Subcommittee for Civil and Criminal Justice for the Republican Party of Texas. So when members of the Montgomery County Republican Party Executive Committee approached me and asked if I would consider serving as Vice Chairman, I said that I would.
You ran for Chairman of the Montgomery County Republican Party in 2020. Why didn’t you run in 2022?
I ran for Chair in 2020 only after the candidate I wanted to support, Judge Sadler, decided not to run. I knew it was going to be a tough job that would require a lot of my time and I was already overloaded running two businesses, serving in public office, as well as being on the board of a non-profit organization - all while performing on the weekends with my band. But after discussing it with my wife, I ran in 2020 because I knew that I had the knowledge, experience, and skill set to help the party. In 2022, my job as a realtor and all of the other things I do was keeping me really busy, so I knew that I did not have the time to devote to the job of Chairman and did not even consider running.
How is your relationship with Chairman Bryan Christ?
After he was elected in 2020, I congratulated him and told him that I would support him and help unite the party if he impartially executed the duties of that office. He has obviously not done that.
Why do you say that he has not impartially executed the duties of his office?
To me, it seems that Chairman Christ has no interest whatsoever in helping the Republican Party. He has not participated in fundraising efforts for the party, but instead uses his title as Chairman to help the Political Action Committees (PACs) that he and his wife have formed. Those PACs only seem to exist to promote his wife’s candidates in the primary elections (his wife is a political consultant at her own company called Southern Heritage Consulting).
Chairman Christ and his wife have formed and/or are involved in several PACs, a few of which have deceptive names, such as “The Republican Voters of Texas PAC” and “The Montgomery County Republican Club PAC.” This confuses voters and blurs the line between the actual party and these PACs.
I don’t believe that this is just happenstance. They ask voters at the polls if they’d like a “Republican Voter Guide,” then give them the guide for one of their PACs. Voters take a guide thinking it’s from the Republican Party, not realizing they are actually voting for the candidates selected by Chairman Christ’s wife through her consulting business. This seems unethical and would also appear to be a real conflict of interest. The Republican Voters of Texas PAC was even condemned by the local party for dirty electioneering in 2018.
Has Chairman Christ made any effort to unite the County Executive Committee (CEC)?
No. In fact, he has divided the party in a way that I have never seen before or could have even imagined. Whenever the CEC votes on something that Chairman Christ doesn’t like, he just ignores the vote as if it never happened. He has done all he can to create chaos in the CEC by improperly adjourning meetings, refusing to chair meetings unless his preconditions are met, claiming to have nullification powers over the vote of the CEC, and most recently declaring that a meeting didn’t count because he said the meeting was “at ease” the whole time despite the unanimous objections of the CEC, which eventually led to them removing him as Chair of that meeting.
Doesn’t the County Chairman have the authority to override the CEC’s decisions?
No. A Chairman’s job is simply to facilitate the business of the organization. The biggest problem, and indeed the cause of all of this acrimony in the party, is that Chairman Christ doesn’t understand his role as Chairman or he just doesn’t want to accept it. He is not the “Decider and Chief.” Whenever an organization is under the parliamentary authority of Robert’s Rules of Order, as ours is, and there is a dispute or disagreement about the interpretation of the rules, the correct way to handle it is for the body to come together, debate the issue, and then decide that issue by a vote. This has been done time and time again, only to have Chairman Christ declare the vote as invalid or just outright ignore that the vote ever happened whenever he doesn’t like the results.
What steps has the party taken to address Chairman Christ’s actions?
A formal complaint was filed against Chairman Christ with the Republican Party of Texas and a mediation team was dispatched to try and fix the problem. After over five hours of mediation, the team, which consisted of the State Party Chairman Matt Rinaldi and Officials Committee Member Matthew Patrick (Senatorial District 16), concluded in their formal report that the problems here in Montgomery County are the result of Chairman Christ’s “total failure of leadership.”
What is the CEC doing to keep the party operating and moving forward?
The good news is that more than 65 of the 111 Precinct Chairs on the CEC are working hard to keep Montgomery County “Red.” Chairman Christ only has about 28-30 Precinct Chairs supporting his antics.
The bad news is that Chairman Christ has now selected his own slate of party officers even though the CEC already elected its officers. And because he does not have enough votes on the CEC to establish a quorum, he also recruited people and told them that they are now the Precinct Chairs for precincts that were not vacant, creating a conflict in those precincts and on the CEC. He then falsely declared that he had a quorum by counting those people as Precinct Chairs. All of this violates the Republican Party of Texas rules and our bylaws.
Can the State Party intervene and settle this?
The state party has 254 counties to deal with and right now they have over 40 counties with County Chairs causing problems of various degrees, although I am told that Chairman Christ is their biggest headache and they would prefer that he just resign. The state party simply does not have the time and resources to deal with wayward Chairmen such as ours so they have just told us to deal with it and have even suggested that members of the CEC sue Bryan Christ for his actions.
Has Chairman Christ broken any laws as Chairman?
I believe it is clear that he has. Right now, there are at least 14 criminal complaints filed with the Secretary of State against Chairman Christ for violations of the Texas Election Code and the Texas Penal Code. We are awaiting a response from the Secretary of State. The Republican Party of Texas is supposed to be helping to expedite the review of these complaints.
What does the CEC do in the meantime?
This is a process and every attempt has been made to get Chairman Christ to follow the party rules and respect the vote of the CEC, but those efforts have not been successful thus far. Because of this, the CEC voted to censure Chairman Christ on December 6, 2022.
Our next CEC meeting is on January 3, 2023, and only the properly seated CEC members as listed on the official party website, mctxgop.org, will be permitted to sign in and vote. Since this is an official CEC Meeting, Chairman Christ’s hand-picked officers will not be recognized and seated on the dais as those officer positions were already filled by the CEC. During the meeting, the CEC will conduct its business and if Chairman Christ and his people attempt to disrupt the meeting as they seem intent on doing, they will be asked to leave and then be removed if necessary.
Do you think this can be resolved?
Because of his unethical behavior, Chairman Christ has lost the respect and trust of most of the CEC and I don’t know how he can ever regain that.
But there is a bright side to this situation. The Bible tells us in Luke 3:17 that God will separate the wheat from the chaff and He is most certainly doing that within the Montgomery County Republican Party. The unethical people following Bryan in his lawless behavior are demonstrating to all that they cannot be trusted in elected positions and the voters in Montgomery County should really take notice of who these people are.
It is a very difficult situation, but it’s encouraging to see Precinct Chairs standing up for the rules and for the people they were elected to represent. While many people say the CEC should stand down because “Chairman Christ was elected by Montgomery County voters,” they forget that the Precinct Chairs were also elected to represent Montgomery County voters and they make up the body of the CEC. The Chairman’s role is to facilitate their meetings, not rule over them.
