Report From County Chair Gwen Withrow
July 23, 2024 | Media Inquiries: press@mctxgop.org
This report was presented at the July 23rd meeting of the County Executive Committee (CEC).
Wow, what an exciting time to be part of the Republican Party! We have a great presidential ticket in Donald Trump and JD Vance. Praise God that Donald Trump survived the assassination attempt. I cannot think of anything scarier than Kamala Harris running our country and a Democratic senator leading Texas.
We have such an awesome responsibility to make sure our candidates are elected to office in November. We must always keep in mind that we have to push and pull our folks to the polls to outvote all of the left-wing cities and the Democratic voting machines - including possible cheating. We need our Republicans to vote early and we need to work to make sure everyone they know also votes.
Get Out the Vote
Our Victory Committee Chair, John Wertz, and his team have developed a great Get Out the Vote (GOTV) plan. Of course, the plan requires money; as you know, our party has been financially devastated by the recent divide of the past two years, which caused us to be short on funds. We have plans in the works to raise funds for these GOTV efforts, including a wonderful upcoming event and a possible contract on a less expensive office location.
Our main goal right now is to have an outstanding event headlining Senator Ted Cruz on September 13th. This event will greatly energize our party. I can’t wait!
I would like at this time to give a special thank you to the donors who are listed on Treasurer Charles Shirley’s report. We really are grateful to these folks for holding our party together.
Later in this meeting, we’ll be bringing forward a discussion of our contract to settle on an office for the upcoming year. We are extremely lucky that an offer which saves us so much money was made available to us - especially as we realize how much is needed to accomplish our GOTV campaign. If funds are available next summer, I would very much like to search for a possible facility in a more central location to use as a second office. It would be great if we could have that in place for the primary elections.
If you’d like to help with our GOTV campaign, please donate here.
Election Support Committee
Speaking of elections, as soon as I took office, I had to quickly work with our Secretary, DJ Fike, and Precinct 37 Chair, Kristen Plaisance, to furnish the list of upcoming election judges to the Commissioners Court. This task for updates going forward will fall to the Election Support Committee, which we are recommending be chaired by Precinct 100 Chair, George Hyde.
I am asking each Precinct Chair to check out the list of upcoming election judges and ensure that their Precinct Judge is correct so we can get the list updated very shortly. We need to ensure these workers are properly trained and we want backup judges and clerks on file so that we properly man the elections going forward.
County Chair Transition
On top of all of these projects, I have been busy working through transition with the former Chairman.
The former Chairman continues to try to contact various Precinct Chairs to arrange for transition items. Through the attorney for the party, he has been notified to have these discussions and make transitions only through me, the current Chairman. Please let the former Chairman know that you as Precinct Chairs cannot discuss transition items with him.
In summary, here is the list of items which have been transferred to me:
A cashier’s check for $410.26, which has been deposited in our general fund.
Access to the Corporate Account, which also contains approximately $400. I will be working with our Treasurer, Charles Shirley, to provide appropriate accounting and banking services for these funds.
Access to the state primary funds, which belong to the state and will be transferred when the former Chairman completes a report due September 3rd.
No historical statements or reports were furnished for any of these accounts.
The physical items presented were two printers delivered by Precinct 16 Chair, Mark Frank, which our attorney took into possession as one of the printers has an unpaid debt of $6,000.
A box of records, which was catalogued by our Secretary, DJ Fike, was also received. The records do not include bank statements, financial records, donor information, or meeting minutes. The records turned over are the candidates’ applications and Precinct Chair applications, which DJ had already obtained on her own with much effort.
There were no historical records whatsoever which trace the party in past years except for those already housed our website, mctxgop.org.
In addition, we received one laptop and will be making arrangements to receive a refrigerator and microwave.
I now have access to the Texas Secretary of State (SOS) website, which allows me to update our Precinct Chairs with the SOS. Unfortunately, I have had to remove three Precinct Chairs. Two have passed away and one resigned. I issued an official statement expressing the party’s sadness at the loss of these two longtime Precinct Chairs.
Statement on the Loss of One of Our Own, Ms. Bobbi Bodenhamer
A Celebration of the Life of Precinct 109 Chair, Mr. Michael Medved
The Technology Committee Chairman, Pete Stees, did receive some information concerning the former websites that did not go through me. All data was removed from these sites before Pete received them.
The Facebook account was not transferred over to us. Pete was kind enough to help me finalize my new Chairman email account, chairman@mctxgop.org, and Precinct 97 Chair, Kim Weber, is helping me with design of my party business cards.
That is the entirety of the items transferred at this time. We will be meeting with the attorney to discuss additional transfer items when he returns from his honeymoon.
First 30 Days in Office
So, to sum up, we’ve had a busy past 30 days! We held a very well attended, successful swearing-in ceremony, finished the county organization meeting where we voted for by-laws, party officers, and committee chairmen, and held the first steering committee meeting where the remainder of committee chairman were nominated and will be voted on tonight. No small accomplishment for Montgomery County. We also had a very well attended training session for Precinct Chairs.
Thanks to Precinct 24 Chair, Bob Bagley, for heading up our group in The Woodlands parade. Thank you to all of the volunteers who came out. They are too numerous to mention, but a special shoutout to the Northshore Republican Women for letting us use their elephant, which was a great focal point for the float. I personally want to thank Precinct 22 Chair, Sunday Shibley, for providing me a golf cart for both The Woodlands and Montgomery parades.
We have 1,100 Ted Cruz signs which will be free for distribution and are being delivered this week to the office. We’re working on acquiring Trump signs as soon as possible.
We are off to a great start for sure. We have a team that is the envy of the state. We now need all Precinct Chairs to attend the Zoom training coming up on Thursday, and to sign up for a committee they wish to work with. Please do not wait for committee chairs to call you. Contact the committee chairs and let them know you are interested!
My campaign promise on unity is being worked toward by several appointments to committees and consideration later in this meeting of a new committee called the Unity Committee specifically to work with the Republican women’s groups to incorporate their membership into the GOTV plan.
Last, but not least, I am giving out Vice Chairman John Bouche’s phone number in case anyone wants to discuss his personal social media posts: 281-907-3989. He wants everyone to know they are welcome to call him anytime.
I bring all of this before you not to make anyone think I am working harder than the Precinct Chairs, but rather to let you know I am running as hard as I can to stay up with the pack. You are the hardest working folks I know and I am so proud to serve with you!
Minutes from this meeting will be posted on our website, mctxgop.org, within a few days under the “Our Team” tab in the main navigation menu.