Thank You for the Privilege to Serve
I want to take this opportunity to thank all the Republicans in Bandera County who have allowed me to represent you as your Bandera County Republican Chair. I’m honored by your support and want y’all to know I tried my best to represent the values and principles of the Republican Party. I’m a conservative. I always have been, and that’s how I conducted the affairs of the Republican Party here in Bandera County. My term of office ends in June and that is when the newly elected Chair of the County Party will assume the role of Bandera County Republican Chair. This year we will also have several new precinct chairs elected to serve you.
Here is a short summary of how your local Republican Party is constituted: the County Chair is elected in the bi-annual primary by all Republicans in the county. Precinct Chairs are elected in their own individual voting precinct of which there are 10 in Bandera County. The county chair, along with the ten precinct chairs make up the County Executive Committee (CEC).
This year, due to re-districting, precinct chairs will be elected in the May 24 run-off election. Once elected, the Chair and 10 Precinct Chairs meet in June for an organizational meeting. This is a critical meeting which will determine the direction of the Republican Party in Bandera County for the next two years. I urge everyone who cares about the direction of your local Republican party to attend. At this meeting officers are elected, bylaws and rules are established, and committees are formed.
The local party works closely with the state party and is governed by local and state bylaws as well as the Texas Election Code. The county chair also works closely with the Secretary of State in preparations for all primary elections. This includes many hours of trainings, ethics filings, and managing a budget to cover cost of each primary election.
When I began my tenure, I wanted to implement programs that allowed us to easily be able to communicate with the electorate and build the party. At that time, we had no website or email distribution. We did have a static Facebook page. With help from some tech savvy friends, I created a website domain and began to build our first ever Bandera County Republican Party website! I also created an email distribution account to communicate regularly with updates and event notices etc. We built back the Facebook page and it quickly went from roughly 100 followers to now over 600! We have several active committees, the largest being our Election Integrity Committee. This group has spent long hours working on all our behalf to ensure safe and secure election here in Bandera County. One of the standout projects and my personal favorite was hosting Charlie Kirk last spring! By the end of the evening, we had over 500 people who had come to our little county on a dreary rainy night from all over the state!
I am a fifth generation Texan. I grew up in Marshall, Texas, and attended Baylor University. My heart belongs to Texas. Even though I’ve lived in another state and the District of Columbia, I always considered Texas my home. An interesting aside, while living in the crazy state of California, I homeschooled my children and made sure they learned Texas history! When their friends were talking about the California missions, my kids were pretending to be Davy Crocket and Col. Travis at the Alamo! It was a long-awaited dream come true for me when my husband and I moved to Texas a little over 10 years ago. Bandera has been a wonderful place to live. Especially regarding politics. We are so fortunate to have Republicans representing us in all elected positions in both the county and state. My only concern is that we do not take that for granted. I caution my fellow Republican’s to avoid fighting each other and keep their focus on the left. A wise old person told me years ago that our biggest problem is, “When Republicans form a firing squad, y’all stand in a circle.” While our local party is diverse, we hopefully share the same fundamental values when it comes to government. We believe in limited government.
Government should only do for the people what they cannot do for themselves. We believe in free markets and the preciousness of each human life. We believe in a secure border and that immigrants who come to our country must do so legally. We believe in rewarding hard work and sacrifice, not enabling free loaders. We believe the cornerstone of a healthy society is the family. We believe our unalienable rights are ordained by God, not the government. We take our freedom of religion and speech seriously. We believe in the rule of law and champion our military, police and all first responders. Ultimately, we believe in freedom – pure and simple.
All of these values bring us together! And they are worth fighting for! Be strong Bandera County Republicans. Champion what is right and good. Support those who want to build the party and get more Republicans elected. And thank you for the honor of serving you these past several years.
Lynn Haueter is the Bandera County Republican Party Chair. This column does not necessarily represent the opinion of the Bandera County Republican Party.