This post originally appeared on Candy Noble's blog.

Hold on to your hats!  I spent Saturday in Austin at the State Republican Executive Committee and County Chair training and I have a lot to share.

First, we had a Special Called meeting of the State Republican Executive Committee in order to appoint County Chair vacancies in Borden and Gaines Counties.  They needed official approval in order to have the authority to conduct Special Elections there to fill vacancies.  That was the shortest official SREC meeting I’ve ever been to. The rest of the long day was spent in training both the SREC and County Chairmen.

Our Candidate Resource Committee of our Texas GOP gives campaign money to down-ballot Republican Candidates from County Sheriffs and County Commissioners down to Justices of the Peace.  Many of us contributed to this fund at the State Convention.  SREC members are expected to give (or raise) $1000 a year for this fund.  It was exciting to hear that together we have raised $120,000 for Republican candidates this year and 90 candidates have applied for this fund’s help.

It was exciting to hear that together we have raised $120,000 for Republican candidates this year…

Speaking of money, we are pretty proud of the $1.1 Million cash balance we had as of the end of July with all our bills paid to zero, as usual.  We just don’t spend money we don’t have.  I wish the feds would do the same.   Our Party has to file numerous financial reports each month (Federal and State) for each of our many funds and accounts and for the past four years we’ve had to file only one amendment to those reports each year.  This is a pretty incredible record.  Prior to this we were filing ten or twelve each month (as do most large states and Parties).  A big thank you to the staff and volunteers who work hard on the numbers to make sure we are in compliance in all we do.

State Chairman Steve Munisteri updated us on the Governor’s situation with the Travis County DA.

In case you haven’t been following this mess, the Travis County DA was arrested (was very belligerent, tried to use her position to get off,  pled guilty, and served time) for DWI, but didn’t resign. Here’s my personal take on the situation:  The Governor, is accused of two acts:  1.Calling for the DA to resign after her arrest and abuse of law enforcement officers.  2.  Saying it was not appropriate to give money to an office which has state-wide jurisdiction under her leadership because she is not competent to hold that office.  He then vetoed state money to that Unit under her authority.   These actions are completely under his authority and right as Governor.   To this Democrat DA (and a Travis County Grand Jury), two legal acts somehow add up to equal an illegal act. Let’s understand what is at stake here—we are fighting for the Right to exercise a fair political process without fear of prosecution.  We must stay engaged and stick up for the right to speak up.  It is up to us to make sure that Political terrorism is not rewarded.  We now understand that the other side with do ANYTHING including character assassination, so we must be on guard in the days ahead to protect both truth and a fair political process.  This attack should fire us up to keep Texas red.  Our best revenge will be to “Smoke ‘em” come November.

Enough about the Dems….  On to some good news:

It looks like only seven Texas House seats are in play. These include three open seats (HD 23, 102, 105), two with Republican incumbents (HD 43, 102) and two with Democrat Incumbents (HD 117, 144).  This is great since we can concentrate on those few races.  It also looks like we will continue to hold 19 Texas Senate Seats and hope to win Konni Burton’s race (SD 10, currently Wendy Davis’ seat).   We also are poised to retain every US Congressional Seat in Texas and maybe even win one more with Will Hurd’s race (San Antonio 23rdCongressional District).

We now have an Asian- American Engagement Director, Melissa Fwu, and she is doing much to reach this almost ignored fast-growing demographic group.  Our African American Engagement Director is Tommy Coleman and our David Zapata is our Hispanic Engagement Director.  They filled us in on amazing things going on to reach these communities with our message on School Choice and conservative values.  Their work is not just during the election cycle, but on a permanent basis.  Contact them if you would like to help.

It is also a great time of year to help establish or encourage a Young Republican, College Republican or High School Republican group.  The College Republicans www.txfcr.org  are now in most of our major Universities (31 Chapters including 4 new in the past year).  High School Republicans www.hsrtx.org  have 15 chapters across the State.  They have need of more contacts and chapters as their leadership moves on to the College level.  We also are reaching and establishing Young Republican clubs www.texasyr.gop —who now have 22 Chapters including 4 new ones in just the past 6 months.

As of this month the Republican Party of Texas has eleven field offices.  In past election cycles, we are just now gearing up for the election and getting set up.  Not this time.  These offices are going strong and are going to stay put, doing the work year round to Register, Identify, reach and turn out Republican Voters.  They are also recruiting Precinct Chairs in vacant Precincts and keeping them engaged. The state party has mailed out over 100,000 “New Movers” letters and 12,000 folks have mailed them back –registering them to vote!  In the last three weeks alone volunteers and paid staff have knocked on 60,000 doors and made 200,000 phone calls, concentrating on non-Primary voters.  We are compiling the data collected, analyzing it and using it to be more effective.

These

[eleven] offices are going strong and are going to stay put, doing the work year round to Register, Identify, reach and turn out Republican Voters.

Of course the most productive voter contact is always the most personal, so we all need to work our own neighborhoods, schools, and churches to influence our circle to vote Republican all the way down the ballot.

My own news from the weekend:  I have been appointed by Chairman Munisteri to serve another term as Chair of the Grassroots Club Committee.  I’m thrilled to continue my work in helping the Texas GOP flourish. Our new Texas GOP Vice Chairman Amy Clark did some Communicating and Media training with us.

I want to finish with a quote from her speech:  “We were taught that it was not polite to talk about Religion and Politics, and we followed that rule, but the other side didn’t.  The result may be the mess we are now in.  It is time we talk about Religion and Politics.”  I like that.  It is time to speak up.

As always, it is an honor to serve you on the State Republican Executive Committee and I thank you for allowing me to share with you these (often long-winded) blogs.

God Bless Texas.