4. Conventions and resolutions
20 min. No quorum at a precinct convention, and the thirty minute filing window.
4.1 The ladder
Precinct convention, then county or senatorial district convention, then state. Each level elects the delegates to the next. Precinct conventions are on or after the first Tuesday in March of even numbered years. County and district conventions are the fourth Saturday in March, subject to a Passover and Good Friday exception.
4.2 A precinct convention has no quorum
There is no quorum required to convene or to continue a precinct convention. One qualified participant can hold a lawful precinct convention, adopt resolutions, and elect the delegates. In a precinct where nobody else shows up, the person who did show up can do all of it. This is the most underused fact in Texas party politics.
4.3 Resolutions climb
All resolutions adopted at one level must be considered by the appropriate committee at the next level up. A resolution passed in a nearly empty room in March does not die there. The unit rule and binding instructions to delegates are prohibited at every level, so no convention can order its delegates how to vote at the next one.
4.4 The thirty minute window
At county or senatorial district conventions, resolutions must be filed with the convention secretary not later than thirty minutes after the permanent committees are appointed or elected. Write it before the convention, bring printed copies, find the secretary early, and watch for the moment the committees are named, because that is when your clock starts.
4.5 Records decide disputes
The permanent chairman must keep a record of minutes, participants, delegates and alternates, and all resolutions whether adopted or not, make it available for inspection for thirty minutes after adjournment, and transmit it on the stated deadlines. The county chairman's copies are a party public record and review must be scheduled within seven days of a written request.
4.6 What makes a resolution survive
One subject only, because a resolution that does three things gets amended into nothing. A specific action by a specific body. Every factual claim sourceable on request. And it has to read well when your opponent reads it aloud, because that will happen.
4.7 Three tracks, not one ladder
Censure reaches Republican officeholders and is decided by a county or district executive committee with SREC confirmation of any penalty. Party discipline reaches party officials, not public officeholders, through the SREC Officials Committee. Statutory removal reaches a closed list of county officers and ISD trustees through a district court jury. None substitutes for another.
DO NOT TREAT THESE AS ONE LADDER. Three bodies, three standards, three sets of consequences. The censure thresholds change at every convention, so pull the current rules before relying on any number.
Your action this week
Write one resolution and send it to your county chairman
Resolutions do not have to wait for March. One drafted in November is one that actually gets filed inside the thirty minute window at convention.