“The federal government has impaired our right to local self-government.” 

So reads part of section 33 in the new Texas GOP platform. That excerpt helps to clarify many of the party’s controversial stances taken during its convention late last week. 

The platform wastes no time in provoking outrage. In section one, the drafters declare that “the 2020 election violated Article 1 and 2 of the US Constitution,” and “reject the certified results of the 2020 Presidential election,” adding that “acting President Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. was not legitimately elected by the people of the United States.” 

While this claim is undoubtedly important, perhaps even the most important one in the platform, it has consumed most major newsrooms’ coverage to the exclusion of other material in the platform, which is worthy of both our attention and consideration.For instance, Section 244 of the platform calls for the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to be “repealed and not reauthorized.” The drafters don’t explicitly justify this proposal, but one can potentially infer their reasoning from context. The sections preceding section 244, under the same subheading titled “Elections,” deal with election fraud, voter registration, and election integrity. Arizona recently had trouble establishing basic laws to prevent voter fraud (see Brnovich v DNC). The case law surrounding the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and what constitutes a “discriminatory” voting law under the act is murky. So, Texas may be attempting to avoid any trouble in securing its elections by calling for the repeal of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

The platform also disregards the Supreme Court’s delays in releasing the Dobbs decision and sets its sights on abortion. The drafters’ argument is rather simple (section 217): “since life begins at fertilization, we urge the Texas Legislature to abolish abortion,” to “secure the rights to life,” and “nullify any and all federal statutes, regulations, orders, and court rulings” that would impede their ability to do so. They call for the physician-homicide exemption of the Texas Penal Code to be modified to include cases only where the mother’s life is at risk (section 174). They also support the “complete elimination of public funding for, or 954 contracts with, Planned Parenthood and any other abortion providers and all their affiliates” (section 168). 

In harmony with the commencing line of this piece, the platform addresses issues surrounding marriage, the family, and the federal government’s role in both:

“We oppose homosexual marriage, regardless of state of origin. We support the definition of marriage as a God-ordained, legal, and moral covenant only between one biological man and one biological woman.” 

Further, the platform calls for unilateral no-fault divorce laws to be rescinded, and declares the drafters’ “support [for] withholding jurisdiction from the federal courts in cases involving family law, especially any changes in the definition of marriage.” This is important, for it leads to the drafters’ position that “the Obergefell v. Hodges decision, overturning the Texas law prohibiting same-sex marriage in Texas, has no basis in the Constitution and should be nullified.” 

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“Nullified”—as in, South Carolina Ordinance of Nullification nullified.

This directs us to the final platform section that must be addressed: Section 224, which urges “the Texas Legislature to pass [a] bill in its next session requiring a 1281 referendum in the general election for the people of Texas to determine whether or not the State of Texas should reassert its status as an independent nation.” 

The Texas GOP seems to leave no stone unturned, making it clear which direction they wish to see conservatism move: toward a conservation of the spirit of Christendom, even if it means departing from the Union. It certainly gives the RNC much to ponder.