The Dallas Morning News has a front page story by Christy Hoppe on a matter we wrote about on DallasBlog a few weeks ago – the financial woes of the Texas Republican Party.

Nate Crain, the former Chairman of the Dallas County GOP first brought the issue to our attention with an email expressing concern about the poor financial condition of the State Party. The News story confirms Crain’s concerns by pointing out that, while the State GOP had cash on hand of nearly $130,000, it has debts amounting to $277,000, leaving a negative balance of nearly $150,000.

Legal fees have been costly for the Texas Republican Party as it was forced to sign an agreement with the County Attorney in Travis County acknowledging that it had improperly spent corporate contributions. Now, it faces more legal problems (as DallasBlog reported Sunday (link here)) since the Democratic District Attorney of Travis County, Ronnie Earle, has subpoenaed the bank records of the Party from August 2002 to January 2003.

Even more troubling than the poor financial condition of the state GOP are the absence of any communications presence in Austin and the failure to maintain a strong grassroots network throughout the state. When Fred Meyer was State Chairman, Karen Hughes was the capable spokeswoman for the Party. When I was Party Chairman, I had a very able communications director in the late Lester Van Pelt. We were very active in communicating our message a regular basis to the media and to our grassroots activists.

The current state party doesn’t have a communications director in Austin, instead relying on a part-time person with a private PR firm who works out of Houston. The Party also is neglecting its organizational side. When I was Party Chairman, Dallasite Mary Ann Collins was our state organizational director; and she did a magnificent job in building a very effective grassroots network. She even managed to get GOP chairmen in all 254 counties in Texas which was quite an accomplishment back in the mid-90s. Our Executive Director, Barbara Jackson, also had come up through the grassroots of the Party and was very responsive to the needs and concerns of Republican activists. Barbara and Mary Ann made for a great team in laying the groundwork organizationally for the Republican Party to become the majority party in Texas. There is no comparable effort at the Party these days. One of these days, Texas Republicans are going to pay a price for that neglect.

The best thing going for Texas Republicans these days is that Texas Democrats don’t have their act together either.

To read the complete Dallas Morning News story by Christy Hoppe, link here. (Registration required.)

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