The Texas Republican Party platform is official. What it says and what we learned.

The Texas Republican Party rejected the results of the 2020 election, labeled being gay as “abnormal” and vowed to protect access to guns in its platform and corresponding resolutions.

The platform, announced Wednesday and voted on during the June GOP convention in Houston, is a policy wish-list of items that some in the party have embraced and others rebuked. Delegates adopted all of the items that were presented in a draft version that was widely reported on.

In addition to calling homosexuality “an abnormal lifestyle choice,” the platform opposes same sex marriage. It asserts that Texas retains the right to secede. Delegates voted to replace the property tax system, support school choice and reject “critical race theory” and gun free zones. The platform calls for medical freedom and the repeal of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Delegates also rejected “critical race theory” and supported a law “more comprehensive” than the one in Florida that prohibits instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity.

Many of the platform items mirror policies supported on the 2020 platform, but the list of 274 platform planks indicates the Republican Party in Texas that continues to slide to the right, said Cal Jillson, a SMU political science professor, who noted that for decades the platform has been assessed every two years for how radical it is.

“This is kind of the gloves off moment for the Republican Party,” said Brandon Rottinghaus, a University of Houston political science professor.

Is the platform representative of the entire Republican Party?

Former president Donald Trump, praised the party’s platform. He wasn’t at the Houston convention in person, but Trump 2024 hats were on sale and Trump cardboard cutouts were on display in a convention hall filled with vendors. Many attendees wore clothing with Trump branding, and speakers lauded his policies and lamented the Biden administration’s.

Trump called the platform powerful in a statement shared by the state party on June 21.

“Such courage, but that’s why Texas is Texas!!!” Trump said. “They know that a Country cannot survive without Free and Fair Elections (and STRONG BORDERS!)“

Others have criticized the platform, including Tarrant County Judge Glen Whitley who said it doesn’t represent most Republicans.

“This platform does not represent the majority of Texas Republicans,” Whitley said in a June 22 statement. “The Texas Republicans I know and work with care about finding solutions to issues like the economy and public safety and are focused on individual rights and opportunity for all. Texans’ true values set Texas apart and will continue to — unless we allow this small group to pull us to the fringes and take our focus off of real leadership.”

Former House Speaker Joe Straus appeared to object to the platform on Twitter.

“As a lifelong Republican, I want the party to be known for improving public education and building a stronger economy, instead of election denial and flirtations with secession,” he said in a June 21 tweet.

Representatives for Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick didn’t return a request for comment in the days following the convention and House Speaker Dade Phelan’s office declined.

Nine Republican members of the House and Senate representing Tarrant County, current and incoming, didn’t return requests or declined to weigh in the week of June 20.

Fort Worth Mayor Mattie Parker, who has in the past distanced herself from the party, declined to comment and Tim O’Hare, the Republican nominee for Tarrant County judge, didn’t return requests. Tarrant County Republican Party Chair Rick Barnes requested a written interview, but did not respond to questions sent by the Star-Telegram.

Experts pointed out that the ones crafting the platform are the die-hard Republicans. Jillson described them as the “base of the base of the base” — the base being the fraction of Republican voters who turn out for the primary election.

“The convention delegation is a sort of boiled down version of the Republican base, deeply committed to social conservatism,” Jillson said.

Kal Silverberg, caucus chair for Senate District 10 at the state convention, wants to work on ways to increase party participation on the precinct convention level so there are more delegates to choose from going forward. The more hard-line voters tend to get involved at the precinct level, rather than the causal voter, he said.

“So you tend to get the more focused, special interest results,” Silverberg said.

Themes from the platform were on display at the Houston convention, which brought nearly 10,000 people, including 5,100 delegates eligible to vote on the platform. The group Abolish Abortion Texas handed out booklets calling for fetuses to have the same protections under the law. Flyers warned attendees to “Be Alert and Aware of the Homosexual Agenda.”

The platform has been slammed by The Texas Democratic Party, which will hold its convention July 14-16 in Dallas. Texas Democratic Party Chairman Gilberto Hinojosa called the Republican Party platform “among the most extreme political doctrines this country has seen in decades.”

“Texas Republicans showed us that they live in a parallel universe full of conspiracy-fueled hate — and that they have a truly twisted view of our democracy and Constitution,” he said in a statement.

What have local Republicans said about the platform?

Jody Wall, who attended Arlington Republican Club event on June 21 where Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick spoke, said she was happy with the platform.

“It’s about time that Americans stand up for American values,” Wall said. “It’s about time that we stop with this quote, unquote wokeness. It’s about time we start making things like they should be again.”

Keller City Council member Ross McMullin, a co-founder and adviser to the Keller Republican Club, called it a “bold and unapologetic platform that represents many conservative ideas.”

“It’s a clear signal that Texas Republicans are ready to go on offense and win big in November,” McMullin said in a June 22 email.

Elva Camacho of the Republican National Hispanic Assembly of Tarrant County wanted to see Border Security ranked higher among priorities for the Legislature, as did Sheena Rodriguez, who is a local precinct chair and president of Secure the Border: Save Texas.

For Susan Valliant, a Senate District 10 delegate, election integrity was a top priority. “I’m in favor of it because it’s true,” she said of resolution declaring their was fraud in the 2020 election. Experts, courts and the officials in charge of elections, have said evidence of widespread fraud are unfounded. She was also glad to see opposition to gender-affirming care and a call for the elimination of property taxes. She opposed the idea of Texas seceding.

Chaplain Rich Stoglin, who is president of the Fredrick Douglass Republicans of Tarrant County, said the platform takes important stances on family, God, faith and Second Amendment Rights. He said the platform item calling for the 1965 Voting Rights Act to be repealed was not a statement against civil rights, instead delegates are saying “the law is the law and so that’s no longer needed because we are citizens of America.” The platform item states support for “equal suffrage for all United States citizens of voting age.”

Donna Korman, a precinct chair, didn’t think it was appropriate to call being gay an “abnormal lifestyle” — “I do not like belittling people,” she said, noting preference for previous platform language. She agrees with a measured approach to curbing gun violence while upholding the right to bear arms.

“I would like to see the Republican Party more accepting of people who hold moderate views,” Korman said. “That is not the direction the party seems to be heading right now, and I think that’s destructive.”

Jason Baldwin, president of the Log Cabin Republicans of Fort Worth, which represents LGBTQ members of the party, declined to comment.

Asked about criticism that the platform is too extreme, Rodriguez said Democrats’ strides to the left are pushing those that would be more moderate within the Republican Party further to the right. It’s like a pendulum, she said.

She sees turmoil in the Republican Party between grassroots members, of which she considers herself, and the establishment. (The same is true of Democrats, she said.)

“This was my first convention, but you see this huge push where even inside of the Republican Party, you have this huge battle,” she said.

What does the platform mean for Republican candidates?

The platform is more inspirational than attainable, said Rottinghaus. Even the most extreme members of the party don’t believe that all the items would be pushed by most Republicans lawmaker, he said.

“It’s mostly used as a way to hold leaders accountable and to try to expunge members who might not be on fully board with most of the platform,” Rottinghaus said.

The platform is also used as a way to push lawmakers further in delegates’ desired direction in a state where a Democrat hasn’t won statewide office since 1994.

“There will always be Republicans who see ... the kind of policies the base wants as being way too far,” Rottinghaus said. “The base, the activists know that they need to set the bar higher so that they can use that as a way to pressure those leaders to steadily move in that direction.”

Following March primaries in which many candidates were challenged from the right, the November election was a central focus of the convention.

Abbott, who’s in the arguably most high-profile contest, didn’t speak as part of the convention’s main-stage programming, instead hosting a welcome reception at an outdoor bar near the convention center in Houston. The rightward push in the party was demonstrated in the gubernatorial primary, when Abbott was challenged by former Texas GOP Chair Allen West and former State Sen. Don Huffines — opponents who drove Abbott into more conservative territory than he may have gone otherwise.

The governor’s race at this point is about optics, Rottinghaus said.

“They cannot afford another bad news cycle that makes the governor look out of touch,” he said. “So I think, you know, he was probably strategically smart to not show up, even if may have looked like he wasn’t going to face the music from his own party, who has serious objections to the way he’s approaching things.”

Party unity after the primaries was a main focus of Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick’s speech before delegates. Patrick has been one of the most vocal champions of some of the policies prioritized by convention-goers. He repeated the call for unity among Republicans at Tuesday’s meeting of the Arlington Republican Club.

“We have a change to have a big election in Texas, but we must get all of our Republicans back in the fold,” Patrick said.

Rottinghaus said the politics of this election cycle are fairly mapped out, but the latest platform gives a preview of the fights on the horizon.

The platform can serve as a testing ground of sort for ideas that may become more normalized in future years’ campaigns and legislative sessions, Jillson said.

“I think that ideas are introduced in the Texas Republican Party platform that that seem radical at the time, but a couple of legislative sessions down the road, they may have been normalized and and be more more acceptable for debate and perhaps passage,” Jillson said.

The rightward shift can be expected to continue until Democrats demonstrate they can win statewide races in Texas, said Jillson.

“Once that begins to happen — if it begins to happen — the Republican convention attendees, the Republican base and the Republican candidates will sober up and become much more responsible,” Jillson said.

Democrats in the meantime are using the platform against the party it was created by in hopes voters will turn a tide in Texas as Republicans are predicting a red wave.

“This November, we have a choice to leave behind the stupid, racist, divisive, bigoted culture wars these Republicans choose to promulgate — and head toward a better Texas,” said Hinojosa, the Democratic chair.

Will it work? Voters decide in November.