“He’s not a King,” Texas Governor Greg Abbot tweeted recently in response to President Obama’s threat to yank federal funding from schools that don’t want boys to use the girl’s bathrooms.
The administration described the directive as allowing transgendered students to use the bathroom of their choice, even if they choose to use a bathroom that doesn’t align with the gender of their birth. And, no, you can’t question the students to actually determine if they are legitimately “transgendered,” or simply want to hang out in the girls’ bathroom, because… well, don’t be a bigot.
But Texas is not having it. In fact, you get the sense from Gov. Abbott that this transgendered bathroom fiat was the line in the sand that his state simply will not cross… and the Texas GOP is backing him up on it.
Last week, delegates from all over Texas met in Dallas to determine their platform going forward, in this era of government run amok. Two of the planks included language that dealt directly with bathrooms and locker rooms. The plank entitled, “Strengthening Families, Protecting Life, and Promoting Health: Celebrating Traditional Marriage,” read “Gender Identity — We urge the enactment of legislation addressing individuals’ use of bathrooms, showers and locker rooms that correspond with their biologically determined sex.”
A staggering ninety percent of delegates voted in support of this plank.
Also, “Educating Our Children: Local Control and Transparency of Curriculum and Funding: Governance” reads “We support public school facilities such as restrooms, locker rooms and showers being reserved for the use of students based on biological birth gender.”
Ninety three percent of delegates approved this one.
But there was another plank that isn’t garnering the headlines that could potentially actually restrict the federal government from issuing such draconian directives in the first place. You might recall that Texas was the first state GOP organization to include pro-Article V language on its platform in 2014. Now, just two years later, the state adopted a pro-Convention of States plank to their platform.
It reads: “We support the Bill of Rights as written by our Founding Fathers and assert the authority of the 10th amendment. We urge our Texas State Legislators to call for a limited Article V Convention of States for the specific purpose of reducing the power of the federal government, including implementation of term limits. Any proposed amendments must be ratified by 3/4 of the states.”
When more than eighty percent of the 9000 delegates — 80.8%, to be exact — voted in favor of this pro-Convention of States language, Texas became the first state Republican Party in the nation to prioritize the Convention of States. And it wasn’t even close.
The grassroots supporters of the Convention of States were out in full force at the Dallas gathering. Hundreds of activists showed up in Convention of States tee shirts and wearing buttons, but that was just a fraction of the seventy-four thousand people have been talking to their legislators, neighbors, and friends as official “COS Volunteers” across the state. In recent weeks, 500 new people have been signing up every day, no doubt because of the uncertain political climate and the constant barrage of executive mandates from the President.
It comes as no surprise that Texas is standing up against federal tyranny. But it’s gratifying to know that the state is not just stamping out fires of political correctness as the President ignites them. Instead, the state is implementing a strategy that is both cutting-edge and historical by using the “Constitutional emergency cord” that our Founders gave us to pull in such a time as this.
I hope the other states realize what Texas already has realized – that calling a Convention of States is the only permanent way to keep our politicians from flushing this nation’s values down the toilet.
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