Lavaca County GOP Chair elected to SREC

Lavaca County Republican Party Chair Cheryl Thompson-Draper picked up a brand-new title on her trip to the Republican Party of Texas (RPT)’s state convention last week in Houston, where she was elected one of two representatives to the State Republican Executive Committee (SREC) for State Senate District 18.

Thompson-Draper was one of several Lavaca County Republicans who made the trek to Houston’s George R. Brown Convention Center to represent the county’s interests at the RPT state convention held June 16-18.

Joining Thompson-Draper in Houston were Paul Yamarick (who spent most of last week in Houston, as he served on the Texas GOP Legislative Priorities Committee), Becky Berger, Arthur Hlavac, Kevin and Mary Bright (Kevin served as Sergeant at Arms for SD-18 at the event), Tom and Monica Foyt, Evelyn Dixon, Nicole Cromey, Carroll Sharp, Sue Munsch and Marie Day.

Four others planned to attend as well—Jerry and Julie Tanner, Pat Kessler and Kathleen Leininger—but all took ill just before the start of last week’s convention. Which was turned out quite unfortunate because had Jerry Tanner been able to make it, he was lined up to be SD-18’s caucus chairman.

By the time last week’s convention rolled around, half the people in this list lost their respective offices held within the local party leadership, due in part to the county’s decision to consolidate voting precincts which eliminated a few of the positions tied to those voting precincts but mostly because the county saw a heightened interest this year in those who filed for the respective precinct chair positions.

Every voting precinct but one saw at least one challenger this election cycle, and nearly all who held voting precinct chairmanship prior to the May 24 election – who are also the same folks who make up the county’s GOP executive committee – nearly all were voted out of office.

Despite that fact, each kept to his obligations with the biennial RPT meeting Houston, each of them travelling on his or her own dime, of course. Their presence there no doubt helped Thompson-Draper secure her very narrow victory among the delegates casting ballots for SREC representatives.

“That race was extremely close,” she said. “But I got the 51% I needed for the win.”

What’s more, her opponent came to congratulate her once the ballots were tallied, she added. “She even volunteered to help, should the need arise. That’s something I fully intend to use.”

A resident of the Speaks community since she retired from day-to-day business operations in Houston in 2014, Thompson-Draper said she has no small chore ahead, serving in the SREC role. Their main purpose is to coordinate efforts between the GOP National, the state’s RPT, the various county organizations within the district, as well as all the many Republican clubs and organizations that exist alongside those, such as the Republican Women of the Yoakum Area (RWOYA) or the Great State Republicans, another Republican women’s group recently chartered that’s based out of Hallettsville.

“A big part of that job deals with ensuring communication lines are kept between all those groups, and with State Sen. Lois Kolkhorst (R-Brenham),” she said. “It is her senate district, after all.”

That alone is no small undertaking. SD-18 encompasses more than a million constituents and spans all or parts of 18 counties, including Aransas, Austin, Burleson, Calhoun, DeWitt, Fayette, Fort Bend, Goliad, Gonzales, Grimes, Harris, Lavaca, Lee, Montgomery, Refugio, Victoria, Waller and Washington counties.

Combined, they stretch from the outskirts of College Station to the edge of the Austin Metroplex on its northern and western edges to The Woodlands, Rosenburg, Port Lavaca and Rockport on its eastern edge and Aransas Pass to the south.

And as SD-12 SREC and Legislative Priorities Committee Chair Jill Glover pointed out in her welcome letter to those attending the state convention, “The policy landscape has changed considerably since our 2020 Legislative Priorities were chosen.

“The Biden administration took power in 2021 and threatened our American institutions and civil liberties more than anyone could have imagined,” she said. “Medical freedom and religious liberty have come under attack. Parents concerned about Critical Race Theory and the sexual grooming of public-school children have been branded as domestic terrorists by the Biden Justice Department, while the public-school establishment has fought parental and legislative efforts to remove obscene materials from school libraries and curricula.

“Gender ideology and a broken culture have spurred an exponential increase in gender identity disorder while pediatric gender modification medical practices continue. Even though we made strides last session, it is clear we need to do much more to address parental rights, the protection of children, and the infiltration of ‘woke’ culture into virtually every American institution,” Glover said.

Of course, none of that addresses “how Inflation is out of control, gas prices have reached all-time highs, illegal aliens continue to pour over our southern border, food and formula shortages are still affecting families, crime is surging in our urban areas, our electrical grid remains vulnerable, property taxes are at an unbearable rate for many and our Second Amendment rights are under attack,” she adds.

And that’s just some of Thompson-Draper will now have on her plate in coming months.

Still, she said she intends to stay on with her chairmanship of the Lavaca County Republican Party, which will maintain the county’s GOP Headquarters on the east side of the square (that’s her building, after all) plus it’ll give all the voting precinct chairs a chance to get acclimated to their new roles ahead of the November election.  

“I’m sure there’s plenty more I just don’t know about yet because as I said, I’ve not served in this capacity before,” she said. “I’m sure I’ll come to find out more as go along. But I like the challenge. We’ll get ‘er done.”