Thursday, November 29, 2018

The Honorable Darl Easton
Chairman
Tarrant County GOP
7524 Mosier View Court, Suite 230
Fort Worth, TX 76118

Dear Chairman Easton –

I am writing today to encourage you to reject a bigoted effort launched by at least one of your precinct chairs to remove a Muslim individual from your leadership and remove another precinct chair who is married to a Muslim.

The Republican Party is the Party of Lincoln, whom you honor with an annual event which will be held again this coming February. I am quite sure that Lincoln would agree that the Republican Party has no religious test for affiliation. Our party is a big tent party. There is no place for vicious bigotry in it.

We have a platform that is passed by our convention delegates every two years that proclaims what we stand for as a party. As party officers, we work to implement our platform as much as we can at the local, state and federal level.

Some individuals may harbor fears or suspicions about other individuals. This is unavoidable.

Leadership requires us as County Chairs to focus on what is important. In my county, we have a three-part mission: Elect as many Republicans as possible, grow the party, and advance conservative principles. Anything outside out that mission is not something that in which we involve ourselves.

For as long as I am Chairman of the Travis County GOP, we will be a welcoming organization to people of all faiths – or no faith at all. We need to be laser-focused on growing our party, something that both of our counties were reminded by the fact that the Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate won Tarrant and Travis County just a few weeks ago.

I wish you good luck in the weeks and months to come.

Both of our county organizations have a lot of work to do.

Sincerely,

Matt Mackowiak
Chairman
Travis County Republican Party

cc:          Tarrant County GOP officers

               Republican Party of Texas chairman James Dickey

               Republican Party of Texas vice chairman Alma Perez-Jackson

               State Republican Executive Committee members