DOJ Confirms Pre-Clearance on RPT Rules For Convention

The Republican Party of Texas issued the following statement Tuesday:

On Monday, the Republican Party of Texas received a letter from the U.S. Department of Justice that confirmed federal pre-clearance of the temporary and emergency changes to the RPT rules that were adopted on February 29 at the emergency meeting of the State Republican Executive Committee.

As was reported in previous redistricting updates, during the February redistricting trial, the three-judge federal panel in San Antonio indicated to Chairman Munisteri that the RPT needed to obtain USDOJ pre-clearance on the party's convention process. The DOJ attorney at the trial testified that his office would expedite the review of the changes and could reduce the approval time from a couple of months to a couple of weeks. The rules changes made by the SREC were submitted to the USDOJ on March 5, 2012 and this week the RPT received a letter verifying that the pre-clearance had indeed been expedited and approved.

Thus, the final legal obstacle has been overcome in the 2012 Republican Party of Texas convention process. The county and district conventions are moving forward on the dates of April 14 or April 21 (will vary by county), and the State Convention will be held on June 7-9 in Fort Worth. For a full list of RPT Rules governing the 2012 Election Cycle, you can visit www.TexasGOP.org and view the updated document.