AUSTIN – Last night, the Republican Party of Texas held a statewide teleconference with our supporters and contributors as part of our ongoing campaign to be fully transparent with party operations and to obtain feedback from the grassroots. The teleconference far exceeded expectations as over 6,500 Republican Party of Texas supporters attended the teleconference with State Chairman Steve Munisteri.

Communications Director Chris Elam moderated the phone conference, during which Chairman Munisteri took questions from participants as well as providing an update on the Victory 2012 efforts. Several hundred callers dialed in with questions and while the Chairman wasn't able to individually answer all of them, staff members did talk with each and every person who had a question.

The Chairman took questions for nearly an hour and covered a range of issues including: the state party's role in combating illegal immigration, opposing new taxes at the next session of the Legislature, growing the Republican Party among minority communities and youth, detailing the party's plans for expanding the primary vote and outlining RPT strategy for the 2012 election cycle. In response to these questions, the Chairman noted that RPT has supported a bill which requires applicants to prove their citizenship upon renewing their drivers' license, the party's opposition to new taxes, and assured questioners that the party will pay attention to local races while it attempts to help defeat President Obama

Chairman Munisteri also took time to describe the preliminary plans for Victory 2012, starting with his recent appointment of a new statewide Victory chairman, Harris County Judge Ed Emmett. He then moved on to discuss the initial budgeting and targeting process, and his hopes that the RPT will hold a summit to bring statewide leadership and the Victory 2012 team together to obtain specific input on how the state party can help local counties and candidates.

After the conference, Chairman Munisteri noted, "This is the first time we had attempted a teleconference with our supporters around the state, and so I did not know what to expect. I was hoping that we would have 1,000 participants and a few questions and was blown away upon learning that we had over 6,500 supporters listening in and that several hundred people had called our staff to ask questions. In light of the success of this event, we plan to hold several more in the future to ensure all of our Republican contributors and activists are fully informed and we plan to hold some exclusive teleconferences between Republican leadership and members of our Grassroots Club."

If you have not yet joined our Grassroots Club, please click here so that you can be included on the next teleconference for members of the Grassroots Club, which we will announce to members in the near future.