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Texas GOP In Disarray As Some Leaders Call For Moving Convention From LGBT-Friendly Dallas

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Party Chair Opposes Push To Hold Convention In Less LGBT-Friendly City – Leaders Aim To Revive Indiana-Style Religious Freedom Bills

Social conservatives in the Republican Party of Texas are calling for the state GOP to move its 2016 convention out of Dallas over the City Council’s recent decision to strengthen transgender protections. 

However, state party chair Tom Mechler opposes the idea, saying it would be too expensive to find a new site at this late juncture. 

Former Harris County GOP chair Jared Woodfill, a veteran anti-LGBT activist who served as spokesman for the campaign to repeal Houston’s Equal Rights Ordinance, was the first to call for the party’s 2016 state convention to be moved. Others, including former state GOP chair Cathie Adams, who now serves as president of the anti-LGBT Texas Eagle Forum, have since joined the effort.

But Tom Mechler, current chair of the Texas GOP, said it would cost the party $800,000 to break its contract in Dallas, money he says would be better spent supporting Republican candidates. Mechler said although the decision ultimately rests with the State Republican Executive Committee, moving the convention would also diminish the party’s say in electing the next president. 

“I share the concerns of a vast majority of Republicans who oppose the ordinance which the Dallas City Council voted on, but I am concerned about proposals that will toy with the health and fiscal stability of the Republican Party of Texas,” Mechler said in a statement provided to the conservative news site Push Junction. “The Dallas City Council has taken an action which many find offensive, but we need to stand united with the Dallas County GOP in their fight to turn the county Republican. We cannot allow the liberals to push us out of a city that is important to the RPT by passing an ordinance that we oppose. Their recent action should strengthen our resolve to move forward. We will stand by the women in our party to ensure their safety and will do so at the convention. And, we will come to Dallas with a Republican grassroots army that is so large and determined to win, the liberals will rue the day they picked a fight with our party.” 

Contrary to Mechler’s statement, the Dallas City Council is nonpartisan, and the proposal to strengthen transgender protections passed unanimously with support from several conservative members (including Councilwoman Jennifer Staubach Gates, the daughter of Dallas Cowboys Hall-of-Famer Roger Staubauch, a prominent GOP donor). Nevertheless, it’s hardly surprising that Mechler would advocate using LGBT rights as a wedge issue. After all, he once wrote a letter to the editor of The Amarillo Globe-News threatening to cancel his subscription if his hometown newspaper published a photo of a same-sex couple kissing.

At the 2016 convention, Mechler is expected to face a challenge for state party chair from Woodfill, who finished third when Mechler was elected to the position last year. Woodfill wants the convention to be moved to Houston, where voters overwhelmingly defeated an Equal Rights Ordinance last month based on opponents’ fear-mongering lie that it would allow men to enter women’s restrooms and prey on victims. 

A week after the Houston vote, the Dallas council thumbed its nose at anti-LGBT bigots by strengthening the city’s transgender protections, which have been in place since 2002. Not surprisingly, hate groups including Texas Values and the Texas Pastor Council were outraged, and they’ve pledged to try to repeal the Dallas ordinance. But those groups face a much higher bar for getting a referendum on the ballot in Dallas, even if they were to commit rampant forgery like they did in Houston. And that could explain why anti-LGBT activists are focusing their efforts on moving the convention.

Earlier this week, Woodfill sent out a missive from the Eagle Forum’s Adams. 

“The Republican Party of Texas should take a principled stand concerning a recent immoral decision by the Dallas Mayor and City Council Members to allow men in women’s bathrooms,” Adams wrote. “We the people cannot acquiesce to this cruel hoax. It will take time, but the citizens of Dallas will strive to overturn this draconian action perpetrated upon our families.”

Bonnie Lugo, a member of the State Republican Executive Committee, also wants the convention moved, and she’s accusing Mechler of refusing to release details of the party’s contract with Dallas. Adams and Lugo have also said they believe the City Council’s decision to strengthen transgender protections somehow voided the state GOP’s convention contract. 

Mechler responded that the contract is available for any SREC member to view, and he notes that the Harris County GOP — which Woodfill led until he was defeated for re-election in 2014 — overwhelmingly rejected a resolution to move the convention. 

Needless to say, many LGBT Democrats in Dallas likely would be thrilled to see the GOP convention moved. In 2014, the Republican Party of Texas endorsed “ex-gay” therapy in its platform, which also states: “Homosexuality is a chosen behavior that is contrary to the fundamental unchanging truths that have been ordained by God in the Bible, recognized by our nation’s founders, and shared by the majority of Texans. Homosexuality must not be presented as an acceptable alternative lifestyle, in public policy, nor should family be redefined to include homosexual couples.” 

Ultimately, though, the transgender convention controversy isn’t even the most embarrassing issue the Texas GOP is facing. 

The Houston Chronicle reports that one SREC member plans to introduce a resolution that would place a non-binding measure on the Republican Primary ballot in support of Texas seceding from the union.  

 

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‘Insulting’: Fox News Panel Implodes as Host Clashes With Liberal Guest Over Voter ID

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February 16, 2026

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A Fox News segment exploring voter identification requirements imploded on Monday.

As the hosts and a guest talked over each other, Martha MacCallum said it was “insulting” to women and minorities to say they can’t obtain an ID.

“There are already laws on the books, but let’s also look at what has also been determined,” urged liberal radio host and commentator Leslie Marshall.

“In 24 years, there have been 77 illegals who have registered to vote, how many of those 77 have voted? One,” she said.

“So when we look at — if you’re talking about voter fraud — here’s the other thing. If, in fact, we do have voter ID, but not packaged this —” she said.

READ MORE: Judge Cites Orwell in Scathing Rebuke of Trump Administration

MacCallum interrupted her to discuss the “integrity of elections,” despite Marshall having just said that only one undocumented immigrant had voted.

The Republicans’ SAVE Act, a Trump-supported bill that critics warn could make it difficult for millions of Americans to vote, “takes power from the states and puts the federal government in play with the elections,” Marshall said. “One. Two, if you want to have an ID, make it free, make it easily accessible. Especially to veterans, the homeless, the elderly…”

“It is insulting to people,” MacCallum said. “It’s insulting to women. They’re saying women aren’t capable of getting an ID. They’re saying this man, a Black man who was, you know, just referenced said it is insulting to him to suggest that he can’t get a legitimate ID.”

The segment unraveled as the discussion descended into crosstalk.

Marshall suggested that women who marry and have a different name than on passports and birth certificates may not be able to vote.

READ MORE: Trump Mocked for ‘Unhinged Tantrum’ as ‘Trump Station’ Story Shifts Again

 

Image via Shutterstock

 

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Judge Cites Orwell in Scathing Rebuke of Trump Administration

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February 16, 2026

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A U.S. District judge invoked anti-totalitarian author George Orwell to deliver a sharp rebuke of the Trump administration’s removal of items honoring the history of slavery in the United States from a Philadelphia exhibit.

“As if the Ministry of Truth in George Orwell’s 1984 now existed, with its motto ‘Ignorance is Strength,’ this Court is now asked to determine whether the federal government has the power it claims to dissemble and disassemble historical truths when it has some domain over historical facts. It does not,” declared U.S. District Judge Cynthia M. Rufe.

The lawsuit by the City of Philadelphia against U.S. Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum concerned the removal of slavery exhibits at The President’s House, which is part of Independence National Historical Park.

Judge Rufe wrote that, “in its argument, the government claims it alone has the power to erase, alter, remove and hide historical accounts on taxpayer and local government-funded monuments within its control. Its claims in this regard echo Big Brother’s domain in Orwell’s 1984.”

READ MORE: Trump Mocked for ‘Unhinged Tantrum’ as ‘Trump Station’ Story Shifts Again

She also quoted from the iconic novel. A portion of that quote reads:

“The largest section of the [government’s] Records Department . . . consisted simply of persons whose duty it was to track down and collect all copies of books, newspapers, and other documents which had been superseded and were due for destruction. A number of the Times [a newspaper] which might, because of changes in political alignment, or mistaken prophesies uttered by Big Brother, have been rewritten a dozen times still stood on the files bearing its original date, and no other copy existed to contradict it.”

Rufe wrote that the U.S. government “asserts truth is no longer self-evident, but rather the property of the elected chief magistrate and his appointees and delegees, at his whim to be scraped clean, hidden, or overwritten. And why? Solely because, as Defendants state, it has the power.”

She also blasted the government’s actions, which “impede the separation of powers instituted by the Constitution.”

“Defendants acted in excess of their authority as agencies authorized by Congress within the executive branch,” she added.

In her 40-page memorandum, posted by Politico’s Kyle Cheney, Judge Rufe found that removal of historical panels and other items would constitute irreparable harm, and ordered that “Defendants reinstall all panels, displays, and video exhibits that were previously in place..”

READ MORE: ‘This Is Authoritarianism’: Experts Warn on US Midterm Elections

 

Image via Reuters

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Trump Mocked for ‘Unhinged Tantrum’ as ‘Trump Station’ Story Shifts Again

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5 hours ago

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February 16, 2026

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President Donald Trump’s latest rant contradicts the White House’s version of events surrounding his continued focus on renaming New York’s Penn Station “Trump Station” — as the president also continues to appear to tie funding for the already-approved New York-New Jersey Gateway Tunnel project to a potential name change.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt last week specifically stated that President Trump “floated” renaming Penn Station (and Washington-Dulles Airport) with Senate Democratic Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, as TIME reported.

Trump had claimed that it was Leader Schumer who made the suggestion.

Now, Trump is claiming that multiple politicians suggested the name change, as did various union leaders.

“Also, the naming of PENN Station (I LOVE Pennsylvania, but it is a direct competitor to New York, and ‘eating New York’s lunch!’) to TRUMP STATION, was brought up by certain politicians and construction union heads, not me – IT IS JUST MORE FAKE NEWS!”

READ MORE: ‘This Is Authoritarianism’: Experts Warn on US Midterm Elections

New York’s Pennsylvania Station was named for the Pennsylvania Railroad — which built the original terminal over a century ago — not the state of Pennsylvania.

The president also attacked the Gateway Tunnel project, calling it a “future boondoggle” that will “cost many BILLIONS OF DOLLARS more than projected or anticipated” and be “financially catastrophic for the region.”

Some mocked the president’s remarks.

“A completely unhinged tantrum from someone who didn’t get their way,” commented U.S. Senator Andy Kim (D-NJ). “

I don’t know one person in NJ, Republican or Democrat, who doesn’t see the power and value of the Gateway Tunnel Project.”

The Independent’s White House correspondent Andrew Feinberg asked, “Does he think Penn Station was named after the Commonwealth?”

READ MORE: Far Right Extremist Leader Puts Trump on Notice Over Epstein Files

 

Image via Reuters 

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