Texas Scorecard By Brandon Waltens July 17, 2020
The decision comes as technical problems have plagued the current virtual online convention.
In the latest turn of events in a tumultuous week for the Republican Party of Texas’ state convention, a federal judge has ruled that the party may go forward with an in-person convention.
The ruling comes after Democrat Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner blocked the party from holding the event at Houston’s George R. Brown Convention Center last week and the party made plans to go forward with a virtual convention.
U.S. District Judge Lynn Hughes, a Reagan-appointee to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas, ruled against the City of Houston as well as Houston First, the local government corporation that operates the convention center.
After a string of court losses, including at the all-Republican Texas Supreme Court, the party’s executive committee voted earlier this week to move to a virtual online convention. That process has, so far, been plagued with technical issues. Originally slated to begin on Thursday morning, problems with the implementation of the voting software (needed to verify the credentials of delegates and properly weight votes) forced the party to delay the start of the convention to Saturday morning.
On Friday morning, however, the party joined a similar but separate case led by longtime Houston conservative activist Dr. Steve Hotze, which had its hearing this afternoon.
During that hearing, Judge Hughes ruled that the city must make the convention center available to the party for an in-person meeting.
More:
https://texasscorecard.com/state/federal-judge-rules-in-person-texas-gop-convention-may-go-forward/
