Patrick's group tweaks its rules, adds 19 "founding members"

After receiving criticism that he was personally deciding which members of the state legislature aren't true conservatives, state Sen. Dan Patrick announced a new round of members to his organization, the Independent Conservative Republicans of Texas.

Patrick, a Houston Republican, launched the group earlier this month with 14 of the state senate's 19 Republicans and 44 of the 77 Republican State House members. In a press release posted on the organization's website today, he announced the addition of 19 more "founding members."

Patrick also appears to have tweaked the requirements for getting into his invitation-only club.

"Some have asked ‘who are invited’ to join our group," said Patrick in the statement. "Everyone was invited. I am not concerned how members voted in the past. I'm only interested in how they vote in the future, their commitment to our contract with Texas, and their pledge to put people before party."

That's a different story from when the group was first launched and members were touted as having been invited "based on their conservative record and their willingness to honor the principles of our organization." (That language is still here on the group's website.)

The Houston Chronicle's Peggy Fikac reported earlier this week that several Republican elected officials declined invitations to join Patrick's group.

From Tarrant County, Patrick added three state house representatives: Todd Smith of Euless, Diane Patrick of Arlington and Vicki Truitt of Keller.

That leaves just one local Republican not in the group: state Rep. Charlie Geren of Fort Worth.

While technically a political action committee, Patrick has said the group won't raise money or get heavily involved in elections. Instead, Patrick said he hopes the group's membership will serve as a guide to voters of who they can trust will follow conservative principles such as fighting for free markets and protecting life.

-Aman Batheja

Comments

[PatrickSellOut]

Dan Patrick doesn't get it:
Tea Party was formed, in part, because we discovered that just because you were a Republican, that didn't mean you were fiscally/socially conservative.

Republicans under Bush were no different than Democrats when it came to earmarks, spending, and forgetting their constituents.

This is just turning into another bullet point for incumbents on their mailers. Todd Smith in a _Conservative_ group? Why not add Specter, Snowe, and Collins in the Congressional version. This PAC had promise, now its a joke.

[david williams]

Texas would be a better place if Dan Patrick took his toy box radio station and moved to Oklahoma. This lunacy has gone far enough. I've voted Republican since I was 18 - 36 years ago. Patrick is what's wrong with America. We don't need his Washington style of leadership telling others what to do and setting up some club where he can collect dues to fatten his bank account and stroke his ever beautiful ego. Seriously, Dan, you sound like some gay loving fool who can't love himself or other men enough.

[1776]

Dan Patrick (real name Danny Goeb, from Baltimore, Maryland) is trying to do to Texas what he's done to Houston: ruin the Republican Party by trying to run off everyone and everything that he can't control. He has had very little control in the legislature, which he isn't used to. He is comfortable only as a dictator, megalomaniac. This makes it all but impossible for him to be an effective legislator.

He finds the national media limelight every bit as irresistible as does Sheila Jackson Lee. Republicans will be much better off when he's out of public office.