I want to begin tonight by thanking each of you for your support during the past few months as I’ve worked for election and to make the transition to County Chair of the Democratic Party of Van Zandt County.

Last year, when many of you encouraged me to seek this position, I though seriously about where we as a party needed to go and what we needed to accomplish.

Before I comment on the future direction of our party, I want to take just a moment to address where we’ve been in the past. As a party locally, we’ve weathered some hard storms. We’ve seen our county torn apart and paralyzed by an opposition party so vicious and fierce that the truth itself is no obstacle to its tactics and negative campaigning.

We have seen this party take over control of our county and spend away surpluses it took years to build, and decrease the county’s revenue to the point we’ve had to borrow funds just to perform the basic services required of a county government.

Today, our party is poised to regain control of our county and wrest it away from the special interests that call our courthouse home.

Getting Texas out of the grip of the far-radical Republican right-wing that now dominates our state begins one county at a time. I am determined that we will start the dominoes falling in Van Zandt County.

This November, on the ballot all across Texas, Republicans will skate to victory unopposed. From the Texas Supreme Court down to state representative, more than 70 statewide positions on the ballot find no Democratic opposition. I’ve heard a lot of Democrats say that redistricting has handicapped us or that we don’t have the money to compete with the GOP head-to-head in districts gerrymandered so disgustingly that they pair communities with no common interests whatsoever. True, that may be the case.

But we as Democrats, and I as County Chair, have the responsibility to give the people of Texas a real choice: A choice between candidates that have the best interests of the people at heart and between candidates so beholden to special interests that every vote they make mirrors not the ideas and opinions of their constituents, but rather those of their big-money donors.

For example, this month, the Texas Legislature is meeting in its fourth special session and claims that it is going to "reform" the system of school finance in Texas.

However, given the track record of this GOP dominated Legislature, I don’t think these Republicans elected by school voucher advocates and the Religious Right have any idea of what real "reform" actually is. As a matter of fact, I’m not sure this legislature could "reform" its way out of a paper bag.

Real reform is what happened in 1984, when the legislature reduced class size and enacted no-pass/no-play. Real reform is the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act, or Lyndon B. Johnson’s War On Poverty. Real reform is the Texas Public Information Act enacted following the Sharpstown Scandal. Real reform is the campaign finance legislation enacted by the legislature at the start of the last century designed to prevent corporate interests from controlling our state. A reform, incidentally, that today’s Republicans seem to think they can skirt around.

Real reform is not shutting thousands of Texans out of courtrooms and limiting what they can receive for serious injuries. Real reform would have been stopping the price gouging, red-lining, power-drunk insurance companies and their high priced lobbyists dead in their tracks and protecting the rights of Texans.

Real reform isn’t leaving thousands of Texas children uninsured while our own Governor travels to the Bahamas to discuss school finance reform and school vouchers with a multi-billionaire right-wing campaign contributor.

I wish some of the folks in our Republican legislature were here tonight, so they could ask some of the leaders present what real reform is all about. They could ask Ted Lyon, or John Sharp, or Bob Glaze, or David Cain what real reform means. They could ask the men who fathered child healthcare, took action to protect our groundwater, made sure the indigent get a quality defense in court, helped safeguard this state’s public assistance programs, gave Texas teachers a pay raise, and took action to ensure women in Texas receive affordable healthcare. They could ask these men, because it’s obvious to me--as it should be to you--that the people leading Texas today don’t have what it takes for real reform and to lead Texas further into this new century.

So, you may be asking, "What are we going to do about it?" The first thing we have to do--and it starts right here in Van Zandt County--is get out our message. We’ve got to let the people know that the Democrats are the party of the people, not the special interests--and we’ve got to do it from the White House down to the Courthouse. This summer and fall, we’re going to go door to door and house to house with that message. We’re going to let the people know that our candidates are the best people for the job.

In 2002, we lost the race for county judge by 80 votes. 80 votes. We had more than five thousand fewer people vote in 2002 than we had in 2000, and we came closer than we have in nearly a decade to reclaiming that all-important post. As you know, at the County Convention earlier this year, I launched an initiative for our party called "Overcome 80," geared at turning the tide back toward the Democrats because, for the people of Van Zandt County, we can, we will and we must Overcome 80.

And, I believe we’re going to do just that. Pat Burnett, we’re going to send you back to finish the job you started four years ago at the Sheriff’s Department. Albert Willingham, we’re going to elect you to the Van Zandt County Commissioner’s Court to actually represent the people of Precinct 1 and replace the turn-coat who sits right now comfortably in the county judge’s pocket. And Vicki Looney. Vicki Looney is a leader who has faced more adversity at the hands of the extremist Republicans than perhaps any other official in the history of this county. And Vicki, we’re going to do for you just what we did in 2000--we’re going to send you back to the Tax Office in a blaze of glory. We’re going to show the Republican Party once and for all that they can appoint whomever they want to whatever office they want to appoint them to, but that it’s the voters of this county who are going to elect our leaders, not a bunch of right-wing operatives in a back room of the courthouse.

Too, we have to start looking toward the future. We’ve got to look to 2006, when we have the opportunity to take back the 294th District Court, the District Clerk’s Office, a commissioner’s seat and unseat our free-spending, donor-beholden, special-interest loving county judge once and for all.

And, too, we’ve got to look toward our state offices. In Van Zandt County, we’ve managed to show our support for a lot of local elected officials, but when it comes to state officials, somehow we don’t seem to get our message out. Starting today, that’s going to end. I’m going to ask each and every one of you tonight one question, and it’s one you’ve heard before: is this country better off than it was four years ago? Is this state better off than it was six or eight years ago when Republican rule began? I think if you think about it and search your heart, you’ll find the answer is a resounding "no."

So, in closing, I encourage you tonight to support not only our local elected officials, but our entire ticket this year and in years to come. We may not all be as conservative or as liberal some of the fine folks on our ticket, but I can promise you this: the people on the Democratic Ticket run to serve the people. They need our money, our support and, most of all, our vote.

And, although I don’t plan to make too many promises as your county chair, here is one promise I will make to you: As long as I am county chair, I and this party will support our candidates and officeholders. And, here’s another one: As long as I am your County Chair, in every race in this county--up and down the ballot--the people will have a choice of who to vote for. We will not let Republicans skate to victory without the voice of the opposition ringing in their ears, standing in line at the ballot box, and campaigning diligently until the last vote is cast, and until the last vote of the last box of the last precinct is counted.

Wresting Texas out of the hands of the special interests begins one vote, one precinct, and one county at a time. I ask tonight that you help me make Van Zandt County that one county--that one county to stand up and say, we will be counted. That one county to stand up and say, "we’re tired of extremism." That one county to stand up and say, "it’s time for a change, because we are worse off than we were four, six or eight years ago." That one county to say, "Enough IS Enough."

If we can "Overcome 80" in Van Zandt County, then there is hope for the rest of this state. Let’s set an example here, and start the dominoes to falling.