REPUBLICAN COUNTY CHAIR MORGAN GRAHAM SHARES HER PARTY'S VISION FOR CAMERON COUNTY

Republican County Chair Morgan Cisneros Graham

I’ve said on many occasions, starting about 7 years before I ever became involved in the Cameron County Republican Party in 2014 that we as members of this community have been prevailed upon to be an owned voter block. National or even state party platforms do not determine the direction our county and city leadership will take, how a sheriff or constable upholds and enforced the law, how the district attorney prosecutes, and by and large how judges within our boundaries will interpret it.

Having received implied threats anonymously from those supporting the Democrat county judge candidate who is Cascos’ opponent, I can say fear is used liberally (pun intended) to coerce people into silence. After this I’m expecting to receive more of the same, but I don’t care. The hit dog always howls, after all.


***I was asked how I believe our party’s platform and policies will benefit Cameron County. I will tell you this: anybody who says their party’s platform and policies will benefit this county are either lying to you, or are unaware as to how government works OR just hasn’t been paying attention to what is going on locally, statewide, and at the federal level beyond soundbites. Parties at higher levels like every other entity lose the vision of the people because they have run into the narcotic that corrupts all: power. It’s the policies and platforms and character of the people that we in Cameron can offer to you to elect that matter.***

I have served not only locally but on several state level committees for the Republican Party and I can tell you that while Texas is a whole ‘nother country, each of our counties and districts are incredibly different and diverse and it is impossible for every one to think, believe, and agree on hundreds of platform items uniformly. I’ve met pro-life Democrats, pro-2nd Amendment Democrats, pro-DACA Republicans (I’ve been one) and many more unicorns party people want to tell us don’t exist.

I can, however, say with conviction that I believe the brightest hope our community has is in alternatives we offer to a place that has been told to accept corruption, indictments, back door deals, bribery of judges, theft, nepotism, and all manners of things that have resulted in people getting rich off of being elected while the people of our community bear the burden of their decisions, their deals, and promises to those who profit off of us, get poorer. Any area where there is not a viable two party system falls prey to this type of problem. All one needs to do is run in the right primary and depend on the people to not vote for the individual, but to vote for the party.

This is like continually buying an inferior product at the store because you like the packaging. And though I have been criticized by my peers and colleagues from other parts of the state that are so entirely red, a Twilight Zone version of Cameron where people closet themselves for fear of being caught being a Democrat and their businesses suffering, I have seen first hand how a community and good government become lowest priorities when those in power never have to fear actual competition. A few people, in the case of the local Democrat Party, determine which way our elections will go that involve the very people who directly impact so many vital aspects of our lives. The education of our children, our roads, our ability to afford to keep our homes while paying ever rising property taxes alongside the reality of leadership that hasn’t focused on growth and economic development, our viability as a community of opportunities...has all been in the hands of one party. What has it done for us all these long years and who can honestly believe doing the same thing will make anything different?

The fact I’ve had an incredible number of people say they’re afraid to support openly our Republican candidate for County Judge, Carlos Cascos, because their jobs and businesses will suffer from retaliation by powerful Democrats is very disturbing. And these are humble folks, who have worked and continue to work their fingers to the bone - and many are fortunate to employ people locally. It sounds like a political Mafia doesn’t it?.

Don’t get me wrong: there are good Democrats in office. There are also those who secretly let me know that anywhere else they would be a Republican like me, but that when in Rome one must do what one has to do to get elected. Then there is the fact that the majority of Democrats in Cameron do not subscribe to many parts of the state and national Democrat platform. So let’s abandon this idea party platforms and ideas are the factors that should determine how we vote because what we see is obviously not what we get. My counterpart will say that his party is for the poor. How many poor Democrats do you see in office, or even worse: richer because of being in office? Half of the top 10 richest members of Congress.....are Democrats.

It is safe to say that this constant play to “own” people’s votes and be entitled to them, the votes of the poor, minorities, women, the LGBTQ community, and whomever else Democrats have decided they can speak for, is the mantra we see in Cameron County that they have found successful: “Sell the Democrat brand, own the people, don’t let them look too closely. Vote palanca!” They slap faces on signs, add a few words in Spanish, send some politiqueras out and bus a bunch of elderly folks from nursing homes who often times are barely aware of where they are or what it is they are being asked to do to polling places. If you doubt it: ask a poll worker.

I could point out that education and economic opportunity including jobs were the highest polling answers regarding priorities for 2018 in Cameron County. I could mention that as a party we time and again say that the priority should be the education or children, the right of parents and taxpayers to demand the highest quality education that their tax money can buy. I could also mention our stances on economic freedom, not punishing businesses for the success earned with their sweat, blood, and tears; not taxing people so much to fund pet projects until they can’t afford to stay in their own homes, and keeping government out of the way of individual pursuit of happiness are the things I constantly hear fellow citizen demand. I could also remind our readers that their dissatisfaction with city, county, and ISD members will not go away if they continue to vote palanca. It is a Gordian knot of people scratching backs and making deals that you can’t easily discern the bad from the good.

We have a candidate for State Board of Education, Tad Hasse, who is running against Ruben Cortez, an individual with only a GED who has a say in the education quality our children receive not just in Cameron but throughout the state. he has profited well off of being in the office - but has education in our county and his home part of the state improved? Are teachers and students suffering any less? We have a top-heavy school district where the politics are so seedy and vicious that it would send seasoned politicos in Washington crying and hiding under their beds at night. Hasse sincerely cares and I believe can offer pragmatic solutions.

I do know one thing that I and many from BOTH parties will say and believe wholeheartedly....we have an excellent choice for county judge who has not ever failed us and has been uncorruptable throughout years in this Babylon of political incest: Carlos Cascos. He represented us well in Austin when the Governor appointed him after two terms of outstanding leadership and service as County Judge, and was as many have told me one of the best Secretaries of State that they have worked with in many years. He has never been involved with or implicated in shady dealings, which has led to some desperately hoping he loses. Unlike his opponent, he was not the one who was implicated by Abel Limas in open court as being one of those who bribed him for an ad litem appointment. Cascos, unlike his opponent, also didn’t make over a million dollars representing our public utilities board while our rates continued to rise. Cascos isn’t the candidate taking thousands upon thousands of dollars from developers, engineers, and other entities outside of this county who want to buy more pieces of our county’s heart and soul. Cascos is also NOT the candidate who took $15,000 from a PAC that wants to force a huge tax burden on Cameron that has been rejected time and again by a HUGE majority, including Democrats, of Hidalgo county by creating a hospital district that is intended to ensure that certain people are set for life and become yet another entity profiting off of us. And then there are the people who have to secretly support Cascos and not let people know because they like being able to feed their children and paying their bills.

No, unlike the candidate with the $500 dinner tickets, Cascos has been campaigning like he always has: on the merit of his own sweat and blood like the rest of us do every day to not only survive but thrive in a community with a very fixed deck and no option to leave the table.

But this November: it is we the people who get to deal the cards. Let’s not give the lawyer who has profited off the poorest of the poor in Cameron another four years to continue to do so.

Carlos Cascos was and is able to get for our county the ears of those in Austin to bend from my party, and I can assure you his opponent can not and will not. It is not theoretical or propaganda: it is a proven certainty. And it is also a certainty that the things we despise most in our community will continue to flourish if we continue to do the same thing over and over: letting those behind the curtains who have taken over the local Democratic Party own us, our property, our children’s futures and hope and dreams, our opportunities, and our livelihoods.


Thank you for your time and this opportunity to be heard.

Morgan Cisneros Graham
Chairman
Cameron County Republican Party

State Committeeman
Senatorial District 27
Republican Party of Texas
MorganGrahamGOP@gmail.com

www.facebook.com/MorganGrahamGOP