The Republican Party of Texas ended its convention this year with plans to keep moderate candidates off the ballot, allow only party loyalists to participate in primaries and double down on the legacy of a divisive outgoing chairman.
But as thousands of GOP activists were descending on the Alamo City last May, local Republicans were already charting a different course for Bexar County, where the party’s rightward shift has been blamed for steadily eroding its power.
New Republican Party of Bexar County Chairwoman Kris Coons ran on a platform of making the party more welcoming — and won an open three-way chairmanship race with 52% of the vote in March.
She takes the place of outspoken former Chair Jeff McManus, whose legacy includes several unsuccessful censure efforts, endorsing primary challengers over incumbents and cutting ties with the county’s longtime young Republican club in favor of one loyal to the Republican Party of Texas.
Among Coons’ first moves has been installing a new leadership team with impressive corporate resumes: Hospital executive Kyle Sinclair was chosen as vice chair, and former Alamo Area Council of Governments executive director Diane Rath was elected secretary at the party’s first leadership meeting.
She also pushed for new local party bylaws that raised the threshold of support required to amend them — including issuing a censure — which Texas Republicans have been doing with increased frequency to punish elected officials who step out of line with the party platform.
Nowhere in the state has the censure been more impactful than deep blue Bexar County — home to two of the four elected officials who’ve been censured statewide in the party’s history.
State GOP leaders used the censure to show then-state House Speaker Joe Straus (R-Alamo Heights) the door in 2018, and again last year to hamstring U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-San Antonio) ahead of a tough primary.
This year local Republicans are defending their lone county commissioner seat and two fiercely contested state House seats. Not a single GOP candidate filed to run for any of the county’s district court judgeships.
“When you’re in the minority, we have to stick together,” Coons said of her approach in a wide-ranging interview at the new party headquarters off Interstate 410, near San Antonio International Airport.
She’ll play a role in recruiting GOP candidates for the next election cycle, and in selecting the county’s next elections administrator.
This month she also joined a list of 28 local party chairs who raised public concern about the beleaguered Republican Party of Texas, which they said is bleeding money and failing to provide support and direction ahead of the November election.
Coons sat down with the San Antonio Report to discuss her vision for the new role.
San Antonio Report: The state party recently chose a new leader who has vowed to continue purging the party’s moderates and enforcing party purity tests. Bexar County Republicans had many of those same qualities in their previous chair, but this year chose you, a peacemaker. What do you think local Republicans were looking for?
Kris Coons: I think they were looking for two things. One, someone with that likability factor. You’ve got to be liked in order to get elected. And number two, someone who’s going to have the conversation with everybody and not draw the line on any single issue. I want quality Republicans elected. But I’m willing to have the conversation with everybody.
I don’t think I’m too terribly different from the party. I’m a conservative, but I think I appeal to both people who know that I’m conservative, and to those that I’m going to listen to what they need to share with me.
Our [state party] conventions can be very one sided, but remember, the conventions are also those who participate. You’re talking about [roughly] 6,900 people [at the most recent convention]… I’m not sure that it was wholly representative of the entire Republican Party in the state of Texas.
SAR: What do you think about the changes that came out of the convention? Specifically, the new chairman, the effort to close the primary, and the effort to make local party chairs reject candidates from the primary ballot if they’ve been censured?
KC: I know [new Texas GOP Chair] Abraham George, he and I served in SREC together, and he seems to be a very nice man. I don’t think he’s much of a change from [previous] Chairman [Matt] Rinaldi. But we’ll see what happens.
In my opinion, when we make definitive decisions like [closing the primary], we’re reducing the size of our party … I understand both sides of the issue, I really do, however, for us to expand our party in Bexar County, I don’t think that closed primaries would be successful for us.
SAR: As for kicking censured candidates off the primary ballot?
KC: My understanding is that it’s really not in the state law for chairs to be able to do something like that. It would probably tie us up in litigation.
SAR: What do you think about the growing use of the censure to punish elected officials? And how as party chair can you influence that process?
KC: I’m not saying that they shouldn’t be warranted in certain situations, but censures are really the extreme to me.
A resolution can be presented from the floor at any of our meetings. So if you’re asking me if I would feel great about a censure, I do not. But if that’s what our [County Executive Committee] presents, I would of course adhere.
We would present it and take a vote on it. It’s a two-thirds vote threshold now. We made new recommendations to the bylaws at our organizational meeting and they were passed.
SAR: Local Republicans have had a mixed relationship with retiring Elections Administrator Jacque Callanen. Some love her for not trying to innovate the role like her peers in other large counties. Others think she’s not doing enough to promote election integrity. How do you plan to approach the search for a new elections administrator?
KC: I know [Callanen] very differently [from most Republicans]. I was on the ballot board for 10 years [under Callanen’s leadership]. … The office was so well run. Everything was in order and meticulous. In my experience with her, she’s been a calm voice of reason that gets it from both sides.
Our elections administrator is supposed to be making sure that we conduct fair and safe elections, that is their sole responsibility. So voter registrars and all that kind of stuff, I know plays a part in that, but to me seems to be very separate from what it is he or she is supposed to be doing.
It’ll be a national search [for Callanen’s replacement]. I will be looking for extensive managerial abilities, a person who is familiar with programming and coding, and also Texas election law. Being the Lone Ranger on the commission … I think it’s going to be a very tough search.
SAR: You spent your professional career working in retail, where you told me your role was to come in and turn around struggling stores. What exactly do you think needs to change about this county party?
I think consistency with what we’re trying to achieve. Right now when you see stability, when you see a great team that’s here, that’s first and foremost. I think people feel like we’re approachable. We have a plan of action, we have something concrete for them, for us to work together.
Our approach is going to be that we want to welcome everybody in and we want them to know that they’re engaged in this process, and then they’re going to help us make a difference in winning these races.
I will never as a chair come out against one Republican over another, that just won’t happen from me.
We also need a really positive atmosphere. Politics is tough, you can’t be thin-skinned, but you have to really enjoy what we’re doing here.
