House of Representatives – Carol A. Spencer

TX House Public Comment

The Texas House is going to discuss two topics at an Elections Committee hearing on August 3 at 11AM. Did you know you can submit comments up to and until they gavel the committee hearing adjourned?

The two topics are:
Technology in Elections: Study the growing role of new and rapidly evolving technologies in the election process and political communications.

Voter Registration: Study the state’s voter registration processes and
systems by conducting an inventory of the systems used by counties that
are offline and analyzing the impact of supporting multiple software
systems across the state. Recommend ways to streamline voter-roll
maintenance and improve efficiency.

Here are my submitted comments under Voter Registration:

Our county previously used a vendor that gave us years of voter history in an Excel format. It included the following fields for TEN years of voting: Election Code (date), Election Party Code (Rep, Dem), Election Vote Type (E, A, P). First, middle & last names were separate fields. It was simple to create 4 of 4, 3 of 4, 2 of 4 etc lists. It was easy to create Head of Household, targeted, election mailings. Then we were forced to use the SOS list. First and last names were one field. To split them in Excel is tedious and time consuming for thousands and thousands of voters. Voter history is worthless as it only shows the “date last voted”. Who cares? That could be 10/29/2020, 3/2/2024 or the like. ONE DATE. That does us no good at all in trying to determine voter history, which directly translates into who will actually vote in an election. It’s impossible to create a 4 of 4 or 3 of 4 list for any purpose: mailing, block walking…. any campaign or PAC needs. Vote History Reports out of the current state system are often incomplete or inaccurate and are limited to a single election. Incorporating vote history as described above into to the “Voter List” would be much more usable. I’ve written the SOS office about this. I’ve discussed this with Senator Schwertner and his office staff. I’ve provided copies of each spreadsheet in 11/2025: the sheet from our former county vendor and the one from the SOS. I’d be happy to provide that information to the committee. My background is 50 years in IT, 35+ years in the political world, including running 13 of my own races and serving 10 years in elected office. If everyone is required to use the SOS database, it needs to be designed by people who understand what those of us in the field do with the data. This needs to be fixed ASAP.

Vote Term Limits

Do you support Congressional term limits? Do you practice what you preach?

John Cornyn is running for US Senate for his fifth six-year term, thirty years. He is 74 years old and will be 80+ at the end of a fifth term. If you truly believe in Congressional term limits, you cannot vote for John Cornyn.

political funnel Politics is like an upside down funnel: there are lots of positions at the bottom but as you climb higher, there are fewer and fewer. For those who climb the political “ladder” thinking one position prepares you for another, politicians who don’t step aside block out other qualified individuals. With the amount of money raised by incumbents and the cost to campaign, one has to be a multi-millionaire (or have very wealthy friends) to slide into a higher position. Was our Republic created so only the wealthy can serve in elected office? I think not.

Not voting your belief in Congressional term limits does two things: it forces out some very talented people with new, fresh ideas and it creates an environment where only the wealthy, or those with massive war chests, can serve in office.

Term limits, and voting accordingly if you believe in them, keeps our Congress a citizen congress, one where people with other career experiences come to serve, using their experience to make America great again, and then head back to real life.

Americans Overwhelming Support Term Limits

According to TermLimits.com, in 2025 over 83% of Americans favored term limits for members of Congress. For Republicans or Republican-leaning respondents, that percentage was 85%. Even for Democrats, the percentage was huge: 79%.

clocks In 2025, US Senator Dave McCormick (R-PA) introduced a joint resolution limiting US Senators to two six-year terms and limiting US House members to six two-year terms: a maximum of 12 years in both offices. The President is term limited. Why not Congress?

Did you know?

More than one-third of Senators in the 118^th Congress were 70 or older. The 119^th Congress is the third oldest in history. The average Senator is nearly 64 years old, which is 11 years older than the average Senator in 1981. Similarly, the House Members are nearly nine years older on average than they were in 1981. As of this year, Members of the House and Senate have an average of 8.6 and 11.2 years of prior service in their respective chambers. This represents a steady increase from the early 20^th century when that number fell below six years for both the House and Senate.

~ McCormick Press Release, April 10, 2025

Early voting for the runoffs starts May 18. Think about this when you go to vote. Should any member of Congress serve 30 years? If you agree with me that’s far too long in one position, then it’s time to retire John Cornyn and elect Ken Paxton.

Who’s To Blame?

I spend a lot of time on X (formerly Twitter). I have always liked the short format with links to deeper dives. I liked that even when Twitter was limited to 140 characters, although sharing info in 140 characters was often very difficult.

When it changed to 280, we had the opportunity to be truly verbose in our tweets. Now, with a paid account, pretty much the sky is the limit making some tweets downright book chapters. Most people split them up into smaller tweets. In the X world, those multi-tweet posts are called “threads”.

When you spend a lot of time there, you’ll find people blaming all levels of government and elected officials for the problem “du jour”.

Then, the other day I got a panicked phone call from a friend working on a non-profit issue. She panicked because some info was due and now the government was closed. Once I explained that she was working with state government and they weren’t closed, she breathed a sign of relief.

All that got me thinking about the importance of understanding who does what in the government sphere. And as we know from our tax bills, we sure do have a lot of layers of government.

The Federal government is closed. That’s it. State, county, city, boards of education, local and state courts are not. And Federal courts usually stay open for a while during a shutdown. Need to do something “governmental”? Search online to find out what level of government handles that task.

Looking for blame for the Federal shutdown? All bloviating aside, it’s important to know what has to happen to keep the Federal government operating. It needs a budget and authorization to spend that money.

Spending bills originate in the House of Representatives according to the US Constitution (Article 1, Section 7). Once an identical bill is passed by the House and Senate, the President must sign it for it to become law. That includes spending bills.

The US House passed a CR, a “Continuing Resolution” which will enable the Federal government to continue to operate. Sometimes new or modified spending is included in a CR. Not this time. The US House passed a “clean” CR to have the government continue operating with current levels of funding in place.

The US Senate needs 60 votes to end discussion on a bill and has yet to get the 60 votes needed to stop discussing and move to vote on the House-passed CR.

The President can’t do anything until he is presented with an identical bill passed by both Houses of Congress.

So where does the blame lie? Squarely with the US Senate. Without 60 votes to stop debate and formally vote on the CR passed by the House, the Federal government will remain closed. The US House has done its job. The President doesn’t have a bill to sign or veto. An open or closed Federal government lies in the hands of the US Senate.

Because there aren’t 60 Republicans in the Senate, without a few Democrat votes, it’ll remain closed. Majority leader Chuck Schumer needs to convince a few Dems to vote to keep the Federal government open, no matter what he says on TV or in online interviews. The ball is in his court. Chuck Schumer needs to find the votes to open the Federal government. If he can’t, he and he alone will be responsible for a failure of leadership and the impacts on the American people of a closed Federal government.

We don’t want a CAVE. We want a WALL.

This morning, I wrote my congressman and the White House. You should too. Here are the web addresses and what I wrote:

The White House
Congressman Michael Cloud (CD-27)
Congressman Michael McCaul (CD-10)

To Congressman Michael Cloud:
Trump can’t cave on this. YOU can’t cave on this. DO NOT vote for a CR that doesn’t include at least 1/2 of what Trump needs for the “wall”. Any rational person knows the “wall” includes technological efforts as well as a physical wall where possible. Any rational person knows Mexico was never going to outright pay for the wall, but the reduction in immigration costs for those coming in through that country would pay for it, an improvement in balance of trade would pay for it…. Republican messaging is horrible and never says that. But, we NEED the wall. TRUMP needs the wall or he’ll lose his base. He’ll be likened to GWB about whom many only remember “Read my lips…” and then HE caved. We voted for Trump to clean that swamp, to do what he says he’ll do, and for you to back him up. I’ll support him, and you, as vociferously as possible if he does what he said he would do. Those of us with children know the most important thing we can do is to MEAN WHAT WE SAY, to DO what we said we would do. TRUST falls if that doesn’t happen. Pelosi and Schumer will run the show from now to 2020 if Trump and the House cave on this. Thank you, and Merry Christmas to all of you.

To President Trump via The White House:
We DO NOT WANT A CAVE. We WANT A WALL. Messaging is critical. Of course a wall isn’t always a physical wall but also a technological wall. Of course Mexico isn’t going to pay outright dollars but through lower costs of illegals entering the US and in balance of trade. Republican messaging stinks, but the FACT is that we need the wall. We need you to STAND STRONG. We voted for you to get something different, your business acumen. Please don’t be GWB who is remembered for “Read my lips…” and then caving. Please!!!

“No Borders. No Walls.” Incrementalism

While President Trump is being slammed for separating mothers and children, it’s important to take a step back and remember historically how we got here, and it was not President Trump that brought us to this point.

In 1997, it was Democrat President Bill Clinton’s court settlement in the Flores case that set a 20 day limit on detaining children who illegally enter our country.

It was a court order in July 2015 that slammed the Democrat Obama Administration’s immigration policies on family detention, and applied that 1997 decision to children who enter with or without parents.

It was then 120+ Democrat legislators who, in 2015, penned a letter to President Obama, demanding the FAMILY facilities be closed .

While President Trump may have (finally) decided to treat illegals as illegals to stop the inflow of illegals, he wasn’t involved in any of the prior decisions that now cause parents and children to be separated.

Congress could have fixed this problem any time they wanted: when they had both houses and the presidency during the Obama Administration, or while they had both houses and the presidency during the Trump Administration. But many in Congress don’t want to; the optics against President Trump are just too good to pass up by the “Never Trumpers” on both sides of the aisle.

And, once again, the operative word is ILLEGAL. Every day, parents are separated from their children if they are a mom or dad and are arrested for doing something ILLEGAL.

Perhaps under President Trump’s “let’s get it done” leadership, Congress will finally act to fix all this, but I doubt it. Listening to Chucky Cheese Schumer, he has no intention of doing so. He had no intention of fixing DACA either, and those brought here as children still linger in limbo. The Democrat Socialists of America use the optics to creep closer to their goal of “No border. No walls. Sanctuary for all.”

The optics of both of these make such nice issues for Dems to use in their campaigns. They’re users, not problem solvers. That’s why pragmatist, solution-seeking, “Art of the Deal” President Trump scares them so much and they’ll do anything to get rid of him. And, it’s why the American public likes him so much and wants the swamp drained of obstructionists.

Political Activism or Community Activism

The current CD 27 Special Election is critical! Republicans need a 50%+1 win on June 30 to avoid a September runoff that will be costly to Texas voters, costly to our candidate, and potentially costly to the balance of the House of Representatives if not won by a Republican.

Political strategists would expect the Bastrop Republican County Executive Committee (BRCEC) as a whole to be working hard to get out the Republican vote for this election. Sadly, that’s not the case.

Community organizing is apparently more important. The Republican chair has asked for volunteers for an Elgin community event all day on Saturday, June 23, exactly one week before Election Day.

Elgin is not part of CD 27. In fact, Elgin sits at the most northwestern tip of Bastrop County, far away from CD 27. It’s in Congressional District 10, Mike McCaul’s district.

But getting known in the community is important, you say. Yes, it is. But when the balance of the U.S. House of Representatives is at stake, political activism trumps community activism every time.

For those in my precinct, look for this postcard in your mail this week. It has information about the Special Election, how to contact me, and where to find Bastrop County Republican information online. Even if you’re not in my precinct, but are in CD 27, please share with your friends, and be sure to early vote or vote on June 30!

Intro Postcard - Front with contact information

Diverting Resources Loses Elections

The most qualified candidate for a position can easily lose an election by running a poorly planned campaign, by losing focus, or by letting the opposition distract or divert attention to things that don’t matter to the outcome of the race.

A perfect example of this is happening right now in Bastrop County.

Bastrop Democrats

Early voting for a critical special election starts in just a few days, but the Republican chair-elect has spent her time over the past few weeks with the Democrats, planning a joint fundraiser for a local civic group. On May 19, while the Republican Chair-elect was at a CEC meeting convincing Republicans to do a joint fundraiser with the Democrats, Democrats were on the bridge in Bastrop publicly supporting their candidates.
While support for local organizations is a worthy endeavor, the number one priority of a political organization is to win elections, and winning takes time and money.

It’s sad, but apparent, that the possibility of giving the Democrats two opportunities in two months to defeat our Republican candidate doesn’t matter to Bastrop Republican leadership. They’d rather fraternize with the Democrats than defeat them.

With such a short window before early voting in the CD27 Special Election, this wasn’t the time to divert Republican resources away from Get Out The Vote (GOTV) efforts. We’ve yet to see any Bastrop County Republican Party emails or postal mails regarding the June 30 Special Election, the impact of this special election on the November general election, or the candidates involved.

I am fully supportive of raising money and awareness for local civic groups. A cursory review of my bio shows a long history of civic engagement. But right now, Republicans should be laser focused on GOTV efforts to win the CD27 Special Election with more than 50% of the vote.

If our primary winner, Michael Cloud, doesn’t get over 50% of the vote and is forced into a September runoff, it gives CD27 Democrats two chances to defeat him in a two month time span. It’s sad, but apparent, that the possibility of giving the Democrats two opportunities in two months to defeat our Republican candidate doesn’t matter to Bastrop Republican leadership. They’d rather fraternize with the Democrats than defeat them.