What Wes saw when he got to the Travis County GOP headquarters. Credit: Photo courtesy of Wes Benedict

After five months of asking nicely, Libertarian Party of Texas executive director Wes Benedict is getting increasingly frustrated by the refusal of the Travis County Republican Party to hand over lists of who attended their precinct conventions on March 4.

It all has to do with the Texas Election Code, which says political convention chairs “shall prepare, sign, and make a copy of a list of the names and residence addresses of the delegates and any alternates selected by the convention.” Section 174.027(f) of the code says that the original lists are not public information, but says nothing about the copies. That means (and Benedict asked an attorney with the Texas Secretary of State about this) that by default the lists are public information, and so must be made available.

So why exactly does he want to see who was there? “I’d like to send fundraising letters to them and see if I can get them to join the Libertarian Party,” said Benedict. “I would also incude lots and lots of failures of the Republican party.” Isn’t that a little underhand, trying to poach away members of another party? “I believe that’s legal. I get letters and email from John McCain every day.”

This article appears in August 8 • 2008.

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The Chronicle's first Culture Desk editor, Richard has reported on Austin's growing film production and appreciation scene for over a decade. A graduate of the universities of York, Stirling, and UT-Austin, a Rotten Tomatoes certified critic, and eight-time Best of Austin winner, he's currently at work on two books and a play.