Cathie Adams

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Cathy Louise Mingee Adams


State Chairman of the
Republican Party of Texas
In office
October 2009 – June 12, 2010
Preceded by Tina Benkiser
Succeeded by Steve Munisteri

Born January 8, 1950
Spouse(s) Homer Charles Adams (married 1970)
Religion Non-denominational Christian

Cathie Louise Mingee Adams (born January 8, 1950) is a homemaker from Dallas,[1] who is the former chairman of the Republican Party of Texas. She won the post in a special meeting of the Republican State Executive Committee held on October 24, 2009, at party headquarters in Austin. She was unseated in the state convention held in Dallas on June 12, 2010, by Steve Munisteri, a retired attorney and businessman from Houston.[2]

Adams is the daughter of Clarence Mingee and Helen Louise Mingee (1924-2011), both natives of Illinois who later lived in Iowa before moving to Texas. Adams has two sisters, Mary Ann Beadle and Patricia Marie Mingee, and a brother, Charles Patrick Mingee.[3]

Since 1970, Adams has been married to Homer Charles Adams (born ca. 1948), a Dallas chiropractor. They have one son and five grandchildren. The couple attends Stonebriar Community Church in Frisco in the Dallas–Fort Worth Metroplex.[4]

Election as interim chairman

By a vote of 36-25, Adams defeated Melinda Fredricks of Conroe to succeed former chairman Tina Benkiser, a Houston attorney who stepped down on September 26, 2009, to join the successful reelection campaign of Governor Rick Perry.[5] Adams' election as interim party chairman extended until the next Republican state convention on June 11–12, 2010. She had indicated from the start that she would seek a full term at the state convention.[6]

Under party rules, the chairman must be neutral during primary election campaigns. Perry defeated sitting U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison and two other contenders in the 2010 Republican primary. Adams had earlier endorsed Perry and indicated that she could not in conscience withdraw the endorsement but would be impartial in her role as chairman. She also called upon Senator Hutchison to clarify when she would resign from the Senate in order to campaign full-time for governor. The uncertainty of an exit time made it difficult for Senate candidates to plan strategy and to conduct fund raising, Adams said.[7] Hutchison subsequently changed her mind about resignation and will remain in the seat until January 2013.

Conservative politics

Adams has long been active in her party's conservative wing. She started as a GOP election judge and has been a member of district, state, and national resolutions or platform committees. Since 1988, Adams has been a delegate to each state senatorial convention and each state party convention held the first weekend of June in even years. She was a delegate to the Republican National Conventions held in 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004 and 2008. At the 2008 state convention, she was named Republican national committeewoman from Texas. As state party chairman, she automatically remained a member of the RNC.[5] Robin Armstrong, an African American physician from Galveston County continued as vice chairman of the RPT under Adams' leadership.

Strongly opposed to abortion, Adams was the director of a crisis pregnancy center in Plano in Collin County, Texas,[4] before she joined the board of the Dallas Eagle Forum in the middle 1980s. Adams was the president of the DEF for five years until 1993, when she was named Texas state president by Phyllis Schlafly, the founder of the national organization based in St. Louis, Missouri.[4] In 2005, as the Eagle Forum president, Adams questioned what she determined to be a lack of conservative state legislators even within the Republican Party. "Of the 181 elected Texas legislators [House and Senate] serving during the [79th] legislative session and special-called sessions in Austin, only eleven legislators were commended for their conservative voting record."[8] Such politicians are often called RINO's (Republican in Name Only) by their conservative intraparty opponents.

In connection with her Eagle Forum and Republican activities, Adams traveled throughout the world, including Rome, Istanbul, Beijing, The Hague, Paris, Kyoto, and Buenos Aires. She serves on the advisory board of the Young Conservatives of Texas, a nonpartisan youth organization committed to the preservation of individual liberties and freedom.[4]

Adams has contributed financially to former U.S. Representatives Joe Barton and Sam Johnson. In 1995, she supported then U.S. Senator Phil Gramm of Texas for the Republican presidential nomination. Gramm withdrew from the race early in 1996, and the nomination went to Senator Bob Dole of Kansas, who was then defeated by Bill Clinton.[9]

Shortly before she became state chairman, Adams said in an interview that she opposes divisive Republican primary fights: "I try and forget them as soon as I can, because they are so wrong. I don't like [personal attacks] at all and I don't think there’s a need in doing that...."[10]

Activities as chairman

On November 2, 2009, Adams announced that she would spearhead opposition in Texas to the health care proposals advanced by U.S. President Barack H. Obama and the congressional Democrats led by Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California and U.S. Senator Harry Reid of Nevada. Adams urged demonstrations at the offices of presumed undecided Democratic U.S. Representatives Ciro Rodriguez in San Antonio, Chet Edwards in Bryan and Solomon Ortiz in Corpus Christi, all three of whom were defeated for reelection on November 2, 2010. Adams stated that "extremists in their party . . . are trying to take over one-sixth of the American economy." She maintained that the Democratic package will "cost $1.3 trillion, or $500 million per page [2,000 total pages in the legislation], financed through massive debt and tax hikes; raise taxes 13 different ways, including forcing Americans to buy . . . health insurance; increase insurance premiums and decrease access to health care; cost Texas at least 15,000 jobs by forcing doctor-owned hospitals to close, and provide for taxpayer-funded abortions."[11]

Adams spoke strongly in her own defense at the convention about her 30-year fight against abortion, same-sex marriage, the United Nations, and for maintaining a Christian nation. Adams had angered some Republican voters by refusing to release financial information about the party. More recently, she said, "I'm saying 'no' to Barrack Hussein Obama," but she fell far short of victory for a full term.[12]

Munisteri received support from 59 percent of the seven thousand convention delegates. His grass roots work in the party began in 1972, when he was a young organizer for gubernatorial nominee, then State Senator Henry C. Grover of Houston.[12] Munisteri's partisan counterpart was then Democratic state chairman Boyd Richie, an attorney from Graham in Young County west of Fort Worth. The Democrat convention was held on June 26, 2010.

Melinda Fredericks, Adams's 2009 rival, meanwhile, was named state Republican vice chairman at the same 2010 state convention which rejected Adams for a full term as the state chairman.

Munisteri and Fredericks were elected to new two-year terms at the state Republican convention held in Fort Worth in June 2012.

See also

Other pro-life activists:

References

  1. Dallas, TX Political Contributions by Individuals. city-data.com. Retrieved on October 28, 2009.
  2. "Republican Party of Texas Elects Steve Munisteri Chairman", texasgop.org, June 12, 2010
  3. In memory of Helen Louise Mingee. obits.dignitymemorial.com. Retrieved on November 23, 2011.
  4. 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 "Texsas Eagle: Cathie Adams", September 24, 2008. texaseagle.org. Retrieved on October 28, 2009.
  5. 5.0 5.1 Cathie Adams elected chairman of RPT. Retrieved on October 28, 2009.
  6. Cathie Adams is new state Republican chairman. chron.com. Retrieved on October 28, 2009.
  7. Cathie Adams refuses to withdraw endorsement of Rick [Perry]. ricvskay.blogspot.com, October 26, 2009. Retrieved on October 28, 2009.
  8. Quoted in Paul Burka, "The Elephants in the Room", Lyle C. Brown, et al, Practicing Texas Politics (Boston, Massachusetts: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2008), p. 17.5
  9. Cathie L. Adams from zip code 75287. watchdog.net. Retrieved on October 28, 2009.
  10. Morgan Smith, "Primary Races Tend to Be Bloody," November 3, 2009. texastribune.org. Retrieved on September 19, 2011.
  11. Demonstrations against PelosiCare Update. texasgop.org. Retrieved on November 2, 2009.
  12. 12.0 12.1 Christy Hoppe, "Munisteri wins election as Texas Republican chairman with 59 percent of the vote". Dallas Morning News on-line, June 12, 2010. Retrieved on June 12, 2010.