Thomas Pauken - Chairmanship of The Texas GOP

Chairmanship of The Texas GOP

In 1994, Pauken was elected chairman of his state party organization with strong support from Reagan conservatives and social conservatives disenchanted with the so-called "stand-patism" and moderation of the outgoing chairman, Fred Meyer, an ally of former President George Herbert Walker Bush. Pauken won the chairmanship by defeating a last-minute challenge waged by still serving U.S. Representative Joe Barton of Ennis, whose district at the time stretched from the Dallas southern suburbs to Bryan-College Station.

During Pauken's tenure as chairman, the Republican Party gained majority status in Texas, and he was re-elected chairman in 1996. He chaired the Texas delegation to the Republican National Convention in 1996.

The party continued to experience divisions between its establishment faction and its conservative wing. In 1996, Bill Price, a social conservative who had opposed Pauken when he ran for state chairman in 1994, led an effort to deny the naming of U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison as a delegate to the Republican National Convention in San Diego, California, on the grounds that Hutchison is not pro-life. Pauken supported the selection of Hutchison as a delegate to the national convention, and she was elected a delegate at the state convention. The issue became divisive at the state convention even though Senator Robert Dole already had secured enough delegates to win the Republican nomination for president.