Missouri Republican Party

The Missouri Republican Party is the affiliate of the United States Republican Party (GOP) in Missouri. The party Chairman is David Cole, an attorney from Cassville, Missouri who was elected in January 2009^[1].

Current Republican officeholders

Republicans hold two of the state's six statewide offices, a majority in the Missouri House of Representatives and a supermajority in the Missouri Senate. Republicans also hold one of the state's U.S. Senate seats and six of the state's nine U.S. House seats.

State

• Lieutenant Governor: Peter Kinder
• State Auditor: Tom Schweich

Federal

• U.S. Senate
  • Roy Blunt
• U.S. House of Representatives
  • Todd Akin, 2nd District
  • Vicky Hartzler, 4th District
  • Sam Graves, 6th District
  • Billy Long, 7th District
  • Jo Ann Emerson, 8th District
  • Blaine Luetkemeyer, 9th District

Platform

Family and education

The Missouri GOP believes that families are the bedrock of Missouri. The party tries to pursue policies that strengthen families and get rid of those that weaken the family structure.

The Missouri Republicans support:

• Legislation that helps adequately fund public schools.

• Efforts to adopt a system that gives parents the ability to help their children escape failing schools and give them the option to attend the school of their choice.

• Efforts to address the urban education crisis that has already sacrificed the futures of generations of young people

• Foundation formula that funds education based on the needs of children instead of the taxing capacity of a school district

• Education savings accounts that are tax exempt and may be used for meeting education expenses for each individual or family member without penalty for withdrawal

• Policies that stress the importance of parents in the education system and allow and encourage parents to play an active role in their local education system

• Authority of parents as the primary educators of their children in all matters, including morality and sexual responsibility

• Primary role of parents to provide a safe, loving and nurturing environment as well as the guidance, discipline and moral upbringing of their children

• The fundamental right of parents to raise their children according to the convictions of their family and faith, to be the primary authority to determine and direct the nurturing, health care, education, guidance, discipline, and moral upbringing of their children including, the ability to home-school or send children to faith-based schools free of burdensome government regulations.

• Protecting children in our public schools and any public entity where computers and the Internet are made readily available from pornography on the Internet, with local entities choosing the proper filter.

• Rejecting the establishment of school-based clinics/health links that dispense contraceptives and provide abortion counseling.

• Requiring the informed consent of a parent or guardian before providing health, mental health or substance abuse treatment services to minor students in public schools.

• Local school boards in their efforts to guarantee quality instruction and to remove the rare unfit teacher

• Empowering local school districts to determine how best to handle the teaching of creationism and the theory of evolution

• Encouraging people to use their real life experience to teach in elementary and secondary schools

• Republican success in increased funding for Missouri’s public universities and colleges through the appropriations process and the Lewis and Clark Discovery Initiative.

The fundamental right to life

The party believes that civil rights are for all citizens, regardless of race, color, religion or creed and also the fundamental right to life for born and unborn children, the terminally ill and the handicapped. The party believes that laws should be provided for all of these people. The Missouri GOP supports the idea that life begins at conception and they support and effort for a human life amendment to the Constitution. They hope to endorse the idea of applying the 14th Amendment to unborn children and encourage the teaching abstinence and sexual responsibility to young people

The Missouri Republicans support;

• Legislation overturning Roe v. Wade and the appointing of federal and state judges that respect the sanctity of innocent human life.

• Current state law providing women seeking an abortion with information

regarding alternatives such as adoption, and increasing tax credits to encourage adoption.

• Legislation requiring that a minor obtain parental notification and consent before obtaining an abortion

• An immediate end to partial birth abortion

• Current state law that stops taxpayer money from being spent on abortions or being given to organizations, which perform abortions or make abortion referrals.

• Legislation that prevents public employees from making abortion referrals.

• Current state law that ensures that abortion clinics meet the same Department of Health standards required of comparable surgical facilities in the state

• The continuing opposition to fetal tissue research and efforts to eliminate such research within Missouri.

• The compassionate work of individuals and organizations that offer alternatives to abortions by meeting the physical, emotional and financial needs of pregnant women and those support systems necessary for legal adoption

• Legislation to prohibit all human cloning

• Missouri’s new law that prohibits abortion providers from providing presentations or materials to public school classrooms.

• Legislation to define and standardize Missouri’s informed consent law, and to prohibit and penalize coercion of women to have an abortion

• Governor Blunt’s continued watch guard over public funds by weeding out and ending any undisclosed program funding through abortion provider.

• Legislation to prohibit "assisted suicide."

Marriage

The Missouri Republicans believe that the traditional family is the foundation of our great history and critical to our country's future. Building futures through hard work and personal responsibility are American values and the Missouri GOP looks to encourage those values through government policy. The party supports that marriage should take place only between one man and one woman, and only those types of marriages will be recognized regardless whether they are done in Missouri or in any other state or country. The party also looks to end the marriage penalty in the tax code.

Comprehensive health security

The party believes that every citizen in Missouri should be able to choose and access a health plan that meets their needs at a price that they can afford. They believe that seniors deserve to get more health care choices and assistance where needed. They support Governor Blunt's initiative to modernize the health care program and replace the existing one with MO HealthNet, hoping that it will provide greater access and make health care more affordable. The party believes in empowering Missourians to purchase their own personal health insurance and they support reform laws that stopped the abuse of the judicial system through the filing of lawsuits.

Faith

Missouri's Republicans accept that Missouri's many different faith communities are essential to society. They support and embrace faith communities, because of the charity, virtue and shared prosperity that can be provided from religion. The Missouri GOP believes in protecting the religious freedoms of citizens. The party supports freedom to practice religion and they believe that this should include the ability to pray in school. They support the protection of the acknowledgement of God in our public life and keeping the phrase "one nation under God" in the Pledge. Missouri Republicans support all effort to honor and preserve America's religious heritage.

Homeland security

Missouri Republicans believe in taking the war on terror directly to our enemies. They support the work of the federal and state Departments of Homeland Security and the coordination of the gathering and use of intelligence. They support the application of the Patriot Act to prevent terrorist attacks while protecting our individual liberties. The GOP supports increased security at our borders to stop illegal immigrants from entering our country and revising the system of monitoring the status of visas.

Operations and solutions

Economy and jobs

The GOP opposes job-killing policies. They pledge to oppose Democrat-backed policies that could stifle economic recovery. Republicans vow to hold the line on taxes and believe that the private sector creates new jobs more efficiently than any government program could.

Health care

Republicans believe that Americans are opposed to federal health care legislation. They plan on controlling the cost of insurance by introducing more competition. The Missouri GOP supports allowing groups of people to pool together and purchase health care at lower prices.

Energy

The Missouri GOP stands for finding a pro-consumer, pro-job, pro-America energy policy that will emphasize market-based solutions and the use of inexpensive, secure, and reliable domestic fuel resources to grow the economy. They want to break America's dependency on

External links

• Missouri Republican Party
• Missouri Federation of Republican Women
• Missouri Young Republicans
• Missouri College Republicans

References

1. ^ Missourinet: Missouri Republicans choose attorney David Cole as new party chair: http://www.missourinet.com/gestalt/go.cfm?objectid=E61AF94F-5056-B82A-37CA30D8BFD5F497