Republican Report - Message from Dave - 3/14/08

On behalf of the entire Republican leadership team, I would like to thank those of you who attended our caucus last Thursday and gave us a unanimous vote of confidence to continue along the path set for us by Mike Whalley. The last two weeks have been extremely tough on us all and, while we all recognized the need to move on in the absence of our Republican Leader, we also realized quickly that we could not replace him as the leader of our caucus.

The decision to keep his seat vacant in his honor and memory, both in the House chamber and as our leader, was clearly the right thing to do. With just a few weeks remaining in the session, I am pleased that we all realized that this was not the time for an election that could not only prove divisive to our party but could have forced us to lose focus on the issues that were so important to Mike Whalley.

The dream and goal of Mike Whalley was to return us to the majority in the House and we need to remain unified in our efforts to accomplish that goal. Please remember that the door to the Republican office, as in the past, is always open and you can feel free to call upon our leadership team with any issue that is important to you.

We will be holding a Republican caucus on Tuesday morning at 9:00 A.M., prior to the session, and again on Wednesday and Thursday, if necessary. We will let you know if there is a need to caucus on those days. Again, we thank you for your support. Let us now unite and work to return the House to Republican leadership.—That is what Mike would want us to do.

-Dave