Smith For U.S. House of Representatives

April 30,2010 - Houston      The Houston Tea Party Society hosted an event at the Crowne Plaza hotel to allow candidates for the 2010 Congressional Races in the Houston and Southeast Texas to participate and sign the Contract From America.    The event was open to all congressional Candidates in the South East Texas area including incumbents and challengers.

The Contract from America is self described as a grassroots-generated, crowd-sourced, bottom-up call for real economic conservative and good governance reform in Congress.   The initative was developed within the decentralized tea party and 912 movements. Ryan Hecker, a Houston Tea Party Society activist, developed the concept of creating a grassroots-generated call for reform prior to the April 15, 2009 Tax Day Tea Party rallies.

John Culberson (R ) of Texas District 7 was the only incumbent present for the signing.    The candidates in attendance included Libertarians Bruce West of the 8th district, David Smith of the 2nd District and Steve Susman of the 22nd District.   Republican signers for the contract were John Faulk - District 18.

John Culberson was the first to sign the contract.   Before signing the contract, he took exception to the 9th item which was to reduce pork.   The contract states that congress will not pass any earmarks until the budget is balanced and only then with a 2/3 majority vote.    Culberson declined to include that item and used a "Line item veto" with that rule.

All other candidates signed the contract without any exceptions or exemptions.   David Smith who is opposing Ted Poe of the 2nd Congressional District, used his time to mention "Fiscal Responsibility is vital to our economy and our government."   He also noted that he had been busy campaigning in a non-stop door to door campaign.

When Bruce West, the Libertarian challenger to Kevin Brady of the 8th district, signed the contract he stated "I am not sure why anybody would have a problem with eliminating pork and the moratorium on earmarks.   We have seen other candidates who have gone to Washington with a campaign promise of not adding any earmarks and they were successful in keeping that promise." Bruce also said "while this Contract FROM America is a great start and reflects the general overall feelings of America, I must add my own addendum with items that are vitally important to my district." The addendum that Bruce added to the contract included Term Limits, Border Control before Immigration Control, Line Item Vetos among other items.

Steve Susman, the Libertarian candidate opposing Pete Olson, said "I am going to Washington to support small business.   I own my own business and I know the troubles that other small business owners are suffering from.   I know we need a government to get off our backs and let us do business.   In addition to the 10 items in the contract, I want to add the items that Bruce West has added also.   My district is still recovering from Hurricane Ike and the addendum will address that issues that we have trying to get flood insurance and compensation from FEMA."

John Faulk (R ) who is running against Shelia Jackson Lee asked for support. He mentioned the voter fraud and deception that runs rampant in his district. He requested others to support him by volunteering to be alternate election judges during the election.

The Actual Contract text is seen on the Contract From America menu or on the website www.thecontract.org

Houston Tea Party Society Holds Signing Event for Contract FROM America