James Dickey (Texas politician)

On March 4, 2014, Dickey was elected Travis County Republican Party chairman, in an uncontested Republican primary. He succeeded Rosemary Edwards, who served in that position from 2008 until Dickey's election.

Dickey choose to run for reelection as Travis County chair in 2016, but he was defeated in the March 1, 2016 election, 26,619 to 20,543 (56.4% to 43.6%) by Robert Morrow.[5] Travis County Republican Party leaders immediately wanted to remove Morrow because he would wear a court jester's hat to county party meetings, speculated on famous assassinations and conspiracy theories, promoted his book on the Clintons he co-authored with Roger Stone, and turned over all operations of the county to his vice-chairman.[6][7]

The defeat to Morrow lead to Dickey temporarily losing the Travis County chairmanship from March 1 to September 20, 2016. Dickey was re-elected as the Travis County chair after Morrow was disqualified and forced out of office after Morrow announced a write-in candidacy for U.S. President against Donald Trump.[8][9] After Morrow's disqualification and forced removal, Dickey defeated, 62–26, the political consultant Brendan Steinhauser of Austin, who managed the successful John Cornyn Senate re-election campaign in 2014. Steinhauser said he could not say he would vote for Trump. Dickey made it clear that Trump was not his original choice but he would vote for him.[5]

On May 20, 2017, Tom Mechler of Amarillo, Texas resigned as state party chairman. Mechler cited time constraints and business and family matters for the resignation. Having worked in 2016 to unify the Donald Trump and Ted Cruz factions in the Texas GOP, Mechler called for party unity and outreach in his departing statement. While still holding the position of Travis County chair, Dickey decided to run for state party chair in the spring of 2017. Candidates who ran against Dickey for the position of state party chairman were Richard Scott "Rick" Figueroa of Brenham, Texas and Mark Ramsey, a state committee member from Spring in Harris County.[10] Figueroa was Mechler's choice for party chair.

On June 3, 2017, the 62-member State Republican Executive Committee and the vice chair narrowly chose Dickey to succeed Mechler as state chair. Dickey polled 32 votes to 31 for Rick Figueroa, a wealth management executive in Houston.[11][12] Matt Mackowiak of Austin was elected to replace Dickey as Travis County Republican Party chairman and finish one year of Dickey's unexpired term.[9]

Dickey chose to run for reelection in 2018 as Texas state party chair. He faced Cindy Asche, a precinct chair in Collin County, Texas, north of Dallas. Asche loaned herself almost $200,000 to finance her campaign.[13] On June 15, 2018, at the Texas Republican convention in San Antonio, Dickey received 22 votes to Asche's 9 votes among the 31 Texas Senate districts.[14] Asche of Frisco, Texas, a nurse and the chaplain for the Texas Federation of Republican Women, demanded that all of the delegates to the state convention vote on the state party chairman contest. Dickey won the vote of the full convention with 5,680 votes to Asche's 3,009 votes, 65.4% to 34.6%.[15] Asche ran a negative campaign focusing on the complaints of former state party employees and a 2004 Securities and Exchange Commission complaint against Dickey[16] as a result of his past partnership at a hedge fund that lost $20 million in 2001 for the Art Institute of Chicago. The SEC charged Dickey with violating securities registration provisions, antifraud provisions, and broker-dealer registration provisions of the securities laws.[17] Dickey paid a fine to the SEC without admitting guilt.[18][17]

In July 2019, Dickey announced he would be running for reelection at the July 2020 state convention in Houston. He was challenged by former Congressman Allen West.[19]

After President Donald Trump proposed to move the 2020 Republican National Convention from North Carolina amid Coronavirus restrictions, Dickey volunteered Texas as a potential venue, saying, "Texans know how to and can safely have a big event like that as we reopen Texas." Dickey later mentioned Fort Worth, San Antonio, Dallas, and Houston as possible locations if the convention were hosted in Texas.[20][21] National Republicans decided to move the national convention to Jacksonville, Florida, instead of Texas.

On July 9, 2020, the Texas Republican Party, with support of Dickey and the SREC, a 64-member body that serves as the governing board to the state party, sued Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner, the City of Houston, and Houston First corporation. The lawsuit seeks to allow the state party to hold their state convention at the George R. Brown convention center, demanding specific performance of the lease between the state party and the Houston First, the management team of the Brown convention center.[22]

On July 20, 2020, he was defeated in his re-election attempt for state chairman by Allen West.[23] The chairman position was voted on at the Texas state Republican convention, where West won 22 of the Texas's 31 Senate district caucuses, with Dickey winning only 9 of the caucuses.[24]