Written by Amanda Coers – On the heels of the Citizens Against Ranger Tax Annexation (CARTA) Facebook Group’s successful mobilization of local communities to defeat a vastly unpopular proposal by Ranger College, comes a new politically-minded group: “Big Country We The People.”
The group was established on Facebook on December 16th and has swelled to over 800 members in just a few days. The membership appears to be comprised of mostly Brown County residents, with some members from Eastland, Erath, Comanche, and Coleman counties.
One of the group’s administrators, Garry Yeilding, posted soon after the group’s creation, explaining its purpose.
“When CARTA was started, no one, especially Ranger College, thought it would grow into a solid group of like-minded individuals like it did. We were willing to fight back against a new, needless tax being placed on our three counties,” Yeilding wrote. “During that time there were many posts about wasteful spending that was happening in our area. People responded that it was time for our local officials to stop this spending. We the People was organized so that can be accomplished. We have demonstrated the strength in numbers and are ready to take it to the next level by demonstrating to city, county, ISD boards and even state officials that tax and spend is no way to run an entity. No one, individual or organization, has ever spent their way out of debt.”
While CARTA was grassroots politics at its truest form, Big Country We The People is not exactly free from outside influence.
Big Country We The People was created by Zachary Maxwell, former Chief of Staff for District 60 Representative Mike Lang. Maxwell is currently employed by Empower Texans.
Formed in 2006, Empower Texans is the largest taxpayer advocacy group in Texas. The organization is made up of three entities, including Empower Texans, a 501(c)(4) nonprofit (also known as Texans for Fiscal Responsibility), the Empower Texans Foundation, a 501 (c)(3) nonprofit, and the Empower Texans PAC, a general-purpose political action committee. SOURCE: www.transparencytexas.org/empower-texans
At its founding in 2006, Empower Texans’ original focus centered on what was happening at the state level. Since that time though, Empower Texans has aggressively pursued delivering news and information to voters about what’s happening at the local, county, and city level as well. Empower Texans has since opened local “bureaus” in the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex, Houston, Central Texas, West Texas, and South Texas.
Originally from Cisco, Zachary Maxwell assisted Garry Yielding, Julia Taylor and Ranger resident Donna Thackerson with creating the We The People Facebook group.
“We saw the need to create this group off the heels of the big CARTA win. We felt that the CARTA group needed and rebrand to a new group with a similar goal. To hold our local, state, and federal elected officials accountable and end and change the tax and spend culture inherent in today’s government process,” Maxwell explained.
Topics of discussion within the group range from the current proposition to city and county entities to continue a contract for Bob Turner’s legislative consulting services to potential improprieties of Brown County Judge Ray West.
Social media platforms, especially Facebook groups, give citizens a chance to unite their voice in the hopes of being heard by their government representatives. As more citizens become web-savvy, the potential for sharing their concerns with each other and bringing about change continues to grow.
