Contact: Carrie Cantrell 571-480-4891

The following are the prepared remarks of RSLC President Scott Ward from a conference call this morning, January 27, 2009.  Please contact Carrie Cantrell at the above information if you would like to follow up on these remarks.

Good morning.  I’d like to start off by giving you some background on the RSLC and then discuss the future of the Republican Party from our perspective.

The Republican State Leadership Committee (RSLC) is the only national organization whose mission is electing Republicans to the office of Attorney General, Lieutenant Governor, Secretary of State and state legislator. We like to say the RSLC is the largest caucus of Republican state leaders in the country – 3,276 strong at last count – making a national impact one state at a time.  We have over 70,000 donors from all 50 states supporting the RSLC’s goals to pursue a pro-growth agenda.

During the 2008 election, the RSLC helped maintain the number of Republican Attorneys General and Lieutenant Governors across the United States. In addition, the RSLC was able to deliver new Republican majorities in the Montana, Oklahoma and Tennessee State Senates, as well as an unprecedented majority in the Tennessee House of Representatives.

Since the November elections, we have had success in three special elections for state legislator.  Tom Kovach won the special election for the 6th District of the Delaware House, which includes part of Vice President Biden’s hometown, and Joan Huffman came from behind to win in a run-off election for the Texas Senate.  Barry Knight won a special election in the 81st Virginia House of Delegates District in the backyard of new DNC Chair Governor Tim Kaine.

For the last six years we have been building what we call the “farm team for the future” of the Republican Party.  State Republican leaders are bucking the federal losing trend the Republican Party has seen in the last few elections.  This should be a lesson for our party.

Republican leaders like Attorneys General Rob McKenna and Tom Corbett won easily in Washington and Pennsylvania despite overwhelming majorities for Barrack Obama at the top of the ticket.  Newly-elected Senate President Glenn Coffee in Oklahoma led a Republican take-over of the Oklahoma Senate for the first time in history.  Last cycle, Kentucky Secretary of State Trey Grayson won re-election on a day when many other Republicans on the ballot went down to defeat.

Now the party finds itself electing a national chairman at a time when there is no obvious head of the Republican Party.  During the run-up to this election each of the candidates has been talking about the importance of state level races.  They’re right – the importance of the down-ticket races, not just Governors – in particular, Attorney General, Lieutenant Governor, legislator and Secretary of State – must be a priority if we are going to rejuvenate the Republican Party and build a new generation of Republican leaders.

You may not be aware, but this year, 30 former state legislators were sworn in to Congress and our new President was a state legislator just five years ago.  For those of you keeping count, he is the 22nd president who was once a state legislator.

The RSLC is committed to continuing to do our part in building a Republican farm team and cultivating a revolution of ideas.  We need to reenergize our party – by looking forward to new solutions to modern issues.  It is clear that this is what the people of America want and rightfully demand.

So, why do we believe that state elected officials are so important?  And, what does the future hold?

The states have long been the incubators of ideas and the formation of leaders.  Welfare reform and education reform, for example, were put in place at the state level well before Washington made its mark.  By sticking to core principals, Republican leaders can put forth ideas to advance opportunity in a global economy, educate more scientists and engineers to develop independent and alternative energy sources, provide affordable health care, and keep our states and nation strong, to name a few.   That’s the direction we need to be heading.  That’s the message we want to put forward.

This year is a key building year for our party.  Statewide and legislative races in Virginia and New Jersey, rightly or wrongly, will be looked at as a bellwether for 2010 – when there will be 30 attorneys general, 11 lieutenant governors, 86 legislative chambers and 26 secretaries of state up for election.

We are not oblivious to the fact that the political environment may still be challenging – but with the right focus and energy we believe we can be successful.  Just look at what the RSLC accomplished in the last two election cycles – in difficult political environments – we are much better positioned than the prognosticators thought we would be.  We strongly believe that we can be successful in 2010 by increasing the number of Republican leaders at the state level.

So while we are encouraged by the increased rhetoric and spotlight on the states by those focused on Washington politics – we look forward to putting that new focus into action by helping important state Republican leaders who are the future of the party.  We at the RSLC will continue to build upon our successes – making a national impact one state at a time.