Republican state legislators in Texas were busy last week.

State Rep. Todd Smith pushed legislation that would suppress voting.

State Rep. Linda Harper-Brown found herself under an ethics cloud for accepting gifts in an apparent conflict of interest with her position on the House Transportation Committee.

And State Rep. Wayne Christian was assembling a new platform for the Texas GOP.

The Texas Republican Party held their annual convention last week, and Rep. Christian chaired the Platform Committee, which came up with a 25-page manifesto proclaiming the state party’s allegiance to “freedom and opportunity,” among other things.

Some select items from the 2010 Texas Republican Party Platform (all emphases are added):

We support legislation that would make it a felony to issue a marriage license to a same-sex couple and for any civil official to perform a marriage ceremony for such.

We demand that Congress exercise its authority granted by the U.S. Constitution to withhold jurisdiction from the federal courts from cases involving sodomy.

We support an immediate and orderly transition to a system of private pensions based on the concept of individual retirement accounts, and gradually phasing out the Social Security tax.

We urge the Congress to defund, repeal, and reject the national healthcare takeover, also known as “ObamaCare” or any similar legislation.

Education falls under the 10th Amendment to our United States Constitution. Given this, the Department of Education (DOE) and No Child Left Behind (NCLB) have no jurisdiction and must be repealed.

We pledge our influence toward a return to the original intent of the First Amendment and toward dispelling the myth of separation of church and state.

We deplore all discrimination. We also deplore forced sensitivity training and urge repeal of any mandate requiring it. We urge immediate repeal of the Hate Crimes Law.

We call on the Legislative, Executive and Judicial branches of these United States to clarify Section 1 of the 14th amendment to limit citizenship by birth to those born to a citizen of the United States: with no exceptions.

We call Congress and the President to use their constitutional powers to restrain activist judges. We urge Congress to adopt the Judicial Conduct Act of 2005 and remove judges who abuse their authority. Further, we urge Congress to withhold Supreme Court jurisdiction in cases involving abortion, religious freedom, and the Bill of Rights.

And these are only a few of the gems of the Texas GOP platform.

One plank in particular has a special significance in Texas statehouse elections this fall. Basically, it’s an enforcement clause that reads, in part:

The Republican State Chairman and county chairs are responsible for implementing this platform by requiring party candidates to indicate their positions on platform planks before their acceptance on the ticket … We support the withholding of campaign contributions to organizations or campaigns … who do not support the principles of the 2010 Texas State Republican Party Platform.

So all Republicans for whom Texans vote this November support privatizing Social Security, depriving the Supreme Court of much of its jurisdiction, repealing hate crimes legislation, generally altering the U.S. Constitution to suit their fancy… and that’s just for starters.

State Rep. Linda Harper-Brown is going to have a tough time with the conflict of interest plank.

[h/t Political Correction]

In Nevada, Republicans control the state senate by a single vote. They also, apparently, don't have much to be excited about as a party. Citing lack of interest, GOP leaders in the state were forced to cancel their state convention and hold a conference call instead:

The state party broke up its original convention in April when supporters of Ron Paul hijacked the proceedings and tried to elect delegates for their candidate to the national GOP convention in September. Party officials tried to reconvene on July 26, but they needed a quorum of 675 and received only 300 RSVPs, according to local reports.

Here's to hoping that Republican supporters decide to stay home on Election Day, too.