About the Tea Party

From its inception in February 2009, the Tea Party movement has focused on three core values:

• Constitutionally Limited Government
• Free Market Principles
• Fiscal Responsibility

These core values emerged quickly during the dramatic two month period in early 2009 when the movement first exploded on the scene. As if from nowhere, Rick Santelli’s rant on February 19, 2009 started an unlikely chain of events that brought one million Americans – many first time activists – to nine hundred “Tax Day Tea Parties” around the country on April 15, 2009.

Tea Party Activists, whether they govern their private lives by faith in God or by a secular morality, are all united in their concern about the loss of individual rights stemming from our corrupted Constitution and our corrupt system of representation. They are dedicated to restoring the purity of our original constitutional system in order to pass on the republic intact to the next generation of Americans.

Is it any wonder that Oregon joined a handful of other states on February 27, 2009 and set off the Tea Party revolution? This revolution of inspiration and activism began with a hundred people on the banks of the Willamette and now echoes around dinner tables, churches, business’, and the halls of government. It is a revolution of inspiration and activism that millions have joined.

Now, with the wind at our backs, the Oregon Tea Party is taking the next important steps. Liberty is not a special interest, it is the only interest. In our representative republic, liberty is a solemn commitment and requires work—the committed work of individuals willing to continuously engage government bureaucrats, elected officials and, the special interests who would take our liberty away.