SECOND OPEN LETTER REGARDING 2026 RPT TEXAS LEGISLATIVE PRIORITIES

This is to supplement my email of yesterday about other priorities that I support being presented to the RPT State Convention delegates at next week’s convention in Houston. I am writing in my personal capacity and as the leader of the 9,500 strong Texas Legislative Priorities Facebook group that focuses on helping formulate priorities, discussing them, and supporting the RPT Legislative Priorities process during Texas Legislative sessions.

I will not address here the End Federal Overreach, Don’t Sharia Texas, and Assist Deportation priorities I addressed in yesterday’s email from Texas Constitutional Enforcement. Instead, I will discuss other priorities and my thoughts about what direction we should head this cycle. I propose the following:

Replace No Democrat Chairs with Reform Texas House

Having served on the RPT Legislative Priorities No Democrat Chairs Subcommittee trying to implement the priority at the legislature, I know that we failed on No Democrat Chairs last cycle. To make matters worse, Texas House leadership tried to gaslight us to say they complied with it when the SREC and the grassroots knew that they did not.

I said during the engagement on this priority last cycle that what we really wanted was reform of the Texas House processes that are designed to tilt the playing field in a direction that increases the likelihood of our other priorities and conservative legislation. But the ask was very narrowly tailored.

We should reformulate our ask this session, going to the heart of what we really want. I propose that this cycle, the priority have to do with reforming Texas House process and be named Reform Texas House. I propose it be written as follows (Click here for a PDF or Word version of this priority):

Reform Texas House

The Texas House rules and culture should be reformed to decentralize power to individual members and away from the speaker and appointed chairs and to insure that decisions on what bills and issues are heard and voted upon are done so by the majority party and parliamentary process, not by Democrats, and that the speaker and House rules be decided in the majority party caucus, not by a small group of Republicans teaming with Democrats to gain power, including the following:

• The Speaker of the Texas House and the Texas House Rules should be decided in the Texas House Republican Caucus without deals with members of the Democratic Party.
• Chairs of committees, including subcommittee chairs and the Speaker Pro Tempore should be Republican and vice chairs shall not be given power to choose bills or issues for hearing.
• All committees shall be majority Republican.
• The Texas House Rules shall include a discharge process by which a bill supported by a majority of members must be heard in committee, voted in committee, and placed on the House Calendar in a timely fashion.
• Authors of bills may bring a motion to the floor to reassign a bill to a committee other than that assigned by the Parliamentarian.
• Ensure all GOP legislative priorities receive a floor vote before any Democrat bills.
• Stop hyper-technical points of order, require points of order to be filed the day before a bill is on the Calendar, and require broadcast and recording of point-of-order debates.
• Start committee hearings on bills as soon as committees are created.
• Prohibit the distribution of political funds from the Speaker to primary campaigns.

Present a Property Tax Elimination Priority to the Delegation

I believe that the delegates will make some form of Property Tax Elimination a top eight priority this year.

As a member of the Platform Committee in 2022, I wrote the two planks on Property Tax, the first calling for ultimate elimination of property tax (without replacing it with income tax), and the other calling for interim steps toward total elimination. Most of that language stayed intact in the 2024 Platform.

I leave it in your hands to determine whether we make a bold claim for immediate, total elimination using a consumption tax to replace revenue, or whether you talk about the goal of total elimination while calling for the first two interim steps in the platform – 1) elimination of school property tax over time using only a large portion of each cycle’s surplus; and, 2) replacement of the appraisal system with a clerical recording of the purchase price going forward.  (I note that the second option was made a priority by the RPT in 2018.)

The purpose of a priority is to make us a stakeholder in the process. Historically, it is the governor and the lieutenant governor that set the broad outlines for what will happen on property tax. They certainly want to dominate what happens in 2027 on property tax. It is my assessment that neither the governor, nor the lieutenant governor want to go as far as either of my proposed approaches (although the governor has called for using the surpluses over time to eliminate school property tax in the past.). I also believe that the RPT delegates and the GOP primary voters as evidenced by their 88% vote for Proposition 1 this year want more than the governor and lieutenant governor will do without pressure from the Party.

Because the Party has made great strides in influencing the legislature with its priorities, this wording of the property tax priority will give make us a substantive negotiator on property tax for the first time in 2027. Given that, you have to decide whether asking for everything you want, or asking for what you think you can get is a better approach for this priority.

Here is a link to wording for a substantive gradual elimination in PDF and Word.

Here is the gradual elimination language:

Eliminate School Property Tax

As interim steps toward the goal of elimination of all property tax, the Texas Legislature and Governor should:

• Eliminate school property tax over time by amending the Texas Constitution to dedicate a large share of future surpluses to buy down school district maintenance and operation property tax until that type of tax is completely eliminated, funding school districts on a per student basis from general state revenues.
• Replace the appraisal system and districts with a clerical system that freezes current valuations in place and revalues property at the purchase price for future purchases.

Let’s Try Again on Secure Texas Elections

It is my opinion that what the current Texas House leadership gave to the Dems in the bargain with them so leadership could get power was our election integrity priority. We only got 10% of the Secure Texas Elections priority last session. Election integrity remains a major priority in the minds of most Republicans.

I have no suggestions for improvement of the priority, but know that several experts do. I hope we keep most of what we had and add enforcement mechanisms suggested by those activists.

Let’s Try Again on End Taxpayer-Funded Lobbying

When I watched this priority being born in the 2018 Legislative Priorities Committee meeting, those who proposed and voted for it understood that not only is using tax dollars against the will of the taxpayer an outrageous tyranny and violation of rights, it is a vital part of the puzzle of getting property taxes eliminated. We need to try again with the same wording this cycle.

I note that it was Ken King, Chair of the Texas House State Affairs Committee, that is solely responsible for killing of this priority last session. That is one of the reasons I added a discharge petition to the Reform Texas House priority above. If the bulk of the Texas House wants to vote for one of our priorities, we should have a process to blow past an obstructive committee chair.

We Need a Stop Sexualizing Texas Kids Again this Cycle

I assessed that we got 45% of what we wanted with Stop Sexualizing Kids last cycle. And we need to do even more to ensure that remove grooming books from the kids’ section of libraries, we need to rip the transgender and grooming agenda out of every part of Texas law and institutions, including our family code, medical and mental health professions,  and school counseling.

James Talarico’s candidacy and completely opposite stance on this issue makes this even higher of a priority for the Party.

I am leaving the crafting of this priority to the fantastic experts we have on this issue, but please include this priority to be presented to the delegates because I suspect they will agree that we have LOTS more work to do in this area.

Major Success of Secure the Electric Grid Makes It Lower Priority for Me, But Delegates Need the Choice

I assessed that we got 67% of our Secure the Electric Grid priority last time. I believe that this making it to the RPT priorities for the first time last session, enabled us to help Bob Hall pass his grid protection bill on his and our sixth try!

Do we still have work to do to reduce and counter the destabilizing influence of wind and solar subsidies? Definitely yes. Do we still need to mitigate the nuisances and environmental dangers of Battery Energy Storage Systems in our communities? Yes.  Do we need to add ensuring that data centers do not bring down our grid or consume our groundwater? Yes. Do we need to make sure that we actually implement the hardening of the grid started with Bob Hall’s bill? Definitely.

So, I see the need for presenting to the delegates this priority to push on solar/wind destabilization mitigation, to regulate BESS deployment, to monitor progress on Hall’s bill and to add data center impact. I personally will probably not vote for it to make the top eight, but the delegates need to have that choice.

We Need a Medical Freedom and Executive Overreach Priority

We are still learning all the ways COVID tyranny, implemented via the unconstitutional Texas Disaster Act, along with federal and employer vax mandates harmed Texans. I welcome a priority covering what is needed to make sure that disaster never happens again in Texas. I do not have proposed language, but bet that Texans for Vaccine Choice do.

Total Success of Texas is Not for Sale Means it is Not Needed this Cycle

For your convenience, here is a picture of the 2024 RPT Priorities: