A freshman member of the Texas House Freedom Caucus wants Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick out of office.
According to the Brazosport Facts, Cody Vasut (R–Angleton) made the comments at a luncheon of the Lake Jackson Business Association on Wednesday. Vasut is the only freshman to be a member of the Freedom Caucus.
“I do not support Dan Patrick for re-election. I think he needs to go,” Vasut is reported to have told the audience. Vasut said there needs to be someone “productive” in that position, which he defined as willing to push the Senate to pass more House-generated bills.
As lieutenant governor, Dan Patrick serves as president of the Texas Senate. (Patrick announced his re-election campaign as lieutenant governor on Thursday.)
”Let me tell you this — your Texas House passed 75 percent of the Senate bills that came over, and your Texas Senate passed less than half of the House bills that came over,” claimed Vasut.
Patrick’s communications advisor, Sherry Sylvester, disputed Vasut’s legislative math.
“The Texas House sent 1261 bills to the Texas Senate – nearly half of those did not arrive until the last ten days of the session when there was no time for them to be heard in Committee. A third of them – 452 – did not have a Senate sponsor. Of the 809 bills that had sponsors, the Senate passed 608, or 75%. The Senate sent 672 bills to the House — everyone of them had a House sponsor. The House passed 503 of those bills, or 74%,” said Sylvester in a statement to Texas Scorecard.
Vasut’s tirade against Patrick and the Senate came after he was asked about the House’s failure to pass Senate Bill 7, the marquee election integrity bill. Despite House Speaker Dade Phelan allowing the Democrats to break quorum and kill the bill, Vasut painted the problem as the making of Patrick and the Senate.
Sylvester noted that “the House didn’t appear to want pass a great deal of conservative legislation, even when it had the support of the overwhelming majority of Republicans — like taxpayer funded lobbying, social media censorship and the ban on transgender sports.”
The end of the legislative session was thrown into disarray, with marquee conservative reforms killed, when State Rep. Jeff Leach (R–Allen) recessed the Texas House for three days in retaliation for the Senate not passing more bills sponsored by House Democrats.
Leach’s action, which was supported by the GOP-dominated House membership, specifically killed legislation designed to protect children for gender reassignment surgeries. Indirectly, other Republican priorities died due to the House’s self-imposed scheduling deadlines.
Texas Scorecard asked the chairman of the Texas Freedom Caucus, State Rep. Mayes Middleton (R–Wallisville), for a comment on Vasut’s statements. Middleton had not responded at the time of publication.
[This article was updated to include quotes from Sherry Sylvester.]
