With the input of thousands of delegates at their recent biennial convention now tallied, the Republican Party of Texas has announced its legislative priorities heading into the legislative session next year.
During the convention, the legislative priorities committee narrowed down the priorities presented to 15. Delegates then voted to determine the top eight.
These eight legislative priorities are meant to serve as directives for lawmakers on what party members would like to see accomplished during the 140-day legislative session beginning in January.
Today, the Texas GOP announced the top eight priorities for the upcoming legislative session:
1. Border Enforcement
To repel invasion and deter illegal immigration:
- Creating a Texas Department of Homeland Security to prevent illegal entry and trafficking, and to deport illegal aliens to Mexico or to their nations of origin.
- Prohibiting, with mandatory fines and jail time, individuals, corporations, non-profits, governments, and social media entities from assisting or inciting illegal entry.
- Requiring the use of E-Verify by all employers in Texas with significant penalties for business owners who violate this requirement.
- Ending all subsidies and public services, including in-state college tuition and enrollment in public schools, for illegal aliens, except for emergency medical care.
2. Secure Texas Elections
Securing elections from each citizen’s registration to the final count of legal votes by:
- Requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote.
- Requiring the Counties and the Secretary of State to update the voter rolls at least quarterly.
- Requiring a mandatory photo ID for every election, without exception.
- Restricting mail-in ballots to disabled, military, and eligible citizens who are out of their county for the entire voting period.
- Using only hand-marked, sequentially numbered paper ballots on anti-counterfeiting paper that are signed on the back by the election official at the voting location.
- Standardizing in-person voting, with early voting limited to a period of no longer than nine (9) days, no gap before Election Day, and assigned-precinct voting locations only.
- Counting ballots in precinct using a dumb-scanner method as soon as the ballot is returned by the voter and with publication of the results prior to submission to the County.
- Closing party primaries for only registered Republicans.
- Explicitly codifying the ability of the Attorney General to prosecute violations of the Election Code.
- Removing existing Secretary of State waivers to comply with current Election Code.
3. Stop Sexualizing Texas’ Kids
Stopping the sexualization of minors, which leads to abuse, exploitation, and trafficking, by:
- Prohibiting taxpayer funding to any entities that permit or promote sexually inappropriate content to minors and legislatively banning instruction on sexual orientation and gender ideology in schools and libraries.
- Repealing affirmative defenses in Texas Penal Code (43.24, 43.25) and redefining “harmful materials” to remove loopholes provided by the modified Miller Test.
- Establishing an independent Inspector General for Education to investigate fraud, waste, abuse, and criminal conduct within schools and refer findings to prosecutorial authorities.
- Compelling superintendents to report sex crimes within schools to outside law enforcement and removing immunity from civil liability for schools and their employees.
4. No Democrat Chairs
The Republican-controlled Texas Legislature shall end the practice of awarding committee chairmanships to Democrats and require all committees to be majority Republican.
5. Ban Taxpayer-Funded Lobbying
Prohibiting all forms of taxpayer-funded lobbying, including the use of tax dollars to hire lobbyists and payment of tax dollars to associations that lobby the Legislature.
6. Secure the Electric Grid
Securing the integrity of Texas electricity production and delivery of abundant, reliable, and resilient energy, ensuring that the Texas grid can withstand any natural or manmade threat to include weather, cyber, physical, electromagnetic pulse (EMP), and geomagnetic disturbances (GMD).
7. Texas is Not for Sale
Banning the sale of real property in Texas, and discontinuing taxpayer funding and incentives, to governments, entities, and proxies of China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia, and to individuals from these nations who are not legal permanent residents or citizens of the United States.
8. End Federal Overreach
Resisting unconstitutional federal acts and mandates that restrict transportation, including mandatory kill switches in vehicles, road diets, and restrictions on the owner’s right to repair vehicles and equipment. Ensuring that Texans have medical freedom and can give or withhold consent for any vaccine or medical treatment without coercion, are not discriminated against based on vaccine status, and are not faced with any vaccine or medical mandate by public or private entities.
