Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick has released the first five interim charges for Texas Senate committees, signaling where the chamber will place its attention ahead of the legislative session next year.
“These first 5 interim charges, released today, reflect issues that I am particularly focused on, and Texans have asked the Texas Senate to study,” Patrick said in a statement, adding that additional charges will be released later in March after senators submit recommendations.
The initial round closely mirrors several controversies and policy battles already unfolding across Texas.
The State Affairs Committee was directed to examine efforts to prevent the application of Sharia law or other secondary judicial systems in Texas, reaffirming that only state and federal law govern Texans.
The charge specifically calls for an examination of the proposed East Plano Islamic Center (EPIC City) development in Hunt and Collin counties, including whether EPIC City, its directors, or associated entities are violating state or federal law. EPIC City was recently renamed The Meadow.
Senators were also instructed to review large-scale real estate acquisitions by entities such as Community Capital Partners, which is the entity behind The Meadow, and consider legislation to protect Texans from housing discrimination and unscrupulous developers.
The Finance Committee was tasked with studying further expansions of the homestead exemption, a central pillar of Patrick’s “Operation Double Nickel” property tax proposal, which would lower the senior homestead exemption age from 65 to 55.
Such a change, Patrick argued, would freeze home values a decade earlier for more than three million homeowners. However, the proposal lags behind a plan pushed by Gov. Greg Abbott, which would seek to eliminate school property taxes entirely for homeowners.
The Business and Commerce Committee was charged with evaluating supply chain integrity for Texas’ electric grid and other critical infrastructure, with a focus on vulnerabilities posed by hostile foreign entities, including China, Russia, and Iran.
The Health and Human Services Committee was instructed to explore ways to prevent fraud and abuse in Medicaid, child care services, and other human service programs.
The Senate Education Committee was tasked with examining public school practices that promote events, partnerships, or associations with federal or state-designated hostile agents or their surrogates. This comes as two school districts are currently being investigated for having been advertised as hosts of an Islamic Games event sponsored by the Council on American Islamic Relations, which has been deemed a foreign terrorist organization by Gov. Abbott.
Lawmakers were also instructed to develop recommendations to ensure public schools promote learning about American and Texas exceptionalism, while strengthening safeguards to prevent hostile foreign entities from infiltrating classrooms.
Patrick said senators have until February 20 to submit interim charge recommendations, after which his office will finalize the full list of charges later in March.
