Buckle up, Texas Republicans. The election is behind us, and it’s time to prepare for the 88th Legislative Session. After an election where Texas Republicans won every statewide office by double digits and grew our State Senate and House majorities, conservatives should expect a bold session focused on delivering the priorities Texas Republicans campaigned upon. In order to accomplish this, we will need your help, a lot of effort, and prayer.

The RPT convention delegates chose 8 Legislative Priorities this session:

• Protect our Elections
• Secure the Border and Protect Texans
• Ban Gender Modification of Children
• Stop Sexualizing Texas Kids
• Ban Democrat Chairs
• Abolish Abortion in Texas
• Defend our Gun Rights
• Parental Rights and Educational Freedom

For the details of each of these priorities, please go here. The sub-committee chair is listed under each priority. Please contact them if you have questions or would like to get involved.

Of course, there are other important issues RPT will be advocating for as well, like property taxes, fighting ESG, medical freedom, and protecting the grid. Chairman Rinaldi has created a Platform Advocacy Committee to address these important issues and others that are in our platform but are not priorities.

Our first priority of focus is Banning Democrat Chairs, which will likely receive a vote in the first few days of the session via an amendment to the proposed House rules. Currently, the Speaker awards chairmanships to Democrats as well as Republicans. Last session, despite a Republican majority, approximately 40% of House committees were chaired by Democrats. This must change! Our voters clearly gave Republicans a majority in the Legislature and expect Republicans to lead.

For a good summary of the issue, please see Rep. Brian Harrison’s recent appearance on Newsmax.

Why is this such an important issue?

1. Democrats in leadership have a pulpit and significant power over legislation. They control what bills are heard and what bills are voted upon.
2. The Democrat chairs fundraise off their chairmanships and use that money to defeat Republicans during elections.
3. There are 8 current Democrat members of the LGBT caucus who are committee chairs. If any of our bills to protect children from sexual orientation and gender ideology indoctrination end up in their committees, they will not advance.
4. When the Democrats broke quorum last session and fled to Washington D.C., Speaker Phelan indicated their chairmanships could not be revoked. So, if he is re-elected Speaker, he will not remove them, no matter what they do in their positions.

What can you do to encourage our representatives to vote for a rule change?

1. If you have not already done so, send a handwritten postcard to Speaker Phelan, asking that he not appoint Democrat committee chairs. The address is PO Box 2910, Austin, 78768. Also, send a postcard to your own Representative - it's the same address.
2. After you've sent a postcard, make phone calls to your own State Representative and Speaker Phelan's office, asking that they support the rule change to ban Democrat chairs. If they have already come out in favor of the rule change, thank them.
3. Ask your representative to make a public statement that he/she supports the Ban Democrat Chairs Legislative Priority. He/she can put it out in a formal statement, a Tweet, a Facebook post, say it in a public forum, or however, he or she chooses, as long as it’s public.

Speaker Phelan's Austin number is 512-463-1000. His District office is 409-745-2777. Call either or both. For your own Representative's number, if they are an incumbent, you can find their phone number by clicking here, then click on the photo or name. For the new Freshman members, it will take a week or two for the lists to be updated online, but you can always contact them through their campaign websites until the State lists are updated.

The RPT has partnered with a Texas small business to sell shirts that say, "Ban Democrat Chairs".

You can order the shirt by clicking here. They are $15 plus $10 shipping. If you want to get together with others and order large quantities, you can have as many as you want shipped to the same address for the flat shipping rate of $10.

This is what the shirts look like - not fancy, but direct and to the point.

Please post pictures of yourself wearing your shirt with the hashtag, #NoDemChairs to social media. We will be in Austin the week of opening session January 10-12 wearing our shirts and meeting with our Representatives. Please come join us if you can.