Patrick’s initial five-item to-do list also included assessing risks posed by hostile foreign entities to the grid’s supply chain and preventing fraud in Texas’ health and human services.
Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick on Friday released an initial list of priorities for Texas senators to consider before they return to Austin for next year’s legislative session, including reducing property taxes and “preventing Sharia law” from taking hold in Texas.
“These first five interim charges, released today, reflect issues that I am particularly focused on, and Texans have asked the Texas Senate to study,” Patrick, a Republican who leads the upper chamber, said in a statement. “Texans can rest assured the Senate will hit the ground running on day one of the 90th Texas Legislature to ensure the priorities of the conservative majority of Texans are accomplished.”
Patrick asked state senators to provide legislative recommendations for the five issues by Feb. 20, adding that he would announce more interim priorities in March. As president of the Texas Senate, Patrick wields enormous power over the legislation that passes into law.
The first issue he listed Friday was “preventing Sharia law in Texas,” a charge he assigned to the Senate State Affairs Committee. He asked the panel to scrutinize the East Plano Islamic Center, a planned Muslim community in North Texas that Attorney General Ken Paxton has sued to stop, and recommend legislation to “protect Texans from housing discrimination and unscrupulous developers.”
Patrick also told the Senate Education Committee to work on “promoting America and Texas first” in the state’s public schools, including by finding ways to “strengthen laws stopping hostile countries or related entities from infiltrating” Texas classrooms. He directed the panel to examine how some schools promote events or partnerships with groups the state or federal government deem hostile agents.
The charge followed conservative outrage at a planned all-ages sporting event called the Islamic Games at a high school in North Texas.
Grapevine-Colleyville ISD officials “severed negotiations” with the group organizing the event after Gov. Greg Abbott and other Republican officials alleged the event was sponsored by the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a nonprofit group that the governor and President Donald Trump have designated a foreign terrorist organization.
Organizers of the Islamic Games said CAIR “has never been, and is not presently, a sponsor, partner, affiliate or supporter” of the sports festival.
The charges are the latest in a wave of anti-Muslim rhetoric and actions taking over Republican campaigns this election cycle, as conservative activists push the GOP to take a harder line against Islam and to prevent it from spreading in Texas.
Texas is home to over 300,000 Muslims — more than all but four states — and long-established Muslim communities in Houston and North Texas.
Patrick also instructed the Senate Finance Committee to assess “Operation Double Nickel,” his proposal to reduce property taxes by further increasing the amount of a home’s value that can’t be taxed to pay for public schools, known as the homestead exemption. The plan also involves lowering the age at which Texans qualify for additional relief on their school tax bills.
Under Patrick’s proposal, the state’s homestead exemption for school property taxes would increase by another $40,000, after Texas voters in November approved the latest increase by the same amount, from $100,000 to $140,000.
Also on Patrick’s to-do list is evaluating the supply chain feeding the state’s electric grid. As part of that charge, he asked the Senate Business and Commerce Committee to identify any “vulnerabilities or potential risks posed by hostile foreign entities,” such as China, Russia and Iran.
And after Abbott directed investigations into potential Medicaid and child care fraud in Texas — a move that came amid a fraud scandal in Minnesota that led to Gov. Tim Walz’s decision to drop his reelection bid — the Senate Health and Human Services Committee will be tasked with recommending ways to prevent abuses in the state’s human services programs.
Patrick is up for reelection this year as he seeks a fourth term as lieutenant governor. The Senate’s 31 seats are currently divided between 18 Republicans and 11 Democrats, with two vacancies in red-leaning districts. One of those seats, Senate District 9, will be filled after a special election runoff Saturday between Democrat Taylor Rehmet and Republican Leigh Wambsganss.
Source: Kayla Guo,
Photo Credit: Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick leads a press conference on stiffening Texas’ bail laws, one of Gov. Greg Abbott’s emergency items for the legislative session, on Feb. 12, 2025. Leila Saidane for The Texas Tribune
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