Republican Leadership: The Voice of Texas

Republicans have been searching for leadership within the Texas Legislature since we won the majority in the House in 2002. There are many outstanding Senators and Representatives serve, many are strong conservatives that understand the issues exceptionally well.

Few Legislators have had the opportunity and the pulpit that State Senator Dan Patrick has. With a radio talk show and a growing network of conservative media outlets around Texas, Dan Patrick has the ability to energize the conservative voting base and speak about the issues that are important to us.

Senator Patrick has recently released his Patrick Pact for Texas. These are very bold initiatives to bring back true spending restraint, true tax limitations, and true border security, while maintaining the pro-life and pro-family precepts which helped the Republican Party take the majority status in the 1990's in Texas.

The six planks of the Patrick Pact are:

1 Reduce the appraisal cap to 3% per year on all residential property Texans are being taxed out of their homes. We must end the stealth 8–10% annual tax increase on homeowners. If local governments feel a need to raise revenue, they should do so by raising the tax rate; not by hiding behind an automatic appraisal increase. Voters can then determine if the increase was necessary and if those elected officials are worthy of re-election.

2 Illegal immigration – secure our borders now The Federal Government has failed to protect our borders as they are constitutionally required. It is time we use Texas taxpayers’ resources to protect our borders instead of providing services to those that entered this state illegally. It is time for Texans to protect the Texas border.

3 Reduce government spending now We elected Republican majorities in the Texas House and Senate and expected them to be fiscally conservative. Our legislature has let us down. The most recent state budget includes a 20% increase in spending. We should focus on needs-based-budgeting, rather than revenue-based-budgeting.

4 Responsible education funding School budgets and administrative positions have increased faster than student enrollment and classroom teacher positions. The legislature should require that 65% of school spending be dedicated to the classroom. We must focus education resources on the classroom instruction of our children.

5 Legislators should put tax cuts before their own pension increases Legislators found the votes to increase their own pensions in the last legislative session, but after two special sessions could not find the votes to reduce your property taxes or lower the appraisal cap. We should focus first on cutting taxes before we increase legislator’s benefits.

6 We are the majority party and we should govern as such I have called for an end to the so called “blocker bill” in the Senate. For years, this Senate tradition helped ensure civility in the upper house, but recently Democrats have used the practice to block meaningful legislation from being approved. We should end the practice of requiring 2/3 of the Senate to agree before a measure can be considered in the Senate.

Texas needs Republican leadership. Senator Dan Patrick is the man to take the lead.