TX Senate Budget Ripped on Right for DEI
as Harrison Says Dems Hijacked House Plan Capitol Inside
March 25, 2025
The Texas Senate approved a $336 billion biennial spending plan on Tuesday without a single opposing vote in a move that conservative GOP officials outside the Capitol derided as a boon for DEI that all of the Democrats were eager to support as a consequence.
Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick turned to the Bible to characterize the budget plan for 2026 and 2027 in Senate Bill 1. “I believe in the words of Matthew 6:21 “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also,” the Republican Senate leader said in a statement praising the proposal on his web site.
Patrick touted the proposed outlays for public education and teachers specifically in the Senate budget plan. Patrick also said the proposal would foot the bill for "significant" relief from ever-rising property taxes - a claim that failed to resonate with some grassroots activists and elected Republican Party leaders.
Tarrant County GOP Chairman Bo French said the Senate plan would keep the status quo in place on diversity programs that he said have $5 million reserved for them in the spending bill that cleared the upper chamber with minimal debate on the floor.
"It is an increase in spending, has little property tax relief and continues to fund all the billions in DEI that is currently in law," French contended in a post on X. "No wonder the Ds are on board. But why the Rs?"
The appropriations plan in SB 1 would increase spending a mere 0.9 percent in the all funds category - according to the Legislature Budget Board analysis of the two-year plan. But the document's bottom line is more than 70 percent higher than the price tag for the budget that Texas lawmakers approved in 2021 with a $38 billion one-time infusion of stimulus funding for the covid pandemic that then-President Joe Biden and Democrats in Congress approved without a single Republican vote.
As the Senate shift the focus on state spending to the House, a Republican on the Appropriations Committee accused GOP leaders of allowing the Democrats to hijack the budget process in the Capitol's west wing.
State Rep. Brian Harrison of Midlothian sought to block votes that an appropriations subcommittee took Monday on the grounds that the panel ran afoul of the chamber's rules with meetings three days this month in a room at the statehouse that isn't equipped for video or audio recordings that are required for committee meetings.
Harrison - the House leadership's most vociferous critic in modern times - clashed with State Rep. Greg Bonnen of Friendswood as the budget panel chair amid allegations that he was ignoring the rules by taking votes on spending recommendations that were considered in a meeting in the agriculture museum that wasn't recorded. Harrison blasted Bonnen for cavalier behavior after having a point of order that challenged the validity of the votes in a point of order that was overruled by the committee chair.
"Another way to say what you just said in parliamentary jargon is that this committee and everyone associated violated the House rules," Harrison told the committee chair. "But you don't care and are making us vote on it anyway."
GOP Speaker Dustin Burrows raised eyebrows when he appointed Harrison to the Appropriations Committee that he would have the ability to be a far more disruptive force than he's tried to be on the floor. Harrison, a third-term lawmaker who worked in President Donald Trump's first administration, opposed Burrows' election to the dais in January and has ripped the speaker at every opportunity since that point.
Harrison branded the House as a "LAWLESS" institution on Tuesday in a social media post that included a video that showed an excerpt from the subcommittee meeting.
"Watch me expose how DEMOCRAT CHAIRS of the Texas House budget committee wrote the budget in SECRET - spending BILLIONS of your dollars on DEMOCRAT priorities - in clear violation of House rules," Harrison said on X. "The Texas House is corrupt!"
But Harrison's only apparent evidence up to now of a minority party takeover on the budget panel are meetings on March 5, 6 and 12th in the ag museum, the fact that the Appropriations Committee and subcommittees are holding hearings on numerous bills that are being sponsored by Democrats. That is a common practice in the lower chamber where all of five Republican speakers in the past 22 years have had significant support from Democrats.
House members added a ban on Democratic committee chairs to the rules that were approved a week after the Democrats carried Burrows across the finish line in a speaker's race that he couldn't win without them. The Democrats received a consolation prize in the rules that reserved all of the vice-chairs on standing committees for them. Vice-chairs have been token titles that are good for campaign resumes but come with no real power.
But the Burrows team found a way to pacify Democrats with half of the chairmanships on a dozen subcommittees that House leaders hatched in the rules for the 2025 regular session with powers similar to the standing panels' leaders. The rules were ratified with support from all but one of the chamber's Democrats and 22 Republicans casting opposing votes along with a lone Democrat. Freshmen Republicans accounted for 11 votes against the operating guidelines in House Resolution 4.
But Burrows may have lost a gamble if he thought he could soften Harrison up with a seniority appointment to the Appropriations Committee that could have gone to another member in light of his status as a lawmaker who'd only served in one regular session before this year. Bonnen has refused to be drawn into fights that Harrison been picking with the rare use of points of order to sandbag bills at the committee level and relentless attacks aimed at the speaker and his allies.
Harrison threw a flurry of punches in X posts on Monday and Tuesday with claims on Democrats running the show on the west side of the rotunda in Austin.
"Trump won Texas by 14 points," Harrison said. "But the Biden/Harris agenda is alive and well in the Texas House.
Texas should be the number one state in the nation for freedom and liberty. But instead "Republicans" are growing government at a rate that would make DC democrats blush."
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