Patrick Brands GOP Speaker RINORAD
Amid Outrage on Property Taxes Op-Ed
Dade Phelan Touts Homestead Exemption
Capitol Inside
September 3, 2024
Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick took an unexpected swing at Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan on Tuesday when he accused him of claiming phony credit for a property tax reduction proposal that originated in the Senate last year.
Having failing to oust Phelan at the polls this spring with Donald Trump as a weapon, Patrick expressed his extreme displeasure with a newspaper column on the tax fight that the speaker composed in July for the hometown Beaumont Enterprise. Patrick capped off an unusually long post on X by labeling Phelan as a "Republican in name only, really a Democrat" - or RINORAD.
Patrick provided a step-by-step account of the debate on the homestead exemption in 2023 - from its conception in the east wing to a roller-coaster ride that it experienced in the House.
"Dade is a bald-faced liar on this issue, and he knows it," the Texas Senate president asserted. "He says the House took the lead in passing the homestead exemption. The truth is he tried to kill the $100K homestead exemption for four months after he passed it, just for show. It's revisionist history for Dade to try to cover up his multiple attempts to kill the bill."
Phelan gave the clear impression in the op-ed that the House hatched the plan to boost the exemption on homesteads for local taxes that Texans pay on principal residences. But Phelan declined to go into the kind of details into which Patrick delved in the Phelan column castigation and refutal post.
The speaker gave the House credit for an annual increase from $40,000 to $100,000 in the homestead exemption. While the Senate clearly was the chief force behind the residential tax break, the House boost it the initial limit of $70,000 to the $100,000 break that lawmakers approved in special session last summer.
House leaders appeared to favor a homestead exemption hike but used the proposal as leverage in an attempt to force the Senate to go along with the Phelan team's push for lower appraisal caps. House Republicans held the homeowners break hostage - vowing to block it until Patrick capitulated on appraisal reform - which he'd promised to have GOP senators kill regardless of the potential affect on the residential exemption.
Patrick held his ground after the House passed a tax compression measure that Governor Greg Abbott endorsed before adjourning immediately on the first day of a special session last year. House leaders thought they were giving Senate Republicans an ultimatum that they simply could not refuse. Take the House and Abbott plan or kill a package worth $18 billion in breaks.
Patrick never flinched and eventually got most of what he'd demanded from the start in the battle over property taxes last year. But House members who voted for the plan put themselves into position to take their fair share of credit for it as well. Patrick dubbed
Phelan "California Dade" during the property tax clash. He made it clear again he wasn't impressed by the speaker's antics on taxes.
Phelan "was all hat and no cattle when it came to increasing the exemption and giving homeowners the bigger tax cut," Patrick wrote on X.
"I will expose him every time he plays this game that he likes to play, to kill legislation important to Texas," the lieutenant governor warned. "I understand the DWD (Done with Dade) group is growing within the House. His only path to remain Speaker is for all or a large majority of Democrats to vote for him. Let's not forget that he won his recent primary run-off by about 300 votes because Democrats crossed over in big numbers and took the Republican primary from the voters of East Texas. Dade Phelan is the ultimate #RINORAD."
Patrick could still be stinging from a primary election that Phelan won in a runoff despite stringent opposition from Patrick, Trump, Attorney General Ken Paxton and other MAGA loyalsts. Patrick invoked the same basic arguments on property taxes in an unsucessful pitch for a challenger who lost to State Rep. Morgan Meyer of Dallas in the March 5 primary vote. Meyer, the chairman of the tax-writing Ways & Means Committee, defeated the Patrick candidate in round one.
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