GOP Lawmaker Rips Hometown Crowd
for Fiasco that Vouchers Pitch Becomes
Capitol Inside
March 3, 2025
A conservative Republican lawmaker told Texas House leaders on Monday that he'd have to get the boot from the powerful Appropriations Committee before he'd back off a war that he's waging against diverse, equity and inclusion programs and policies that he says the state has bankrolled.
But
State Rep. Brian Harrison issued the ultimatum to Speaker Dustin Burrows and State Rep. Greg Bonnen as the Appropriations Committee chairman in a post on X that included a copy of a scathing letter that he directed to the budget panel leader earlier today.
Harrison found himself defense at the same time while defending himself earlier on the social media site in the face of allegations that he'd implemented DEI policies as a federal official before a foray into elective politics. Former State Republican Executive Committee member Mark McCraig depicted Harrison as a DEI facilitator in his job as chief of staff at the Health and Human Services Commission during President Donald Trump's first term.
Harrison expressed outrage at the suggestion that Bonnen had accused him of behavior that was "unacceptable and beneath the dignity" of the House as an admonishment for a scene last week at a budget hearing when he hounded a witness about DEI until she broke down crying. But Harrison portrayed himself in a heroic light instead in the note to Bonnen.
"Given that you, as the Chair of House Appropriations, are personally responsible for billions of Texans' hard-earned dollars being weaponized against their values and spent on DEI," Harrison said. "I realize that my unprecedented work in the Committee uncovering DEI is upsetting to you because it exposes you as a fraud for telling voters you support `conservative policies'."
Harrison drew a line in the sand for the leadership. "If you want me to stop asking questions regarding the billions of dollars the Texas government is spending on DEI you will have to kick me off the committee,"
Harrison said in the tweet.
Harrison said the budget committee had given Democrats "oversight" over at least 96 state agencies. Harrison threatened to release a video with evidence of a Democratic chairman waging "expletive-laced, racist tirades" against Republicans on the floor and in committee as well.
Burrows appeared to be playing with fire when he named Harrison to the budget committee as one of a dozen seniority appointments. Harrison's selection to the highly-coveted panel raised eyebrows in light of the fact that he has less experience as a legislator than any of the other 11 seniority appointees. Harrison entered the House in October 2021 after a special election win that summer. He served in one regular session before this year.
As the leadership team's most frequent and acerbic critic on the floor, Harrison had the potential to be dramatically more disruptive and destructive as an appropriations panel member than he's been as a fixture at the back microphone with constant grievances about the way the chamber is being run by Democrats and Republicans indebted to them. A seniority appointment suggests that Burrows had no other candidates for such a designation with more experience in the House as options for the seat that he assigned to Harrison.
State Rep. Shelby Slawson - a Stephenville Republican who had two full terms under her belt - is the budget panel's second least experienced member with two full terms under her belt. All but two of 14 House members who won appointments to the Appropriations Committee from the speaker backed Burrows for the leadership post in January. Burrows appointed five freshmen - three Republicans and Democrats - to the budget panel along with six Republicans and one Democrat who are in the midst of second regular sessions to the committee that's developing the House version of the new two-year state budget.
It isn't clear whether Burrows would pick a replacement if he sought to remove Harrison from the committee like he may feel he's been dared to do.
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