Senate Boss Seizes Wheel in Texas House
with THC Vote and No Fight from Speaker
Capitol Inside
May 22, 2025
After taking an entire decade to eliminate Democratic committee chairs, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick needed only five more months to establish himself as the first Texas leader to control both chambers of the Legislature simultaneously with a House vote on Wednesday night for a THC ban.
The House capped off the historic Patrick power grab on Thursday with an initial vote for Senate Bill 11 - a school prayer period mandate that advanced to a final vote on a 91-51 tally. The Senate president can expect the ruling House Republicans to approve a Ten Commandments requirement for public schools this weekend with debate set for Saturday on the floor before a deadline on Sunday for votes on bills that originated in the Capitol's east wing.
GOP Speaker Dustin Burrows has appeared content to let Patrick take the wheel in the House down the stretch of the regular session that closes for business on June 2. Patrick had showered the first-term speaker with flattery as the speaker with whom he says he's had the best relationship since taking the Senate helm in 2015. That's due in large part to the fact that former Republican House leaders Joe Straus, Dennis Bonnen and Dade Phelan to a lesser degree refused to let Patrick dictate the agenda in the lower chamber when they had the gavel and members from both parties who were willing to fight the lieutenant governor when he tried to push his views on the Republicans in the House.
Patrick got most of what he wanted on property tax relief in 2025 after steamrolling the House on the perennial issue two years ago. Patrick was the chief force behind a high-priority measure that's designed to ban selective foreign interests from buying land in the Lone Star State in Senate Bill 17. The House approved an amendment that watered down the bill substantially and appears destined for the cutting room floor in a conference committee that's negotiating a final product that Republicans in the lower chamber will be expected to support without dissent in their ranks based on their behavior this week.
But Patrick appears poised to pull off a feat that no one else in Austin could hope to achieve with a film incentives proposal as the mastermind behind Senate Bill 22. The measure that's designed to bring movie and television productions back to the state with a $500 million infusion from the Legislature. SB 22 has been awaiting a date on the floor in the Calendars Committee, which has signaled its intent to move the measure before the window for votes on Senate bills closes Sunday.
A border security proposal that Patrick designated as a top 10 priority for the regular session is on track to pass with unanimous support from House Republicans when it appears on the calendar for Saturday. SB 8 would give elected Texas sheriffs the ability to enforce federal immigration laws.
But Patrick arguably had his finest hour in 10 years on the current job when he injected himself into a potential bloodbath on the fate of a prosperous THC industry in Senate Bill 3. The speaker's team appeared to be supporting a regulatory and taxation plan that GOP State Rep. Ken King of Canadian spent vast sums of time crafting as a high-ranking Burrows lieutenant in his role as the State Affairs Committee chairman. The King rewrite sought to do the job that lawmakers had neglected with regulations, excise taxes and licensing standards and fees in a bid to save a prosperous industry that's mushroomed across the state with nearly 9,000 retail outlets that employ more than 53,000 people in Texas.
The Republican who carried Patrick's water on THC - State Rep. Tom Oliverson of Cypress - is a physician who pitched the THC prohibition on the grounds that medical professionals should decide whether Texans should be allowed access to cannabis products with a formal prescription and long-term treatment plan. Oliverson echoed Patrick's claims on hemp stores selling poison near schools while brushing off Democrats' objections to the inflammatory rhetoric as wildly overblown in light of the fact that no one has ever died or overdosed on a product that's dramatically weaker than alcohol without the obvious dangers.
But the consensus that King thought he'd built for the House version of SB 3 unraveled overnight after intervened behind the scenes in a development that led Republican leaders in the lower chamber to throw their colleague from the Panhandle under the proverbial bus with the Oliverson amendment.
Texas GOP lawmakers were already operating in fear of President Donald Trump when Abbott targeted Republicans who defied him on school vouchers by giving massive sums of campaign cash to primary challengers in 2024. But the House had a history of standing up to Patrick before falling in line behind Senate Republicans in an attempt to escape Patrick's potential wrath by voting the way he wanted.
While some conservatives have complained frequently about Burrows empowering Democrats, the reviews on the current speaker have been good overall on both sides of the aisle during his maiden voyage in the dais. Burrows may have decided to let the House work its will come what may. He may fear that he can't win a second term as speaker if Patrick turns against him.
That's a risky proposition in a chamber where Republicans could trust speakers like Bonnen and Straus to have their backs in clashes with Patrick and the Senate.
more to come ...
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