Texas House Takes Atlanta Braves Lead
with Vote for Tomahawk Steak as Symbol Capitol Inside
April 15, 2025
The Texas House voted overwhelmingly on Monday to declare the tomahawk ribeye as the state's official steak in a move that was designed to upstage the Senate where the push to memorialize a selective cut of beef originated.
House Concurrent Resolution 101 cleared the Legislature's lower chamber on a vote of 134 to 10 after a fun-poking pep talk by GOP State Rep. Ken King of Canadian as its sponsor.
King attributed the genesis of the House proposal to a resolution that Republican Senator Kevin Sparks of Odessa filed on March 4 in a bid to change the name of the New York strip in the Lone Star State to the Texas strip. King suggested that HCR 101 was necessary to keep a second-rate piece of red meat from being lionized in state law with Senate Concurrent Resolution 26.
Democrat State Rep. Terry Canales of Edinburg joined nine conservative Republicans in the opposition to the steak designation proposal in HCR 101. Canales pointed out that Texans consume way more skirt steak in fajitas than rib-eyes that look like tomahawks with long bones protruding from the meat as handles.
The GOP members who turned thumbs down on the King resolution frequently vote against proposals that Republican Speaker Dustin Burrows' team supports. One of those - State Rep. Katrina Pierson of Rockwall - told the House Journal clerk after the tally that she actually supported HCR 101 despite being listed in the dissent.
None of the representatives who cast votes against the King resolution said they did so because they're vegan. None of the nays expressed resentment about the official steak of Texas having a name that many Native Americans might find offensive based on the long-running outcry over the "tomahawk chop and chant" that Atlanta Braves baseball fans have been doing together since the early 1990s.
The controversy over the tomahawk as the team's symbol erupted again in the 2019 World Series when a St. Louis Cardinal relief pitcher from the Cherokee Nation said he found the chop and chant to be a highly offensive way of depicting Native Americans as cavemen.
The criticism prompted the Braves organization to quit handing out red tomahawks made from foam to fans at home games. The club announced that it would review the mascot traditions and policies after the leaders of the Muscogee Nation and Cherokee Nation denounced the tomahawk use as a symbol and war cry.
At a Texas Capitol where Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick has bragged repeatedly about the Senate's fast-track pace on his designated priorities, HCR 101 gave the more deliberate House an opportunity for one-upsmanship in that regard. King filed the resolution two days after Sparks dropped SCR 26 in the hopper.
The Texas strip proposal was referred to the Senate Water, Agriculture & Rural Affairs Committee two days after its filing. The panel has taken no action on the resolution since that time.
But the House has viewed the steak branding flap as a higher priority - having held two public hearings on HCR 101 in March before the State Affairs Committee that King is chairing for the first time in the regular session this year. The panel voted unanimously to advance the resolution on March 26.
The Texas & Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association, the Texas Farm Bureau and the Texas Cattle Feeders Association all endorsed the King resolution at the hearings. No one signed up in opposition to the maneuver at the committee level.
But there's a rub. Both of the steak resolutions would be worthless without the other chamber's approval.
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