House Resolutions for Anti-Vaccine Group
and Dead Activist Tripped Up by New Rule
Capitol Inside
February 22, 2025
Texas House conservatives erupted in outrage on Saturday over a new rules interpretation that's prevented them from honoring polarizing political figures and groups in formal resolutions along with people to whom they owe personal debts of gratitude.
State Rep. Jared Patterson - a Frisco Republican who's the new Local & Consent Calendars Committee chairman - outlined the new and more restrictive policy for rules suspensions for the presentations of resolutions on the floor in a memorandum to House members on Friday. Patterson was appointed by GOP Speaker Dustin Burrows to the leadership post last week.
The furor that Patterson ignited has the potential to become a flash point for the chamber's ruling and ever-warring Republicans as the regular session unfolds this year.
But it began as a spat among Republicans in the Denton County delegation when Patterson spurned an attempt by rookie State Rep. Mitch Little of Lewisville to bring a resolution to the floor to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the Texans for Vaccine Choice's conception.
The anti-vaccine group has attacked and sought to defeat some Republican legislators with House Republican leaders as the chief target. The birthday salute in House Resolution 209 showered the far-right group with superlatives that portrayed it in a pioneering and heroic light. HR 209 failed to mention an epic measles outbreak in West Texas that's spread to New Mexico with no end in sight as a consequence of low vaccination rates. The Little resolution was referred to the Local & Consent Calendars Committee on Wednesday.
Patterson added fuel to the flames when he rejected a move by freshman State Rep. Andy Hopper of Decatur to honor Jill Glover - a prominent GOP activist who died last year after a bout with cancer - on the House floor earlier this week. Glover won a seat on the State Republican Executive Committee in 2019. She was tapped in 2020 to chair the state party's legislative priorities committee.
Glover led the charge in that role to end the long-standing tradition of sharing power in the House with a ban on Democratic committee chairs. She blasted then-Speaker Dade Phelan in 2023 for ignoring the call for a minority party chairmanship prohibition when he appointed some Democrats to chairs like he'd done two years before in his first session with the gavel.
Hopper's House Resolution 170 was sent to Patterson's committee on Wednesday as well. Little ripped the resolution derailings in an article that he published on X on Saturday. But Little gave a glimpse into why House leaders would have no interest in celebrating Glover on the floor.
"You see, certain Republican state representatives weren't too keen on honoring Jill Glover, a woman who had held many of them to account repeatedly for their bad votes, bad bills, and disregard for Republican legislative priorities," Little said in the analysis he posted on the fray under the headline The Texas House's New Speech Codes."
Another freshman from North Texas - State Rep. Shelley Luther of Tom Bean - said Saturday on X that Patterson had stopped her from her offering a resolution as a way to thank the staff at a Plano hospital for the care she received as a patient for 26 days after suffering a brain aneurysm. The Texas Legislature's web site doesn't show the resolution that Luther cited and may have never actually filed.
But Luther took a shot at Patterson by posting a copy of a resolution that he sponsored in 2021 to honor the hair on then-colleague Andrew Murr's face as the official mustache in the House.
Patterson said that congratulatory and memorial resolutions must fall now into one of three categories before a member can be recognized to suspend the rules to present them on the floor. The first centers on resolutions that he offered in conjunction with local leadership days or "Association/Group Advocacy Days" at the Capitol in Austin. The second category covers resolutions that honor elected officials who are still in office, retired or dead. But Patterson said it would be limited to people who'd been elected to a state or federal office or a "Texan of cultural significance."
"Political figures will not be considered under this category," Patterson added.
The feud over resolution priorities is the latest extension of the most competitive House speaker's race in modern Texas history. Little, Luther and Hopper all supported State Rep. David Cook for the leadership post as the GOP caucus nominee whose campaign revolved on a promise to only appoint fellow Republicans as committee chairs. The pledge paved the way for Burrows to win the gavel in January with most of the Democrats in his corner.
The Burrows team found a way to play it both ways with a ban on Democrats from chairing standing committee and the creation of subcommittees that he named six Democratic colleagues to chair.
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