Texas Senate Pulls Con Job on House GOP
with Medical THC Boost as Patrick Ban Bait
Capitol Inside
May 24, 2025
Texas House Republicans may feel like pigeons in a con game after a Texas Senate panel voted Friday to gut a proposed expansion of the state's medical cannabis program that Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick vowed to support in exchange for a bill that the lower chamber the day with a resurrected ban on THC.
The State Affairs Committee made liars out of Patrick and GOP allies who led the charge for a THC prohibition that cleared the House in Senate Bill 3 the day before when the panel vote that stripped chronic pain and other debilitating health problems from the list of conditions that would qualify for treatment under the Compassionate Use law.
GOP Speaker Dustin Burrows appeared to support a regulatory plan for a rapidly-growing hemp industry that he designated Republican State Rep. Ken King of Canadian to carry as a high-ranking lieutenant who chairs the State Affairs Committee. But House Republicans rallied instead behind the Patrick prohibition in an amendment that GOP State Rep. Tom Oliverson of Cypress sold based on assurances from Patrick that the Senate would back the expansion of the Compassionate Use law in a separate piece of legislation that King authored in House Bill 46.
The Senate dismantling of the expansion that King proposed in HB 46 could be Patrick's way paying the powerful House Republican back for removing the THC ban from SB 3 in favor of regulations scheme that would save a $6 billion industry that has more than 10,000 small Texas businesses that employ 53,000 people across the state. Veterans would be the biggest losers with the Senate committee's cancelling of the lieutenant governor's vow to ensure that the Senate strengthened the Compassionate Use program as an ostensible concession for an all-out ban on THC products for adults.
The State Affairs Committee that Patrick controls wasn't concerned about the Senate president's credibility with the vote to weaken the Compassionate law despite the promises he made on the day of the initial House vote on SB 3 with the reinstalled ban.
"I am in full support of expanding the TCUP (compassionate use) program," Patrick said in a post on X on Wednesday. "We will expand licenses and have satellite locations for the first time for prescribed products from doctors for our veterans and those in need."
Patrick sought to scare House Republicans into abandoning King in favor of prohibition when he threatened on the same day to force a special session if the lower chamber failed to give him exactly what he wanted on SB 3.
Oliverson used the Compassionate Use expansion in HB 46 as leverage to pitch the ban that Patrick had demanded along with the same unsubstantiated accusations, baseless claims and draconian scare tactics that were common in marijuana exploitation propaganda films after the Prohibition Era ended in the 1930s. But Oliverson offered no legitimate evidence to back up Senate claims that he parroted in the sales job on the amendment with the ban.
Oliverson has acknowledged that the remarks on Compassionate Use expansion proved to be untrue thanks to the Senate panel vote. But he is vowing now to fight to bolster the medical program that the Senate appears poised to weaken
House Republicans and Democrats alike are speculation in the meantime on the possibility that Patrick had been trying to butter Burrows up with flattering on social media in recent weeks as a way of setting the House up for bluffs and the eventual steamrolling on THC and other potential issues on which the Republicans in the west wing disagree.
The first-term speaker's leadership appeared to wilt in the face of pressure from Patrick when he failed to have his sponsor's back during the fight on the ban that only two House Republicans - former Speaker Dade Phelan and King - opposed in the Oliverson amendment.
more to come ...
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