The 89th Texas Legislature gaveled to a close June 2. Here is the final report on how the Texas Constitutional Enforcement 2025 Legislative Agenda fared. Note that on most of the bills below, we are waiting to make sure that Governor Greg Abbott allows passage.
End Federal Overreach
We batted .300 in pushing back on the feds, seeing three of the ten bills we supported in this area pass, but falling short on our flagship legislation, the Texas Sovereignty Act. The three success were:
Anti-Red Flag Act
The most significant victory this session for pushing back on the feds was the passage of the Anti-Red Flag Act (SB 1362). John Cornyn was one of the main proponents of the “Bipartisan Safer Communities Act” that passed in 2022, which provided federal funding to states that implement red flag laws called “extreme risk protective order.” Texas debated that issue in that time frame and soundly rejected red flag laws on due process, right to keep and bear arms, and common-sense grounds. Most Texans concluded that merely taking the guns away from someone that is actually a threat to themselves or others is poking the bear, aggravating someone who is unstable by taking their guns free to use any other tool (including other guns) available to kill. (The recent example of the jihadi illegal terrorist using Molotov cocktails is a good example of how those determined to inflict mass casualties can do so without guns.)
For Cornyn’s role in pushing red flag laws and other restrictions on the right to keep and bear arms, Cornyn sustained loud, sustained boos at the 2002 Republican Party of Texas State Convention.
Of course, Texans also recognized the potential for corrupt weaponization of red flag laws for political or personal vendettas is high. In fact, evidence of the Biden VA illegally abusing the red flag process against Texas veterans was presented in the hearings for this bill.
The motto of Texas Constitutional Enforcement is “Let Texans Run Texas.” This session, we made clear that we will not allow other states or ideologically weaponized federal agencies to violate the rights of Texans, especially including our veterans. Passage of the Anti-Red Flag Act was a Republican Party of Texas Legislative Priority.
By the way, Briscoe Cain wrote and introduced this bill in the House and Senator Bryan Hughes introduced it in the Senate. Cain was on the outs with the Uniparty speaker team, so they did not give him the credit of passage, handing it instead to Burrows team member, Cole Hefner to sponsor it in the House when it arrived from the Senate.
Disconnect Federal Firearms Restrictions from Texas Law
SB 1596 removed the duplication of National Firearms Act federal restrictions on short-barrel rifles from Texas law. The National Firearms Act, itself, is unconstitutional because it infringes on the rights of Americans to keep and bear arms. At the very least, Texas law should not repeat the injury, and this bill adds to previous session removal of prohibitions in Texas law on ownership of suppressors. One of the implications of this move is that another Texas law passed in 2021 that prohibits Texas law enforcement from assisting the feds in enforcing restrictive firearms laws that do not exist in Texas law will now apply to enforcement of restrictions on short-barrel rifles.
Thanks to State Rep Richard Hayes for championing this legislation and the Senator Brent Hagenbuch for getting through the Senate so that Hayes could finish it in the House.
Protect County and District Attorneys From the Feds
SB 888 allows the Texas Attorney General to defend Texas county and district attorneys in federal actions against them for enforcing Texas law. See my testimony to the Senate State Affairs Committee for Texas Constitutional Enforcement in favor of this bill. In that testimony, I discussed the push back by the Biden administration on Texas during the border crisis as the genesis of this bill. I pointed out that Texas peace officers need this protection, too. And I pointed out that the long term goal of Texas Constitutional Enforcement is to see the Official Oppression Act, which makes it a crime for public servants to violate the rights of Texans to be deployed against federal agents who exceed the bounds of the Constitution.
This bill was a Republican Party of Texas legislative priority. Thanks to State Senator Lois Kolkhorst and State Rep Jeff Leach for championing this bill protecting the sovereignty of Texas. And thanks to Governor Abbott for signing this bill on May 24.
End Federal Overreach Bills that Died
Texas Sovereignty Act
This has been the flagship bill of Texas Constitutional Enforcement since 2017. The bill creates a joint legislative committee that recommends unconstitutional federal acts for declaration by legislature and governor. Also allows citizens standing in the state judiciary for declaratory judgments declaring federal acts unconstitutional.
For more details on the Texas Sovereignty Act, see: txce.org/texas_sovereignty_act
For answers to frequently asked questions about the approach of the Texas Sovereignty Act, see: txce.org/faqs
The Texas Sovereignty Act is mentioned positively by name in the RPT Platform. Probably because the RPT declared this bill to be a legislative priority, it made it to the House floor for the first time in five sessions and passed on a party line vote.
We figured we would have smooth sailing in the Texas Senate, thereafter, but ran into fatal opposition there that we still do not completely understand. We know that Senator Brian Birdwell has always been hostile to the idea of Texans declaring acts of the federal government unconstitutional instead of meekly complying with whatever the feds and the federal judiciary said. He was the face of the opposition in our hearing in Senate State Affairs. But we figured we would be able to pass despite his opposition. After all, the Senate last session ignored his opposition to standing up to the Biden administration on the fed-enabled border invasion.
But Birdwell clearly had influence behind the scenes that denied us a vote in State Affairs on the bill. And he even had enough allies to completely gut the bill in Senate State Affairs, producing a bill that actually made it harder to push back on the feds, and not only passing it over Senator Hall’s objections out of committee, but actually passing it through second reading in the Senate. Only a procedural error in the end game of the Senate, stopped the passage on third reading.
Bottom line, the Texas Sovereignty Bill did not cross the wire this session. We clearly have some education and persuasion to do in the Senate and maybe with the Lieutenant Governor.
Thanks to State Rep Cecil Bell, Jr for championing the Texas Sovereignty Act for five sessions and for Senator Bob Hall’s valiant try in the Senate.
Don’t Mess With Texas Elections
Texas Constitutional Enforcement has long looked for ways to limit if not outlaw the amount of money out of state billionaires can use to influence Texas state and local elections. There are three types of money from out-of-state that need to be limited – direct contributions to the campaigns by individuals, direct contributions by PACs, and direct campaign expenditures on behalf of a candidate.
State Senator Middleton introduced a bill that would put limits on individual direct contributions to campaigns and an outright prohibition on contributions by majority out-of-state funded PACs to campaigns called SB 405. Former Speaker Dade Phelan filed its companion HB 3592 and moved it through House State Affairs to passage by the House after stripping out the PAC restrictions and leaving only limits on out-of-state individual contributions to campaigns.
The Senate took no action on either Middleton’s bill or the watered-down House bill.
Stopping out-of-state money from influencing Texas elections is an essential part of state sovereignty and stopping the Deep State from bringing down Texas. We hope to keep trying on this front in the future.
Protect the Texas National Guard
Members of the Texas National Guard, part of our organized militia, are normally under the authority of the Texas governor unless called up by Congress for declared wars, insurrections, or invasions. But the federal government has gotten in the habit of allowing the president to call up the Texas National Guard for undeclared wars. The Protect the Texas National Guard, seeks to protect Texans from serving and dying in undeclared foreign wars, making it clear that Texas will only send its militia to serve the Union only when constitutionally called.
State Rep Briscoe Cain authored this RPT priority bill, and it died after hearing, but without a vote in Cole Hefner’s House Homeland Security Committee.
Resist FBI Weaponization Against Texans
Freshman State Rep filed two bills (HB 1982 & HB 3932) pushing back on weaponized federal law enforcement being used against Texans. One required feds to get sheriff and AG permission for arrests and searches in county and prohibited federal nighttime raids and no-knock raids. These bills were denied a hearing in Ken King’s House State Affairs.
Note, under the new House Rules, state sovereignty bills should have been assigned to the newly formed Intergovernmental Affairs Committee, designed to take pressure off the State Affairs Committee, but Burrows’ parliamentarians who assign the bills assigned them to the crowded State Affairs, instead. The subcommittee of Intergovernmental Affairs called State-Federal Relations was virtually unused this session. Most bills assigned there were resolutions. Only 13 bills were heard, and only one (SB 906 by Blanco allowing the Ysleta del Sur Pueblo tribe to hire peace officers) actually passed and went to the governor.
Run Texas Elections Separately from Federal Elections
ver since Nancy Pelosi tried in 2021 to federalize election law, Texas Constitutional Enforcement has been trying to prepare for another such assault by separating Texas and local elections from federal elections, insuring that any federalization of cheating mechanisms would not impact our state and local elections.
HB 209 by Mike Schofield and SB 106 by Bob Hall were introduced to that effect, but neither got hearings in the respective chamber’s State Affairs Committees.
Refuse to Cooperate With Federal Health Emergencies
Texans blindly following the “experts” of Big Pharma and a power-obsessed federal health bureaucracy caused untold numbers of Texas deaths. Senator Bob Hall tried to stop that from happening again with SB 131 by stating in statute that future Texas governments will not implement federal health emergencies, but rather will implement whatever measures are enabled under Texas law and with the independent judgement of Texans. The bill never got a hearing in Senate State Affairs.
All of these bills that died had been designated as End Federal Overreach RPT legislative priorities.
Fighting Inflation, CBDC, Globalism, and ESG
After hearing warnings from people like Glenn Beck in 2022, Texas Constitutional Enforcement realized the external threat to Texas liberty from globalists and financial pressure in a concerted effort called the Great Reset by the World Economic Forum. We worked to implement planks in the RPT Platform opposing the gamut of the globalist financial assault on Texas liberty.
An integral part of the Great Reset and the ultimate police state tool is the planned deployment of Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC). And Texas Constitutional Enforcement has pushed solutions to try help Texans cope with the ravages of inflation and CBDC.
Texas Constitutional Enforcement batted .400 on pushing back on the globalists this session, seeing 4 of the 10 bills pass. Sadly, one of our flagship bills, the Currency Choice Amendment made it through the Texas House again than last time, but failed in the Senate again, despite making it further than previously. See details below.
Our resisting globalism successes were:
Transactional Gold
Texas Constitutional Enforcement participated with a broad coalition of economic liberty organizations to see the glorious passage of the HB 1056 which will provide ability for Texans to use a credit card or digital app to spend stored gold or silver in ordinary transactions. Having the state of Texas provide an alternative to the dollar and to the looming specter of CBDC makes it more possible that ordinary Texans can resist inflation and CBDC.
Thanks to champions State Rep Mark Dorazio and State Senator Bryan Hughes for doing heroic work to get this bill passed. Arkansas and Florida had already recently beat us to the punch on this, so it was vital for Texas that we not be left in the dust by those other states.
Protect the Speech of Texans from Globalist Corporations
SB 512 by Lois Kolkhorst stops money transmission service providers like Paypal from imposing fines on free speech. Thanks to State Rep Mike Schofield for filing the companion and shepherding through the Texas House.
Proxy Advisory Firm Disclosure of Advice Based on Non-Economic Factors
SB 2337 by Bryan Huges requires that proxy advisory firms advising money managers on how to vote proxies on shareholder proposals disclose when they are basing their advice on ideological, rather than economic factors. This helps cut off the capture of corporations for the implementation of non-economic, ideological ESG (environment, social, governance) criteria.
Resisting Globalist Capture of Texas Big County Prosecutors
HB 45 by State Rep Lacey Hull gives AG prosecutorial authority for human trafficking law after 6 month inactivity by DA. Joan Huffman carried the bill through the Senate.
Bills Fighting Inflation, CBDC, Globalism & ESG that Died
Currency Choice Amendment
HJR 175 seeks to add a protection to the Texas Bill of Rights of our natural right to hold and trade any medium of exchange including cash, coin, digital currency, and scrip. After gaining a bipartisan vote in the Texas House far greater than the two thirds required for constitutional amendments, HJR 175 failed without a vote after a hearing in Senate Business & Commerce. The stated reason for the lack of vote was an insufficient number of votes in that committee.
Thanks to Andy Hopper for introducing, to Stan Gerdes for carrying it, and to Gio Capriglione for supporting behind the scenes after taking to passage last session. Thanks to State Senator Tan Parker for being our champion in the Texas Senate.
Anti-ESG Bill
SB 495 Kevin Sparks would have stopped Texas Department of Insurance from implementing rules that implement ESG. Sought to expands upon what Tom Oliverson and Ken King accomplished last session. The bill passed the Senate and died in House Calendars after being delivered in plenty of time by House companion author and sponsor Dennis Paul.
Go Woke. Go Broke
SB 2138 by Brandon Creighton would have prohibited investment of Texas university funds in funds that boycott fossil fuels companies. Passed the Senate, but got out of Terry Wilson’s House Higher Ed too late to make it through Calendars. The good news is that the State Board of Education is already implementing this approach in exercising its fiduciary duty in the stewardship of the funds.
Resisting Globalist Capture of Texas Big County Prosecutors
There were multiple approaches to trying to get law enforcement back in the big counties of Texas this session. I will not address the three competing approaches to the approach both chambers landed on as the way forward. Three bills implemented the same approach this session on different areas of the law. That approach was allowing the Attorney General to prosecute after 6 months of inactivity. As mentioned above, we had a success with that approach on human trafficking, but the other two bills addressing election law and riot law enforcement failed.
The story of how HB 5138 by Matt Shaheen, the bill to give the AG enforcement of election law after 6 months of inactivity, was killed is quite revealing and frustrating. The bottom line is that there were slight disagreements between the Senate and House on what DA inactivity meant. The House refused to confer with the Senate version and Speaker Burrows chose key members of his team to populate the House conferees along with author Mat Shaheen – Republicans Charlie Geren, and Drew Darby, along with two powerful establishment Democrats, John Bucy and Chris Turner. I do not know whether Shaheen went along, but the majority of the House conferees refused to agree to anything, and the bill died.
The bill to allow the AG to prosecute riot law after 6 months of inactivity HB 5318 by State Rep and former Sheriff A.J. Louderback was heard in House State Affairs, but not voted out.
One final bill of note that died in this area was SB 1210 by Senator Bryan Hughes with companion HB 933 by David Spiller. The bill would have allowed the Texas Supreme Court to overturn opinions interpreting the Texas Constitution by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. Presumably, the main purpose of this was to overturn the State v. Stephenson opinion that stripped the AG of any independent prosecutorial authority. The House bill died in Calendars, and the Senate bill passed the Senate and died in Jeff Leach’s Judiciary & Civil Jurisprudence.
End Texas Executive Overreach and Protect Texas Medical Freedom
Only one medical freedom or bill ending executive overreach for future pandemics backed by Texas Constitutional Enforcement passed this session. Call that one out of ten hits a batting average of .100.
The bill that did pass was a glorious victory for the hero of the resistance to COVID tyranny in her freshman session, State Rep Shelley Luther!
HB 3441 requires vaccine manufacturers who advertise their product in Texas to be liable for the damage done to Texans. Federal law passed at the behest of Big Pharma in the 1980’s provides immunity for vaccine manufacturers from product liability. Regulation of health matters is a traditional power reserved to the states. I consider the federal immunity to be a violation of the Seventh Amendment, the Tenth Amendment, and proper application of the Commerce Clause. This bill cleverly ties the liability to the act of advertising, thereby seizing some power back to Texas to protect its citizens without directly taking on the feds.
Executive Overreach Limitations Bills that Died
We need to amend the Texas Disaster Act to insure that we never get lockdowns or mask mandates again and to stop open-ended criminal penalties for which executives define the offense. We also need to put conditions on delegation of power that legislature must approve emergencies after short time.
Shelley Luther introduced HB 5464 to that effect, but it was never heard in Ken King’s House State Affairs.
King chose to hear, instead Senator Brian Birdwell’s SJR 40 and SB 871, which were repeats from the last two sessions. Birdwell’s bills, as always passed the Senate. Ken King, who had killed Birdwell’s bill in 2021, timely heard the bill and passed it to Calendars in plenty of time this session, where Calendars did the dirty deed of killing it.
Medical Freedom Bills that Died
Ivermectin Without Prescription
Joanne Shofner, a member of House Public Health, was given the nod by leadership to carry HB 3219 which was a copy of the bill introduced first by Wes Virdell. House Public Health Chair Gary VanDeaver gave the bill a hearing on March 20, but did not vote it out until April 28. The bill got placed on the Calendar too late to get a vote on the House floor.
Right to Refuse Vax for Med Students
SB 2119 by Kevin Sparks passed the Senate, but died due to lack of hearing in House Public Health from Chair VanDeaver.
Informed Consent for Child Vax
SB 95 by Bob Hall passed the Senate, but died due to lack of hearing in House Public Health from Chair VanDeaver.
Comprehensive Medical Informed Consent
SB 754 Mayes Middleton / HB 3472 Mike Olcott, a bill endorsed as a RPT End Federal Overreach Medical Freedom priority, died due to never being heard in Senate State Affairs or Gary VanDeaver’s House Public Health.
“Gain-of-Function” Ban
SB 1488 by Bob Hall which would have banned gain-of-function research in Texas died due to never being heard in Senate K – 16 Education.
Stop Mandatory Vaccinations
Constitutional amendment by Andy Hopper (HJR 91) to add provision to Texas Bill of Rights to protect natural, unalienable right to decline vaccination. Unalienable means you can’t bargain it away, and therefore protects vaccination being made a condition of employment, education, travel, or provision of other services.
Stop Mandatory Medical Treatment
Constitutional amendment by Bob Hall (SJR 10) to protect right to decline medical treatment, including vaccination. Died in Senate Health and Human Services for lack of a hearing.
Border Enforcement
We struck out on the area of Border Enforcement that Texas Constitutional Enforcement focused on this session – stopping taxpayer services to illegals.
Stop the Magnet
HB 4745 by Mike Olcott would have comprehensively stopped taxpayer services to illegal aliens, providing a three-fold benefit of delivering major cost savings for state and local governments, providing enough savings for large property tax cuts, and assisting the federal government in self-deportation of illegals. Died in Ken King’s House State Affairs due to lack of hearing.
Freedom to Travel
We had one Freedom to Travel victory out of four bills. Call that a batting average of .250.
Right to Repair
Gio Capriglione’s HB 2963 has already been signed by the Governor. It will stop monopolies on repair of digital electronics including vehicles. This was a RPT End Federal Overreach Freedom to Travel Priority).
Freedom to Travel Bills that Died
Two Anti-Kill Switch Bills
Most Texans are unaware of the police state monitoring and control system that federal law has ordered vehicle manufacturers to install in the 2026 vehicles. All vehicles are mandated to have not only cameras and monitoring capability in our vehicles, but the ability to kill the engine on the vehicle remotely based on that monitoring!
Mayes Middleton and Briscoe Cain introduced companion bills (SB 381/HB 2547) using one approach to resist the kill switches and Nate Schatzline introduced HB 1074 with a different approach. All bills died to lack of hearings in committee. The Senate bill died in Senate Transportation. The House bills died in Ken King’s State Affairs.
This also was an RPT End Federal Overreach Legislative Priority, and is probably the most urgent and devastating loss of the session. We tried to get the governor to call a special session on this in 2023. We may try again.
Anti Road Diet
Would have stopped some Texas funds from being used to reduce lanes of traffic Gio Capriglione’s HB 4348 died in House Calendars. Senator Bob Hall’s SB 1993 companion was never heard in Chair Robert Nichol’s Senate Transportation.
