Texas Legislative Leaders Dan Patrick and Dade Phelan bash each other’s priorities in dueling speeches

Subscribe to The Brief, The Texas Tribune’s daily newsletter that keeps readers up to date with the most important Texas news.

On Thursday, the leaders of the two houses of the Texas Legislature unveiled their major prioritization stumbling blocks, setting a vague tone on some of the most important issues as the session begins to gain momentum.

In dueling speeches before a conservative think tank in Austin, Speaker of the State House of Representatives Dade Phelan and Lieutenant Gov. Dan Patrick, who have a history of hostility, were sharply divided over how best to give Texans long-term property tax breaks. But there was also clear tension when it came to their approaches to criminal justice reform and school choice.

Phelan is in his second term as Speaker, and Patrick is presiding over the Senate in its fifth regular session – and in its most dedicated House ever. The two got off to a rocky start in 2021, when the Houses disagreed on how to respond to the grid crash, and then again when Patrick criticized Phelan’s handling of the Priority Elections Bill, which the Democrats were trying to stop by leaving for Washington, D.C.

Phelan spoke to the Texas Public Policy Foundation hours before he introduced his priority property tax bill, which would lower the limit on annual appreciation from 10% to 5% and extend it to all types of property, including businesses. Phelan trumpeted this as a “significant, real relief” in his speech, but Patrick criticized the idea in his speech.

“I have something to say, and this is not in any way a criticism, so please understand this, but I know that the House of Representatives imposes limits on evaluation,” Patrick said. “Limits of Evaluation – Lowering them now will undo everything we just did. … I think the intentions of the House are good, but it would be a disaster and undo everything we have done.”

Patrick was referring to the changes lawmakers made to the property tax system in 2019 when Patrick said they “separated the valuation from your tax bill.” It was not immediately clear exactly how Patrick saw Phelan’s bill undermine this, and Patrick himself pushed for lowering the valuation cap when he was a senator over a decade ago.

Patrick’s representative did not immediately respond to a request for clarification.

Patrick’s priority property tax proposal focuses on increasing the property tax exemption, that is, the fraction of a home’s assessed value that is not subject to property tax. Patrick wants to raise it from $40,000 to $70,000.

Phelan said he is “by no means shutting the door on the increase in homestead exemption.” But he wondered how it benefits small businesses that are suffering, given that it only affects Texans’ primary residences.

In terms of school choice, the House of Representatives has historically given up on trying to redirect state tax revenue to help parents withdraw their children from public schools. With that in mind, Phelan has been relatively subdued this session, even as Gov. Greg Abbott is putting more energy into it than ever before. Speaking to the TPPF on Wednesday, Abbott said it would be “the most significant political victory of this session.”

But Phelan didn’t touch on that in his speech, other than a line he repeats regularly – that it has 149 members, and they all have a different definition of “choice of school.” Patrick seized on this in his speech.

“I don’t know what his opinion is, but he’s #150 and if he gets on board, the other 149 I think will follow,” Patrick said.

Patrick also said that he believes lawmakers should not return home until they have passed the school choice program. The regular session, which began in January, ends at the end of May, and the governor decides whether to convene an extraordinary session.

“I don’t care how many special sessions it takes,” Patrick said. “We have time. I don’t have any plans for this summer.”

This is the second priority, about which Patrick directly threatened to call a special meeting. He also said he would do so if lawmakers couldn’t find a way to boost the state’s natural gas capacity in response to the 2021 power outage.

When it came to criminal justice reform, Phelan initiated Patrick’s back-and-forth strike on Thursday over the Senate’s blocking of several House bills on the issue two years ago. Phelan supported a number of proposals for criminal justice reform, including measures to narrow the use of the death penalty and review juvenile sentences.

“I know what to do in this session when it comes to criminal justice, and I will just pass on everything that the Senate did not pass in the last session,” Phelan said, noting that the TPPF supported his proposals. “We’re going to turn it in again. I figure if it’s good enough for the TPPF, it’s good enough for Donald Trump, it should be good enough for the Texas Senate.”

Patrick countered this by pointing out several of his priorities that the same mantra could be applied in the House of Representatives.

“School choice — I can tell you that the Senate likes it, the TPPF likes it, Donald Trump likes it, so it should be good enough for the House of Representatives,” Patrick said.

Other priorities that Patrick called “good enough for the House of Representatives” included “banning kids from drag shows”, “protecting kids from obscenity in libraries”, and “banning critical race theory in college”.

Disclosure: The Texas Public Policy Foundation provides financial support to The Texas Tribune, a non-profit, non-partisan news organization funded in part by donations from members, foundations, and corporate sponsors. Financial sponsors play no role in Tribune journalism. Find their full list here.