Republican Party of Texas Releases Legislative Priorities

AUSTIN – The Republican Party of Texas released its Legislative Priorities for the 88th Session (2023-2024) of the Texas Legislature.

Chairman Matt Rinaldi said, “We are proud to be a grassroots led party and look forward to supporting these priorities next legislative session. These priorities indicate that Republican delegates want our legislature to prioritize protecting our rights, our borders, and our children.”

The Legislative Priorities for the 88th Session (2023-2024) of the Texas Legislature are: 

• Protect our Elections: Restore felony penalties and enact civil penalties for Election Code violations, which shall be enforceable by any Texas jurisdiction, including the Texas Attorney General. Require citizenship verification of each voter. Restrict the distribution of mail-in ballots to only disabled, military, and citizens that are out of state. Reduce the time allowed for early voting, and eliminate the three-day gap between early voting and election day. Establish closed primaries in Texas.  As technology evolves, we encourage the passage of legislation that ensures the security of our elections.
• Ban Democrat Chairs: To ensure all legislative Republican priorities are given a fair opportunity to become law, the Republican-controlled Texas legislature shall adopt a rule that would end the practice of awarding committee chairmanships to Democrats. 
• Abolish Abortion in Texas: Abolish abortion by ensuring the right to life and equal protection of the laws to all preborn children from the moment of fertilization, including adopting effective tools to ensure the enforcement of our laws to protect life when district attorneys fail to do so.
• Stop Sexualizing Texas Kids: Repeal Texas Penal Code “Obscenity Exemption” 43.24(c), which allows children access to harmful, explicit, or pornographic materials and 43.25(f)(2 3), which allows sexual performance by a child. In addition, prohibit teaching, exposure, and/or discussion of sexual matters (mechanics, feelings, orientation, or “gender identity” issues), and prohibit use or provision of related books and other materials using criminal, civil or other enforcement measures.
• Ban Gender Modification of Children: Texas must ban chemical castration, puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, genital mutilation, bodily alteration surgery, psychological/social transitioning, and any other methods applied to or performed on children.
• Secure the Border and Protect Texans: Texas shall immediately deny all taxpayer funded services and subsidies to illegal aliens. We call upon the Governor to assert his duty under Article 1, Section 10, Clause 3 of the US Constitution to declare an invasion on our Texas border and do everything in his power to protect Texans from this invasion. The legislature shall direct the Governor to enter into an Interstate Compact with one or more states for Border Security.
• Parental Rights and Educational Freedom: Parents are the primary decision makers for their children in all matters. This authority shall be protected as an inalienable right. This shall include the choice of schooling where the money follows the child without strings attached, and enforcement and penalty mechanisms when parents’ rights are violated.  The right to education shall be free from any social theories.
• Defend Our Gun Rights: Protect our gun rights against threats, such as red flag laws, federal, state or other restrictions, by strengthening and preserving our inalienable rights under the second amendment to protect our life, liberty and property. The Texas Legislature should eliminate gun-free zones.

These priorities were chosen by over 5,000 voting delegates at the state convention, June 13-18 in Houston Texas. Delegates were presented with a list of 15 topics selected by the Legislative Priorities Committee after a comprehensive review of resolutions passed at the precinct and senate district levels of the convention process. Delegates were allowed to vote on 8 topics, which became the official Legislative Priorities of the Republican Party of Texas.