House Republican Gives Pass to Patrick
and Senate in Blame Game on Dead Bill
Capitol Inside
May 30, 2025
A high-ranking Texas House Republican sought to pin the blame on big technology companies and billionaires who run them on Thursday for the demise of a social media ban for minors without calling out Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick and Senate Republicans as the culprits who actually killed it.
State Rep. Jared Patterson of Frisco lamented the death of the prohibition in House Bill 186 in the wake of its death by neglect on the Senate intent calendar where it was parked for two days without action before falling victim to a deadline on Wednesday night.
Patterson - the Local and Consent Calendars Committee chairman -
said the defeat that he suffered on HB 186 represented the biggest disappointment of his career as a legislator that began when he entered the House in 2019.
But Patterson attributed the failure of the measure to opposition from "insurmountable big tech lobbyists and their billionaire owners" while going out of his way to give Patrick and his Senate GOP allies a pass in the consignment of fault for the fizzling of HB 186.
"Over my four sessions, I’ve learned this place is designed to kill legislation," Patterson said in an obituary for the social media prohibition for children that he post on X. "And the best politicians kill bills without their fingerprints on it at all. I’ve had bills die at various points, some not even making it out of the gate and at least one bill which made it all the way through only to find a veto on the Governor’s desk."
Patterson would discover Patrick's fingerprints were on HB 186 after all despite the House author's apparent attempt to give the Senate cover in the blame game on social media on the social media restrictions for kids in the Lone Star State. Patrick said at one point that he didn't know if HB 186 had the support to clear the Senate in regular session this year.
Patterson could have read that as a sign of the measure's impending doom in a Senate where it would have passed if Patrick supported it. But the North Texas lawmaker crafted the post in a way that wouldn't be construed as criticism of the lieutenant governor who's emerged in the stretch of the session as the most powerful lawmaker in modern Texas history after bullying House Republicans into a vote for a THC ban in a stunning state of panic last week.
Patterson has been of first-term GOP Speaker Dustin Burrows' top lieutenants and enforcers as a Republican lawmaker who'd been willing and eager in the past to stand up to the Senate when necessary to protect the leadership team in the House. But the appearance of toughness that House Republicans and their leaders managed to convey for several months went up in smoke last week when they gutted a regulatory plan that the leadership crafted for a wildly successful THC industry and backed the prohibition that Patrick had demanded instead.
Patterson's sugarcoated tweet appeared to be a telling example of the way Patrick has tamed the House Republicans who are more scared than ever about words or actions that could trigger the lieutenant governor's wrath. Patterson found scapegoats that he didn't have the nerve to name when he gave the impression that he wasn't really sure who to blame in the Legislature when the truth was evident.
But Patterson to his credit offered to share the blame for the failure of HB 186 even though he declined to hold Patrick and Senate Republicans accountable for doing the big tech lobby's dirty work in the killing of his bill.
Patterson ran the risk of offending Patrick despite the kid gloves treatment when he portrayed social media as a drug that's more addictive, destructive and deadly than cannabis, which the lieutenant governor is trying to pressure Governor Greg Abbott into banning with his signature on a statewide THC prohibition in Senate Bill 3.
The chief difference in the hand-wringing on the social media and cannabis bans is that there is a measure of truth to Patterson's argument on the dangers that social media poses to children. Patrick in contrast has based his pitch for SB 3 on horror stories, blatant lies and sensational claims that have been debunked for most of the past 100 years.
more to come ...
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