Republican Eyes Housekeeping Mulligan
with Substitute Plan as Culture War Fuel
Capitol Inside
January 30, 2025
A Republican lawmaker sought to give the Texas House a second shot at a vote on internal operating procedures on Thursday when he hatched a housekeeping resolution of his own with a proposal that would drag the chamber into the heart of a culture war that the far right is waging.
State Rep. J.M. Lozano of Kingsville -
a former Democrat who's been on both sides in an epic civil war within the GOP - filed the alternative housekeeping plan in House Resolution 144. Lozano outlined the resolution in a letter that he fired off to House colleagues today.
Lozano contended that HR 144 is necessary in the wake of State Rep. Charlie Geren's decision to cancel plans that he had to bring the housekeeping resolution that he authored for new Speaker Dustin Burrows' team up on the floor for consideration in the early stages of the regular session that convened this month.
Lozano indicated that he's concerned that the House could be setting itself up for challenges on the legality of certain actions without the traditional housekeeping resolution in place. The House has typically adopted such a measure as a spinoff of the chamber's rules with minimal sparring among the members if any.
The housekeeping resolutions have been more of a formality that set the standards that the House Administration Committee has the task of enforcing. But Burrows and his lieutenants have deemed that the Administration Committee has the authority to do the job without the need for a housekeeping plan that's been ratified by a majority of the chamber's 150 members.
But anti-Burrows conservatives had planned to try to add provisions to the Geren measure that reflect right-wing social causes that have never been included in housekeeping resolutions in the past. The Lozano replacement resolution includes some of those and other hot-button topics. Lozano listed the proposed additions with bullet points in the communique to fellow House members.
HR 144 would require the posting of the Ten Commandments in the House. restrictions on the use of pronouns and a prohibition on alcohol consumption on the floor and other public areas. The Lozano resolution also has proposals designed to safeguard the privacy in women bathrooms - a problem that's never been reported publicly if it actually exists. Lozano also has included a citizenship requirement for House employees in the housekeeping proposal.
Lozano told colleagues that HR 144 also included a provision to ban the use of House resources for political purposes. But the provision has been scratched out of the version of the Lozano housekeeping resolution that appears on the Texas Legislature's web site. A separate provision that would restrict committee gifts has lines drawn through it in the proposal on file as well.
Lozano may never get the chance to lay HR 144 out before the House if Burrows or another representative in the chair refuses to recognize him to do so. But such a snubbing would give conservatives another opportunity to attack the new speaker when the House returns from a long weekend next week.
Lozano has been one of Burrows' most strident critics since turning on the leadership team in the aftermath of Attorney General Ken Paxton's impeachment in the House in 2023. Lozano, who'd served as the Urban Affairs Committee chairman under then-Speaker Dade Phelan, voted to impeach the three-time elected state lawyer. But Lozano apologized profusely to Paxton and has been lobbing salvos frequently at House leaders ever since.
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