The Texas House’s New Speech Codes

On Sunday, February 16, 2025, CBS’s 60 Minutes launched the latest, most direct, angle of Democrat attack in American politics: An all-out assault on free speech. Their piece Sunday night was the soft launch of a new American idea, and now the drumbeat has begun. That idea is that you have the right not to be insulted, pilloried, or otherwise lampooned on the internet. Yes, that’s right: The same media outlet that helped submerge the Hunter Biden laptop story until it stopped bubbling is here to unironically tell you that prosecuting online trolls is the first step to civility:

It’s 6:01 on a Tuesday morning, and we were with state police as they raided this apartment in northwest Germany. Inside, six armed officers searched a suspect’s home, then seized his laptop and cellphone. Prosecutors say those electronics may have been used to commit a crime. The crime? Posting a racist cartoon online. At the exact same time, across Germany, more than 50 similar raids played out. Part of what prosecutors say is a coordinated effort to curb online hate speech in Germany.

The left’s Holy Grail is the control of public speech. Can’t you see the trajectory?: “If we can control public speech, we can control the flow of information. If we can control the flow of information, we can control culture. If we can control culture, we can control politics. If we can control politics, we can control government. If we can control government, our power and ability to control commerce is unlimited.”

These attacks predated the 2024 election, but they seem only to be growing in strength. What does this have to do with the Texas House, you ask? Everything now. The pursuit of the power to control speech is not unique to the left. It also exists within the Republican Party, so you get what we had here last week.

The Jill Glover Resolution

On Tuesday, February 18, 2025, Rep. Andy Hopper offered a House Resolution honoring and remembering Jill Glover. Jill Glover wasn’t a grassroots activist in the Republican Party; she was the grassroots activist. She was one of the first people I spoke to after I decided to run for office, and she was the chair of legislative priorities for the Republican Party of Texas and the committeewoman for Senate District 12 on the State Republican Executive Committee.

Naturally, this is someone whose memory we would want to honor with a resolution in the Texas House, but especially on Rep. Hopper’s birthday (ed. Happy birthday again, Andy). Shortly before the resolution was to be offered, Rep. Jared Patterson (now named Chairman of Local & Consent by Speaker Dustin Burrows) informed Rep. Hopper that the resolution would not be accepted by the House and that it would need to be converted to a recognition.

You see, certain Republican state representatives weren’t too keen on honoring Jill Glover, a woman who had held many of them to account repeatedly for their bad votes, bad bills, and disregard for Republican legislative priorities. I’ll spare them the ignominy of identifying them by name, but if you squint real hard at the header picture above, you might be able to see some of them sitting during Rep. Hopper’s recognition. We sure could.

This was not House leadership’s first sortie into this type of speech control. The prior week, my own resolution honoring Texans for Vaccine Choice’s anniversary was rejected. Not only this, but Rep. Shelley Luther’s own resolution honoring the people at Medical City Plano, who saved her own life following a very serious stroke, was similarly rejected. The same day, Democrat Rep. John Bryant filled in for Rep. Rodriguez-Ramos in honoring Medical City’s officials at the Capitol with a resolution that was accepted and read in front of Rep. Luther’s recognition.

Naturally, these incredibly foolish rejections set off a firestorm of activity online:

Well, you ask, “Why shouldn’t Jared Patterson simply unilaterally control and decide what comes to the floor? I’m sure there’s some incredibly stupid stuff that needs to be kept off the docket, and we need a gatekeeper to preserve the decorum of the Texas House to ensure that idiotic things don’t happen.”

Sadly, The Internet is Forever

We certainly must protect the Texas House from ridiculous, self-congratulatory resolutions, and I know just the man for the job:

Allowing people to file resolutions about whatever they want might lead to some really silly outcomes, and we can’t have that now, can we? We need rules for this sort of thing, and I’d tell you to guess who is going to write those rules, but you won’t have to:

“Guidelines”

So, now, the Texas House has implemented speech codes for purposes of its resolutions that are not codified in the House Rules, were not voted upon, and do not have the authoritative weight of rule or law. The purpose of these new “guidelines” is clear: To permit speech the local & consent chair likes and to reject speech he doesn’t like. Plainly, it’s a misuse and abuse of power. Under this guidance, the Parliamentarian is then asked to intercept resolutions for rejection and prohibit their offer.

The Purpose

The purpose of this flex is to remind House conservatives that they are on the “outside,” while control of the House is reserved for a select few Republicans empowered by Democrats on the “inside.” To quote Thucydides, “The strong do what they can, and the weak suffer what they must.” You saw that with the Rules and Housekeeping fights as well.

The question Texans should continue to ask is, “Why are Republicans trying to silence other Republicans?” Feel free to leave your own answers to that in the replies below.