Estimated Time to Read: 10 minutes
As Texans turn the page to a new year, the Texas Legislature enters one of the most consequential phases of the governing cycle: the interim before the 2027 legislative session. This period is often misunderstood as downtime, but it is when much of the real work that shapes the next session quietly begins.
The 2026 interim coincides with primary and general elections, early agenda-setting by incumbent lawmakers, and the start of the state budget process. Legislative staff draft proposals through the Texas Legislative Council, agencies submit Legislative Appropriations Requests to the Legislative Budget Board, and legislative leadership signals priorities through interim committee charges. By the time lawmakers convene in January, many of the most consequential decisions are already in motion.
The interim is not merely a prelude to the session. It is the stage on which much of the session is written.
The following New Year’s resolutions are not symbolic gestures; they are practical commitments Texas lawmakers should adopt during the 2026 interim if they are serious about governing responsibly, engaging constituents early, and preparing for a 90th Legislative Session focused on substance rather than reaction.
Quick-Jump
Resolution 1: Property Tax Reform and a Path to Elimination
“Property tax relief without spending restraint is temporary by design.”
Texas property owners continue to face rising tax bills despite repeated promises of relief. Expanding exemptions and carveouts may deliver short-term political wins, but they fail to address the structural drivers of property tax growth. As appraisals rise and local government spending expands, these measures are quickly absorbed.
During the 2026 interim, lawmakers should commit not only to meaningful property tax reform but to serious policy work aimed at establishing a long-term path toward eliminating the property tax altogether. That requires confronting the tax’s role in financing unchecked local spending and the incentives it creates for perpetual growth.
The interim is the right time to move away from exemption-based relief and toward structural solutions. Broad-based rate compression, paired with firm limits on state and local spending growth, offers more durable relief and creates the conditions necessary for eventual elimination.
Eliminating the property tax will not happen in a single session, but if lawmakers are serious about protecting property ownership and restoring affordability, the 2026 interim should be treated as the starting point for a long-term strategy built on restraint and structural reform.
Resolution 2: Enforce Spending Limits at the State and Local Level
“Spending limits that can be bypassed are not limits at all.“
Texas state spending has grown faster than population growth and inflation, raising concerns about long-term sustainability. While the state nominally operates under spending limits, those caps are frequently weakened or bypassed through exemptions and accounting maneuvers.
During the interim, lawmakers should strengthen state-level spending limits and extend enforceable caps to local governments, which currently operate with little constraint on year-over-year growth. Local budgets drive property tax pressure, yet face few meaningful limits.
A credible spending cap should tie growth to population plus inflation, apply broadly, and include real enforcement. Spending beyond that threshold should require explicit voter approval rather than administrative workarounds.
School districts deserve particular attention. Rapid growth in school district budgets, often disconnected from enrollment or outcomes, is a primary driver of local spending growth. Durable tax relief is impossible if spending discipline stops at the state level.
Resolution 3: End Corporate Welfare
“Economic growth comes from competition, not from government picking winners.”
Texas has long benefited from an economic model rooted in low taxes, limited regulation, and predictable governance. That success was not built on government subsidies, but on market competition.
In recent years, however, Texas has increasingly relied on grants, incentive funds, and tax abatements that shift risk from private investors to taxpayers. These programs distort market signals and disadvantage businesses without political access.
The interim provides an opportunity to reassess whether these programs deliver measurable public benefit. Every dollar committed to corporate subsidies is a dollar unavailable for tax relief, infrastructure, or returning surplus funds to taxpayers.
Ending corporate welfare will not weaken Texas’ economy. It will strengthen it by restoring competition and neutrality.
Resolution 4: Engage Constituents During the Interim
“The interim is when agendas are shaped and relationships are built.“
When Texans are asked when they engage their lawmakers, the most common answer is during the legislative session. That timing is backward.
The most effective time for engagement is during the interim, when lawmakers are back in their districts and staff are shaping legislative agendas. Early conversations influence priorities far more than testimony delivered once calendars are full.
For constituents, the interim is when relationships are built rather than requests made. For lawmakers, it is when trust is established and expectations clarified.
Resolution 5: Reclaim Legislative Authority
“Efficiency does not come from creating new offices; it comes from repeal and restraint.“
Texas lawmakers have increasingly responded to regulatory complexity by delegating authority to agencies, advisory panels, and new offices charged with “efficiency.” While often well-intentioned, this approach has expanded the administrative state while delivering few measurable reductions in regulation.
Texas is now among the most regulated states in the nation.
Recent reform efforts, including the House Committee on Delivery of Government Efficiency and the creation of the Texas Regulatory Efficiency Office, correctly identified the problem but pursued efficiency through bureaucracy, adding staff, offices, and recurring costs rather than repealing rules.
Occupational licensing provides a clear example of regulatory drift. Texas ranks among the worst states in the nation for occupational licensing burden, disproportionately harming lower-income workers and military families while showing little evidence of improved public safety.
The interim is the time for lawmakers to reclaim their role as policymakers. Agencies should implement the law, not shape it. Oversight should be judged by rules repealed, licenses eliminated, and barriers removed, not reports produced.
Resolution 6: Exercise Restraint in Technology and AI Regulation
“Regulating first and harmonizing later is how liberty gets lost.”
Artificial intelligence and digital platforms are embedded across modern life, and lawmakers face pressure to act quickly, but speed and symbolism are not substitutes for sound policy, especially when regulation touches speech, privacy, and family autonomy.
Recent Texas technology laws illustrate the risk of overcorrection. Broad mandates, new oversight bodies, and vague standards expand government authority while substituting state judgment for parental responsibility and market discipline.
Those risks are no longer theoretical. The Texas App Store Accountability Act was blocked by a federal court for violating the First Amendment.
The same pattern appears in state social media bans and Texas’ statewide school phone ban, where blanket rules replace individualized parental judgment.
A sobering parallel exists outside technology. Tragedy-driven regulation affecting youth camps demonstrates how urgency can produce overcorrection through agency rulemaking.
The interim offers an opportunity to pause, evaluate outcomes, and resist further expansion. Narrow protections against unlawful conduct may be appropriate. Broad mandates and permanent bureaucracies are not.
Resolution 7: Refocus Infrastructure on Core Functions
“Infrastructure should be boring, durable, and narrowly focused.“
Infrastructure is one of the few areas where government action can be legitimate when disciplined. Roads, water systems, and flood mitigation protect life and property.
In recent years, infrastructure policy has drifted toward expansive bond issuance and mission creep. Borrowing shifts costs to future taxpayers and crowds out fiscal flexibility.
Flood mitigation illustrates both the importance and limits of infrastructure. Risk can be reduced, but not eliminated. Policies that promise total prevention invite overregulation and false confidence.
The interim is the time to refocus infrastructure spending on necessity, cost-effectiveness, and long-term maintenance rather than political urgency.
Resolution 8: Enforce Local Government Accountability
“Property tax relief is temporary if local spending remains unchecked.“
Local governments play a decisive role in shaping Texans’ tax burden, yet remain among the least constrained actors in the fiscal system. Cities, counties, school districts, and special districts control billions in spending and debt with limited transparency and weak incentives for restraint.
Property tax pressure is driven less by state policy than by local budget decisions layered atop rising appraisals. Durable affordability cannot be achieved without addressing how local governments expand spending and long-term obligations.
Taxpayer-funded lobbying further erodes accountability. Local governments routinely use public funds to hire lobbyists or pay lobbying associations that advocate for expanded authority or higher spending. Public dollars should not be used to lobby against taxpayers.
The interim is the right time to strengthen transparency, raise voter approval thresholds for debt, and ban taxpayer-funded lobbying. Local control should be preserved, but it must be paired with responsibility.
Resolution 9: Judge Education Spending by Results
“School choice that cannot scale is not competition; it is a queue.”
Public education is one of the largest and fastest-growing areas of state and local spending in Texas, yet outcomes have not improved proportionally.
The issue is not whether public education deserves funding. It is whether current funding structures reward effectiveness or simply sustain systems regardless of results.
School choice belongs in this discussion as a diagnostic tool, not a slogan. Texas’s capped ESA program limited competition while pairing choice with expanded monopoly funding, blunting the pressure choice is meant to create.
The interim is the time to decide whether education reform will operate at scale or remain symbolic. Real reform requires outcomes-based evaluation, spending discipline, and competition that can actually function.
Resolution 10: Treat the Interim as a Governing Period
“The quality of a legislative session is decided long before the gavel falls.“
The outcomes of a legislative session are rarely determined on the floor. By the time lawmakers convene, priorities are set, bills drafted, budgets framed, and narratives hardened.
Too often, the interim is treated as a political holding pattern. Hearings are held, but oversight is shallow. Agencies implement major laws with minimal scrutiny. Lawmakers wait to react rather than prepare.
The 2026 interim presents a different opportunity. Governing during the interim means intentional oversight, early course correction, constituent engagement, and restraint.
Not every problem requires a new statute. Sometimes the most responsible choice is to pause, review implementation, and allow reforms to take effect.
Conclusion: Why the 2026 Interim Matters
The 2026 interim is not a pause in governing. It is when governing either happens deliberately or is deferred until pressure, politics, and deadlines take over.
The resolutions outlined here are not a wish list. They are a standard. Together, they reflect a governing philosophy rooted in discipline over expansion, accountability over bureaucracy, and preparation over reaction.
Texas does not suffer from a lack of ideas. It suffers from a tendency to postpone hard decisions until urgency replaces judgment. If Texas lawmakers reclaim the interim as a period of serious governance, the 90th Legislative Session in 2027 can deliver clarity instead of chaos and reform instead of reaction.
The interim is the test. How lawmakers use it will determine what kind of Legislature Texas gets next.
Texas Policy Research relies on the support of generous donors across Texas.
If you found this information helpful, please consider supporting our efforts! Thank you!
