A Legislative Agenda to Restore Self-Government, Accountability, and Liberty in Texas
Texas does not suffer from a lack of laws, programs, or spending. It suffers from a growing disconnect between government power and public accountability. Over time, authority has shifted away from voters and lawmakers toward bureaucracies, special interests, and institutions insulated from meaningful oversight.
The Texas Liberty Compact outlines ten structural reforms designed to restore self-government, restrain concentrated power, and ensure that liberty, free enterprise, and fiscal discipline are protected in practice, not just in rhetoric.
1. End Taxpayer-Funded Lobbying
Public money should not be used to lobby the government for more power or spending.
Texas allows local governments, special districts, and quasi-governmental entities to use taxpayer dollars to lobby the Legislature and state agencies. This practice creates a structural conflict of interest by enabling government bodies to advocate for expanded authority and higher spending using public funds rather than private persuasion.
Ending taxpayer-funded lobbying restores a basic ethical boundary. Government should exist to serve citizens, not to lobby other layers of government on its own behalf. Elected officials and private individuals would remain free to advocate directly, but public money would no longer be used to entrench institutional power or distort the policymaking process.
2. Limit Local Spending and Debt
Property tax relief is impossible without meaningful limits on local spending and borrowing.
Texas maintains a constitutional spending limit at the state level, but local governments face no comparable restraint. As a result, cities, counties, school districts, and special districts routinely grow spending and debt faster than population and inflation, placing constant upward pressure on property taxes.
Applying population-plus-inflation limits to local governments, paired with stronger voter approval requirements for new debt, would realign incentives and restore fiscal discipline. Without addressing unchecked local spending and borrowing, property tax relief will remain temporary, and taxpayers will continue to absorb the cost of local government expansion.
3. Eliminate Property Taxes
Lasting tax relief requires structural reform, not gimmicks.
Property taxes are among the most unpopular and unstable forms of taxation in Texas, driven by rising appraisals rather than transparent rate decisions. They disconnect taxpayers from meaningful accountability and place a growing burden on homeowners and businesses, regardless of income or ability to pay.
Eliminating property taxes requires structural reform, not just compression, and especially not increased exemption gimmicks. Texas should begin by phasing out school M&O property taxes, which make up the largest share of the burden, through surplus-driven buy-downs and strict spending discipline. Addressing school property taxes first provides a realistic pathway toward broader property tax reform while restoring accountability and lasting relief for taxpayers.
4. Enable Truly Universal School Choice
Education funding should follow students, not protect government-run monopolies.
Education funding should follow students, not systems. True school choice requires universal eligibility, minimal bureaucracy, and a funding structure that creates meaningful competitive pressure within the education system.
Texas’s current Education Savings Account program is not truly universal and was enacted alongside increased public-school funding, insulating the existing system from competition. Expanding choice while reinforcing monopoly funding undermines reform. Meaningful school choice must challenge entrenched incentives rather than operate as a parallel program that preserves the status quo.
5. End Corporate Welfare
The government should not pick winners and losers with taxpayer dollars.
Texas increasingly relies on targeted incentives, grants, and subsidies to influence economic development. These programs shift financial risk from private firms to taxpayers, favor politically connected interests, and distort markets by allowing the government to pick winners and losers.
Sustainable economic growth is driven by neutral tax policy, predictable regulation, and the rule of law, not by subsidies negotiated behind closed doors. Ending corporate welfare protects taxpayers, reinforces market discipline, and ensures Texas remains competitive because of its economic fundamentals rather than political favoritism.
6. Restore Legislative Supremacy
Major policy decisions belong to the Legislature, not unelected regulators.
Texas’s constitutional structure vests lawmaking authority in the Legislature, yet policymaking increasingly occurs through administrative rulemaking and expansive executive interpretation. When agencies effectively define the scope of statutes, the balance between branches shifts away from elected representatives.
Restoring legislative supremacy requires reaffirming that major policy decisions belong to lawmakers. Agency rules of significant impact should require legislative oversight, emergency powers should remain temporary and reviewable, and courts should independently interpret statutory meaning rather than defer reflexively to regulators.
7. Protect Economic Liberty and Due Process
Regulation must not restrict the right to work without explicit legislative authority.
Regulatory agencies in Texas oversee hundreds of occupations and impose compliance mandates that directly affect individuals’ ability to earn a living. In some cases, enforcement frameworks have imposed substantial penalties without clear statutory authorization or meaningful judicial review.
Economic liberty and due process require structural limits. Licensing regimes and regulatory penalties must be clearly grounded in statute, narrowly tailored to public health and safety, and subject to independent judicial review. The burden of justifying regulatory barriers should rest with the state, not the citizen.
8. Make Government Transparent
Taxpayers deserve clear comparisons of spending growth and outcomes.
Transparency without context does not produce accountability. Texans are often presented with fragmented budgets, off-book funds, and headline figures that obscure the true size, growth, and effectiveness of government spending.
Texas should require plain-language budgets, program-level outcome reporting, consolidation of off-budget funds, and clear comparisons showing whether spending growth exceeds population and inflation. Transparency should enable taxpayers and lawmakers to evaluate priorities, tradeoffs, and results, not obscure them.
9. Protect Free Speech and Digital Expression
Technological change must not become a pretext for indirect censorship or control.
Government should not evade constitutional limits by pressuring or coordinating with private entities to suppress lawful speech or restrict access to lawful platforms. Indirect censorship through intermediaries undermines civil liberties just as surely as direct bans.
Efforts to impose broad social media restrictions or sweeping artificial intelligence regulation must be narrowly tailored, clearly authorized by law, and focused on demonstrable harms. Technological change should not become a pretext for expanded government control over lawful expression.
10. Streamline and Modernize the Texas Code
Outdated or duplicative laws should not persist by inertia.
Over time, Texas statutes have accumulated duplicative programs, obsolete provisions, and overlapping authorities. While the Sunset process reviews agencies individually, there is no comprehensive, code-wide effort to eliminate outdated or redundant law.
Texas should conduct a systematic review of its statutory code and governmental structures to repeal obsolete laws, consolidate duplicative programs, eliminate unnecessary boards and authorities, and modernize outdated regulatory frameworks. Government should not grow by inertia. Laws that no longer serve a clear public purpose should be repealed.
The Texas Liberty Compact will guide Texas Policy Research’s legislative analysis, budget evaluations, and policy recommendations. As legislation is filed and debated, proposals will be assessed against these planks in conjunction with our liberty principles.
Durable reform requires structural discipline. These ten priorities provide the framework. The work of applying these principles begins each legislative session.
Stay Informed. Stay Accountable.
The Texas Liberty Compact is not a one-time statement; it is a governing framework.
