The Texas Liberty Compact

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.

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.

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.

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. The current Education Savings Account program is not truly universal and was enacted alongside increased public school funding, insulating the existing system from competition. Meaningful school choice must challenge existing entrenched incentives rather than operate as a parallel program that preserves the status quo.

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 industries, 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.

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, and that courts should independently interpret statutory meaning rather than defer reflexively to regulators.

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 requirements and regulatory penalties must be clearly grounded in statute, narrowly tailored to public health and safety, and subject to independent judicial review.

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 of spending growth relative to population and inflation over time. Transparency should enable taxpayers and lawmakers to evaluate priorities, tradeoffs, and results, not obscure them.

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.

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 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. Laws that no longer serve a clear public purpose should be repealed.