Bill Peacock

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Texas Capitol Update

The Lunatic Mainstream

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Lunatic Fringe v.�Lunatic Mainstream

“The real problem in Britain would seem to be a lunatic mainstream, set on a course of profound change for which there is no popular mandate whatsoever.” – Mark Steyn 2004

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• No popular mandate
• Islamization of England
• European Union

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• 2016: The “lunatic fringe” fights back
• Brexit
• Election of Donald Trump

Lunatic Fringe v.�Lunatic Mainstream

The Lunatic Mainstream Hasn’t Stopped

Lunatic Fringe v.�Lunatic Mainstream

Trump is Pushing Back

The Rise of the Texas Lunatic Mainstream

• 2009: 11 Republicans join 74 Democrats to choose Joe Straus as Speaker
• 2019: Republicans join Democrats to choose Dennis Bonnen as speaker
• 2021: Republicans join Democrats to choose Dade Phelan as speaker
• 2025: 36 Republicans join 49 Democrats to choose Dustin Burrows as speaker

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• The Lunatic Mainstream is not confined to the Texas House

Mandate for This?

�Mandate for This?

Mandate for This?

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$23.6

billion

Mandate for This?

SB 293 (R) – Legislative Pension Increases

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• Legislators’ pensions linked to judges’ salaries
• House tried to abolish the link; Senate tried to kill House amendment on an incorrect point of order

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• Outcome: Increased salaries of district court judges from $140k to $175k at a cost of $55 million
• Outcome: Legislative pensions increased as well
• Outcome: Texas Ethics Commission to decide pension increases in future; no accountability to the voters

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Mandate for This?

Handouts for Hollywood

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• SB 22 sets up a massive, $1.5 billion taxpayer-funded grant program to subsidize movies, TV shows, and digital media projects made in Texas
• Takes $300 million every two years from state sales taxes and deposits it into a special fund outside the state treasury
• The Governor’s office will use this fund to hand out grants to entertainment companies.
• The funding for the program runs until 2035
• Special pet project of Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick

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Mandate for This?

Second Special Session Overview

What Passed

• Texas congressional redistricting bill
• Texas attorney given the authority to prosecute election crime
• Texans will be able to get Ivermectin over the counter
• Will be harder to get abortion pills in Texas
• Punishment of future Democrat quorum breakers

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What Didn’t Pass

• Property Tax Relief
• Ban on Taxpayer Funded Lobbying
• Punishment of current Democrat quorum breakers
• THC legislation

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Story of the Failure of Property Tax Relief – SB 10

• Senate passed bill that 1) applies to only cities and counties with population over 75,000, and 2) reduces potential growth of property taxes from $11 to $50 a year
• House amendments 1) increases coverage to all cities and counties and 2) also covers special districts
• Senate refuses to accept House amendments, sends original Senate bill back to House, which votes it down with a coalition of conservatives and Democrats
• Conservatives want more, asking Gov. Abbott for 3^rd special session

��Constitutional Amendments

November 4, 2025

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$4.85 billion worth of spending on the ballot.

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• Proposition 1. Creates the permanent technical institution infrastructure fund and the available workforce education fund. Cost: $850 million
• Proposition 2: Prohibits unrealized capital gains tax.
• Proposition 3: Denial of Bail. Way too restrictive, overreaction to Soros’ district attorneys
• Proposition 4: Diverts sales tax revenue to water infrastructure projects: Cost: $1 billion per year.
• Proposition 5. Property tax exemption for animal feed.
• Proposition 6. Prohibits taxes on securities transactions/jobs
• Proposition 7. Homestead exemption for surviving military spouse
• Proposition 8. Prohibits estate taxes.

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��Constitutional Amendments

November 4, 2025

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• Proposition 9. Property tax exemption business property
• Proposition 10. Property tax exemption for fire damage
• Proposition 11. Homestead exemption for over 65 & disabled
• Proposition 12. State Commission on Judicial Conduct
• Proposition 13. Increase homestead exemption to $140,000
• Proposition 14. Creates Dementia Institute. Cost: $3 billion, plus up to $300 million annually.
• Proposition 15. Affirms parents as primary decision makers for their children
• Proposition 16. Clarifies that a voter must be a United States citizen
• Proposition 17. Allows the Legislature to exempt from property taxation any increase in value to land in Texas border counties that results from the addition of border security infrastructure

��A Biblical View of Civil Government

Four Foundational Elements of a Biblical and Constitutional

Civil Government

Covenant: The Head of Civil Government

• “For kingship belongs to the Lord, and he rules over the nations.” – Psalm 22:28
• “JOHN, by the grace of God King of England, KNOW THAT BEFORE GOD …” – Magna Carta

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Liberty: The Purpose of Civil Government

• “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me … he has … sent me to set at liberty those who are oppressed.” Luke 4:18
• “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.—That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men.” – Declaration of Independence

��A Biblical View of Civil Government

Four Foundational Elements of a Biblical Civil Government

Decentralization: The Design of Civil Government

• Babel: “So the Lord dispersed them from there over the face of all the earth” – Genesis 11:8
• “The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.” – James Madison, Federalist No. 47

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Sphere Sovereignty: The Confines of Civil Government

• Four God created governments: self, family, church, and civil. While there is overlap, each must stay in its own lane:
• “Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's.” – Matthew 22:21
• “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” – The Tenth Amendment

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��Restoring Our Constitutional & Biblical Order

Covenant: The Law of God

• The first words of the Texas Constitution, contained in its preamble, are “Humbly invoking the blessings of Almighty God, the people of the State of Texas, do ordain and establish this Constitution.”
• Amend the Texas Bill of Rights: Sec. 1. FREEDOM AND SOVEREIGNTY OF STATE. Texas is a free and independent State, subject only to the laws of God and the Constitution of the United States, and the maintenance of our free institutions and the perpetuity of the Union depend upon the preservation of the right of local self-government, unimpaired to all the States.

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Decentralization: The No Growth Budget

• As government grows, power is centralized. Every time state spending increases, our financial liberty decreases and government oppression increases. Every dollar spent is another regulation or program we must fight against; it's like playing whack-a-mole.
• Amend Texas’ spending growth limit: For the 2030-31 biennium, state-funds spending can grow only 6%; in 2032-33, only 3%; in 2034-35, 0%.
• Amend the Texas Constitution: require that all state funds spending comes underneath the spending limit.

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Liberty: End Taxpayer Funded Lobbying

• It is a violation of our fundamental liberties to have our money taken from us so that it can be used to take more money from us

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��Restoring Our Constitutional & Biblical Order

Liberty: Require 2/3 Vote to Increase All Property Taxes & Eliminate School Property Taxes

• Gov. Abbott said, “No taxing entity should raise your property taxes without a two-thirds vote of the people.” To do this, we must:

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• Make the No-New-Revenue Rate Result in No New Revenue
• The no-new-revenue rate is a misnomer; it allows for a lot of new revenue for taxing entities because various revenue streams are exempted from the calculation of the rate. In order to ensure that Gov. Abbotts’ standard for reducing the property tax burden is effective, the Legislature should eliminate the exemptions so that the no-new-revenue rate really produces no new revenue for taxing entities.

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• Reset the Voter-Approval Rate to the No-New-Revenue Rate (0%)
• The voter approval rate must be reset to equal the no-new-revenue rate and all the exemptions that apply to the voter approval rate must be removed. A taxing entity will be required to receive the approval of two-thirds of the voters in a tax approval election to exceed the rate.

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• Freeze School M&O Property Taxes Then Use 100% of the Texas Budget Surplus to Eliminate Them
• State revenue grows about 5% per year. This generates more than $3.5 billion a year that can be used to buy down property taxes.

��Restoring Our Constitutional & Biblical Order

Sphere Sovereignty: Create a School Choice System Fully Funded by Tax Credits with Zero Government Funding or Regulation

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• “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.” – Ephesians 6:4
• Eliminating parental influence—particularly regarding religion and faith—was part of the original design for public education (Horace Mann and John Dewey). Public schools at best teach that God is irrelevant; at worst they teach hostility toward Him.
• Public schools have libraries with pornography, promote homosexuality and transgenderism, and fail to protect children from sexual abuse.
• It should be no surprise as we close in on 200 years of government-run public education that we find ourselves in our current moral decline.
• Public schools are an unconstitutional establishment of religion as civil governments establish an orthodoxy of “secular” belief through a system of compulsory school attendance at taxpayer expense.
• Civil government has no biblical or constitutional authority to provide tax funding for educational purposes of any kind.
• A properly designed school choice system would 1) shift significant spending from public to private education and 2) eliminate much our school property tax burden.

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Bill Peacock

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Texas Capitol Update

The Lunatic Mainstream

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“A collapsing political party is as dangerous as an animal in its death throes.”

The Stakes are Real: The Lunatic Mainstream Plays for Keeps

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded

you. And behold, I am with you always, to the

end of the age.” (Matthew 28:19–20)