Let Them Eat Steak

The Texas GOP’s Recipe: Starve the people, serve the donors.

🚨🚨🚨CALLS TO ACTION - VOUCHER SCHEME ALERT 🚨🚨🚨

The Texas Democratic Party is asking anyone who can be at the Capitol and fill the House Gallery to plan to be here on Wednesday (tomorrow)! RSVP HERE.

The TDP also asks those who can’t be there on Wednesday to phone bank with them tonight from 6 to 7:30 pm regarding tomorrow’s vote. RSVP HERE

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The Texas House did something incredibly important yesterday. Even though one out of four children in Texas is hungry, millions don’t have access to healthcare, and our electric grid is just barely hanging on, their most important order of business was to give Texas an official steak. That’s right; the tomahawk ribeye is now Texas’s official steak. Actually.

In a session marked by performative patriotism and willful ignorance of real problems, lawmakers took the time, your time, your tax dollars, to honor a piece of beef. At the same time, thousands of families face eviction, and underfunded schools crumble. It’s not that Texans don’t appreciate a good steak. We’d rather our leaders show the same enthusiasm for feeding hungry kids or keeping the lights on when it freezes.

This is what Republican governance gets you.

Also yesterday, Cody Harris broke the House gavel, it felt emblematic of a legislature breaking more than just wood, fracturing trust, priorities, and the very responsibilities they were elected to uphold.

But don’t worry, it wasn’t all fun and games. A bipartisan vote passed to give 18-year-old college students millions of dollars. Because why wouldn’t an 18-year-old college student need $5 million in the bank?

HB126, passed on a bipartisan vote of 109-35. This bill allows Texas college athletes to get paid for NIL, hire professional help (like lawyers or agents), and aren’t considered employees of their schools.

My husband is into sports the same way I’m into Texas politics, and on more than one occasion, he’s told me about this movie from the 90s that showed the dangers of money and drugs in college sports. The film is called The Program, and I specifically remembered him talking about how this movie impacted the monetization of college athletes (and not in a good way). I’ve never seen the film, but now I feel like I must.

The debate on HB126 was interesting because both Democrats and Republicans spoke in favor of the bill and both spoke against it. Jolanda Jones (D-HD147), a former All-American basketball player, three-time NCAA champion, and US Champion in the Pan American Games, spoke against the bill.

Because the votes were evenly split, some of you may agree with this bill, and others might not. At the end of the day, 5.1 million Texans are at risk of hunger, which seems like a more pressing issue to me.

Yet, Republicans are channeling their inner-Marie Antoinette and shouting from Austin, “Let them eat steak.”

Senate Committee on State Affairs hears bill to end early and absentee voting.

Yep. If it passes, you can only vote on election day in Texas, and only at the polls. Millions would be disenfranchised. Texas already has the lowest turnout of any state in the nation, and the only way Republicans stay in power is by stopping people from voting.

If this bill passes, it will be catastrophic for working-class Texans, disabled voters, elderly folks, single parents, shift workers, and anyone without easy access to transportation. Early voting and absentee options are not luxuries; they are lifelines. Taking them away means silencing millions who physically cannot make it to a polling place on a single Tuesday. That’s not election integrity. That’s targeted disenfranchisement wrapped in bureaucracy.

With only 37 days left in the Legislature, Republicans may not have enough time to get this bill through the Senate, then to the House, through committees, and onto the House floor. If it doesn’t pass this session, they will try to bring it back again in 2027.

The same committee also heard two bills that would criminalize wearing masks at a protest, a move designed to intimidate and punish dissent.

During the 2020 Black Lives Matter uprisings, protestors across the country were brutalized by police wielding tear gas and rubber bullets, by Trump’s federal agents snatching people into unmarked vans, and by armed MAGA fanatics who showed up looking for a fight. Many wore masks to protect their identities, health, and safety. Now, Texas Republicans want to turn that into a crime. It’s about suppressing free speech, because nothing terrifies the GOP more than a loud, organized, pissed-off public.

As we get closer to the end of Legislature, the more it will feel like the damn is about to break.

And because no dystopia is complete without easier access to weapons of war, they passed a bill to legalize sawed-off shotguns. These types of firearms have been tightly regulated since the 1930s because they’re concealable, powerful, and explicitly tied to organized crime and mass murder.

Watch Molly Cook (D-SD15) handle the bill’s author (She’s really good at this):

When asked whether he was more concerned about gun owners paying a $200 registration fee or Texas children surviving the school day, Brent Hagenbaugh (R-SD30) essentially shrugged. That’s the GOP playbook: criminalize protest, suppress voting, and deregulate the very weapons that keep getting used in mass shootings. They’re actively dismantling it.

This legislative session feels more like a bad parody of governance than anything resembling public service.

While Texans go hungry, while schools collapse, while the grid teeters and the people suffer, Republicans are busy naming steaks, loosening gun laws, criminalizing dissent, and trying to make it harder for you to vote.

But tomorrow, we have a chance to fight back. The final vote on the school voucher scam is happening in the Texas House. This is it—the last step. If it passes, public education in Texas will be gutted for generations. If it fails, it’s because people like you showed up, called in, spoke out, and refused to be silent.

• You can watch the House session live tomorrow HERE.

• If you can, come to the Capitol and help pack the gallery.

• Can’t make it? Join the TDP phone bank tonight from 6 to 7:30 pm.

This isn’t just another vote. It’s a turning point. Let’s meet it with the outrage and action it deserves.

• April 22: Early Voting Begins

• April 29: Early Voting Ends

• May 3: Local and County Elections

• June 2: The 89th Legislative Session ends.

• June 3: The beginning of the 2026 election season.

• Click here to find out what Legislative districts you’re in.

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