The Texas Legislature has delivered major conservative achievements for Texans: protecting children from radical gender modification, banning Critical Race Theory and DEI, restricting pornography, keeping boys out of girls’ sports in schools, defending election integrity, combatting Sharia Law in Texas, lowering property taxes, strengthening the border, and expanding educational opportunities for all Texas students.
Unfortunately, certain factions within the Republican Party want to prevent you from hearing about these accomplishments in order to profit as the Party tears itself apart.
Voters have been inundated with misleading commercials, mail pieces, texts, and emails from Texans United for a Conservative Majority (TUCM), falsely claiming Republicans in the Texas House support radical Islam and abusive gender ideology.
I joined the Texas House shortly after my retirement as a Colonel in the US Army, having served 32 years, with multiple oversees deployments, including Iraq and Afghanistan. Having been in both the fight against radical Islam on the ground, and the fight for conservative Texas principles on the House Floor, I need to set the record straight before you cast your ballot in the March 3rd primary election.
TUCM is part of Pale Horse Strategies—also operating under West Fort Worth Management, LLC—a group of so-called “conservative” activists from Fort Worth who attempted to cover up former Representative Bryan Slaton’s predatory sexual behavior and held strategy meetings with self-proclaimed neo-Nazi Nick Fuentes as Hamas attacked Israel.
They eagerly lie to disguise their own moral failures. But facts are facts, and voters deserve to hear the truth from someone present when these important issues were debated in the Texas House.
In 2023, while the Texas Legislature worked to pass landmark legislation to protect Texas children from gender modification surgeries, TUCM-backed legislators were plotting to manipulate the legislative process and smear those not under their control.
House Bill 1898, a bill to provide mental health grants to children’s hospitals, went through the House Public Health Committee and eventually to the House Floor for a vote. However, Representative Tony Tinderholt devised a “gotcha” on this bill, offering a last-minute amendment to prevent those grants from being used to aid in the social transitioning of minors.
While a worthwhile idea, the actual amendment failed for many reasons. At that point in the legislative process, it would have taken 100 votes to amend the bill, requiring approval from Democrats who were adamantly opposed to the idea.
Had he been operating in good faith, Representative Tinderholt could have proposed the amendment much earlier in the process, while the bill was still in the committee he served on. Then it would have only required six votes to amend the bill.
When this critical bill came to the House Floor for its first of two votes by the entire House membership, Representative Tinderholt again decided not to propose the amendment. At this point, it would have needed 76 votes to be added—more than in committee, but a number achievable with only Republican votes.
When the bill came up for its final vote on the House Floor, only then did Representative Tinderholt propose the amendment he had written moments before. The legislative process is one Representative Tinderholt is closely familiar with, having served as a lawmaker for over a decade.
This chain of events implies the motivation was to use the amendment as a bludgeon in the next Republican primary, absent the context or facts.
The actual anti-transitioning bill, Senate Bill 14, has now been law in Texas for two years.
This session, Texas House Republicans representing the Dallas-Fort Worth area led the fight against both radical general ideology and radical Islam.
Chairman Jeff Leach of Collin County joint-authored House Bill 229, defining gender by biological sex at birth, sponsored SB 12 to keep radical transgender ideology out of Texas classrooms, and joint-authored Senate Bill 8 keeping men out of women’s sports.
The accusation that ANY Republican member of the Texas House supports the Islamification of Texas is blatantly false. The Texas House voted on several bills this session that contradict this claim, including SB 17, blocking hostile foreign adversaries from buying Texas land.
Representative Candy Noble authored both legislation halting religious segregation projects like the EPIC city in North Texas and a constitutional amendment placing the Ten Commandments in every public classroom in the state.
To top it off, Chairman Morgan Meyer was joined by both Chairman Leach and Representative Noble in passing a law making it a felony in our state to enforce Sharia law or any foreign law.
Your Republican Representatives were at the front of the charge of the many conservative achievements the Texas Legislature delivered. Claiming otherwise is attempting to fracture conservatives and destroy the momentum we’ve gained in order to greedily fundraise on fear and suspicion.
The following State Representatives have cosigned this letter:
David Spiller; Lacey Hull; James Frank; Jared Patterson; Will Metcalf; Matt Shaheen; Brooks Landgraff; Brad Buckley; Cody Harris; Greg Bonnen; Cole Hefner.