The following commentary is published on Thursdays as part of TPPF’s subscriber-only newsletter The Post. If you would like to subscribe to The Post, click here.
While some of us may still be recovering from the last legislative session and the subsequent hard-fought special sessions, the pre-season of the 2025 89th Legislative Session is officially underway. The starting gun was fired by Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick when he announced the Senate’s interim charges this week.
The interim charges are essentially research projects the leaders of the House and Senate assign committees. They usually either revisit reforms that have already passed or set the stage for new reforms the will likely be prioritized in the next session.
“Interim charges serve two purposes,” says TPPF’s Vice President of Policy Andrew Brown. “First, to allow the Legislature to check in on the status of major reforms enacted during the previous session. Second, to begin the process of gathering information on issues that may be a priority during the upcoming session. For Texans, interim charges are one way to get a sense of what issues the Legislature believes are important for the state to tackle.”
The average Texan can be forgiven for not waiting with bated breath. But for Capitol watchers, it’s the blueprint for what legislators will be working on a year from now and gives policymakers, lobbyists, the media, and activists critical intel on the direction various issues might go.
What’s the next round of property tax reform look like? How does Texas strengthen its border security efforts? Have public universities eliminated their DEI offices? Does Texas have the right laws to protect against squatters?
These are all questions the interim charges contemplate and the research that’s done will heavily influence the policy proposals that ultimately become the laws we live under. Ready or not, the offseason is over.