Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick now says he wants to see if it's possible to eliminate Texas property taxes, although he doesn't know exactly how that would be done.

Calling it one of his top priority for the 2025 legislative session, he is asking lawmakers to evaluate where the money would then come from to continue funding public education and local government. One idea he floated was to redirect funds from the state’s general revenue but said further study was needed.

Predictably, this has alarmed public education advocates who already consider the amount of funding public schools receive from the state insufficient.

At the same time, Patrick is calling for improved students' reading and math scores, pointed out Clay Robison, spokesman for the Texas State Teachers Association.

“The problem is you can’t make many improvements in public education without increasing education funding, which I noticed is not on his agenda,” Robison said. "So, if you continue to cut school property taxes, what money will you replace them with? That is also a cause for concern if you care about improving public schools.”

Some of Patrick's other 57 priorities touched on other education topics, including assessing the need for state testing reform and whether colleges and universities have ended their diversity, equity and inclusion practices as ordered to do so by Senate Bill 17 signed into law in 2023.

Patrick also included one of state Republicans' favorite themes: border security.

While Patrick did not include school choice or a voucher program on his list of priorities, he did mention them in an accompanying press release. He wrote that school choice is one of the “priorities of a conservative majority of Texas."

School choice, of course, was a key topic of debate in the last legislative session resulting in a series of back-to-back special sessions last year, called by Gov. Greg Abbott.

“Patrick is signaling that they know what needs to be done in the area of school choice. The Legislature had a bill that Patrick and the majority of the Senate supported in 2023,” said Mark Jones, a political science fellow with Rice University. "I think the belief is that they don’t need any improvement there. They need the political balance of power within the House to change to allow them to pass that legislation.”

The nearly two dozen mostly rural Republicans merging with the stronghold of Democratic opposition in the House last year blocked passage of Abbott and Patrick’s preferred school choice legislation proposed by Senator Brandon Creighton (R-Conroe).

According to Jones, between the retirements and defeats of these anti-voucher Republicans during the primaries, school choice advocates are moving within striking distance of successfully passing legislation that would create a voucher program.

“People call this school choice, but they forget that the choice for private school is not the parents. It's the school. It’s another way to try to soft-peddle a voucher,” Robison said. “A voucher is a voucher is a voucher. It's tax money for private schools when our public schools are already underfunded. We oppose vouchers as much as we ever have.”

Robison noted that Patrick’s list of priorities did not mention any work toward increasing teacher pay or public schools’ basic allotment, which he said disturbed him. Especially after, he said, the Legislature had an almost $33 billion record budget surplus last year yet didn’t take action on either of these measures.

“Public schools’ basic allotment has not increased since 2019,” he added. “School districts needed about $1,000 more per child on average to keep up with inflation alone.”

Brandon Rottinghaus, a political science professor at the University of Houston, said the state’s general revenue is made up of several different pots of money, and covering the massive difference that property taxes provide for local funding would be a pretty heavy lift that would require a significant amount of revenue.

The redistribution of funds would also depend on Texas Comptroller Glenn Hegar’s pre-session report, which will determine whether the state is going into the upcoming session with a surplus. If the funding available is significantly different from the last legislative session, the amount of available tax dollars could influence the specific legislative approach to proposed school choice legislation.

Jones said that the border security elements on Patrick’s list were more about reviewing and analyzing legislation passed in 2023 to determine its effectiveness or isolate gaps in efforts to secure the border.

Jones noted that this could cause significant legislation in 2025, or state lawmakers could conclude, with a few expectations, that everything is working as intended. He added that he does expect the border to remain a focus as it continues to serve as a winning issue for Abbott and other leading Republicans throughout the ongoing election cycle.

However, the extent to which border security comes up could differ based on which candidate wins the U.S. presidential election. Jones said that if President Joe Biden were re-elected, the emphasis on border security would likely increase, whereas if former President Donald Trump were victorious, it could decrease.

Some immigrant advocates also point to the status of Senate Bill 4 — a controversial Texas law that would allow local law enforcement officers in addition to state troopers to detain people suspected of being non-United States citizens entering or attempting to enter the U.S. without authorization and judges to order the deportation of these individuals — as a determining factor that could alter future border security legislation.

SB 4 is currently not in effect after the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled to keep a previous block on the law intact while its legal status continues to play out in the courts.

Cesar Espinosa, executive director of FIEL Houston, an immigrant-led civil rights organization, said the Fifth Circuit could rule on the law’s status in the summer. The U.S. Supreme Court may then consider taking action on it. He added that an outcome on SB 4’s legal status would likely not be reached until 2025 or later.

Espinosa said advocates would like to see the Texas Legislature work on getting driver’s licenses or housing for immigrants, but at this point, that seemed like wishful thinking.

“Unfortunately, many of the legislators who would like to press for progressive legislation are going to spend a lot of their time fighting against this [and other] anti-immigrant legislation,” Espinosa said. “Even if we wanted to go on amendments or things like that, we don’t have the numbers of people who support us in either the House or the Senate.”

“Nor do we have a government that is supportive of any of these initiatives that we could see something happening,” he added. “So, in Texas, we’ve perceived things getting a lot worse before they get any better or until we have a real change in leadership.”

Rottinghaus said the lieutenant governor's plans will be clarified closer to the start of the upcoming legislative session when he releases his list of priority bills. He described the priorities released, alongside a potential second list, as the homework for the lawmakers to do to determine possible legislation for 2025.

“Patrick’s power is growing in the Legislature, generally, not just in the Senate,” Rottinghaus added. “What he wants to see studied, and eventually what he wants to see, happen is a significant chunk of what the Legislature will likely do.”