The popular-vote victory of Donald Trump to a second term made clear that the American people want to see major changes in how their government operates. He also won Texas by more than 1.5 million votes, which means that the majority of Texas voters also support government reforms.
There is great hope that the new energy in Washington will usher in a new era of accountability where government agencies function to serve their intended purpose efficiently and with transparency. After just two weeks of work by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), the new government accountability initiative that is digging deep into federal agencies, it is clear that the trend in government has been to expand the reach of agencies beyond anything their authorizing charters should allow.
States are jockeying to ride the DOGE wave, establishing committees and proposing legislation to eliminate the same issues of waste, fraud and improper expansion in their state and local governments. The Texas House of Representatives established its own DOGE committee–the Texas House Committee on Delivery of Government Efficiency. In addition, Lt. Governor Dan Patrick announced the Texas DOGE Bill (SB-14) among his priority legislation for the current legislative session.
Texas is the envy of many states, and a global leader in economic production and jobs, oil and gas, innovation and tech, and much more. We must also lead the nation in government accountability, transparency, and efficiency.
As a first step, members of the 89th legislative session can make their DOGE commitment evident to Texas voters by finally ending the practice of letting our government serve as a dues collector for labor unions. Currently, government entities in Texas automatically deduct the dues from the paychecks of public sector employees and remit those payments directly to the bank accounts set up by the unions–many of which are headquartered in Washington, DC.
Outside of a handful of charities, Texas government does not do this for any other organizations. By contrast, the state provided more than $65 million in union dues over the past 10 years to unions like the American Federation of Teachers and AFSCME, a union that spent $23.5 million in the 2024 election to support political candidates–98.5% of which went to Democratic candidates (just 0.34% went to Republicans).
To put it simply, this is not a proper role for our government. Many states, including Florida, Oklahoma, and Tennessee, already prohibit their governments from collecting dues for most unions. Texas must do the same.
In 2017, Texas tried. Governor Abbott made the reform a priority and it passed the Texas Senate. But the legislation was killed in the final hour by then-House State Affairs Committee Chairman Byron Cook, who is no longer in office to protect the unions and their campaigns that have undermined Texas.
2025 is the year to finish the job. Ending state-sponsored union collections is the best first step to bring DOGE reforms to the LoneStar State.
