To protect the future of Texas, we must PREVENT citizens from hostile nations from acquiring Texas land!

This TX Republican Party Legislative Priority, states, “Texas is Not for Sale | Ban the sale of real property in Texas to governments, entities, and proxies of China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia, and to individuals from these nations who are not legal permanent residents or citizens of the United States; discontinue taxpayer funding and incentives to such foreign governments, entities, and proxies.”

Do Texas Republican Voters Agree? Yes! The March 2024 GOP Primary Ballot said, “Texas should ban the sale of Texas land to citizens, governments, and entities from China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia.” 95.23% of the voters agreed!

We must stop TX land from being sold to enemy combatants and their agents!
The Problem?

As written, SB 17 by Sen. Lois Kolkhorst does not
adequately prevent hostile nations from acquiring Texas land!

What | Senate Bill 17 by Sen. Lois Kolkhorst aims to restrict land ownership by individuals or entities from countries designated as national security threats (China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea – per the Director of National Intelligence’s Annual Threat Assessment). While we appreciate Sen. Kolkhorst’s leadership on this bill, our analysis finds serious loopholes that will undermine the bill’s effectiveness and endanger the security of Texas!

Position: Oppose SB 17 as written; amend to close loopholes/strengthen with clear enforcement.

Why | The Republican Party of Texas and Grassroots America must oppose priority legislation when bills contain dangerous loopholes that undermine the legislation’s purpose and/or when the bills lack penalties and enforcement.

Solution | SB 17 must be amended to close the following dangerous loopholes:

Loophole #1: allows citizens from hostile nations (China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia) to own Texas land if their homebase is not in one of those countries; for example, a Chinese citizen, who is a member of the Chinese Communist Party and lives in cities like London, Singapore, or even Houston, could still purchase land in Texas under this bill!

Remedy: amend the bill to prevent not just residents of hostile nations from accessing Texas land but also citizens of hostile nations, no matter where they reside. No member of the Chinese Communist Party who lives in Mexico (or any other country) should be able to acquire Texas land!

Loophole #2: explicitly allows entities of hostile nations to lease and invest in Texas land; for example, it would allow China to lease farmland near a military base or fund a US-based shell company to purchase it, maintaining influence without direct ownership.

Remedy: We’ve seen how the colonias in Texas, which operate on extended lease agreements, hurt Texans. Likewise, we can’t allow citizens of a hostile nation to buy, lease, or invest in Texas land.

Loophole #3: excludes residential homesteads from its restrictions, allowing our enemies to purchase multiple homesteads in strategic locations (e.g., near critical infrastructure).

Remedy: We must bar any exemptions of homesteads from this security legislation.

Loophole #4: contains no retroactive wording; applies only to FUTURE purchases, leaving existing foreign-owned land unaffected and the security risks in place!

Remedy: Amend the bill – just as Arkansas retroactively protected its land, so too must SB 17!

Loophole #5: lacks Seller or Third-Party Accountability; the bill doesn’t impose penalties on sellers, brokers, or title companies facilitating prohibited transactions, nor does it classify violations as criminal acts.

Remedy: Amend the bill so that any third party who works on behalf of a hostile nation or its agents is punished for a willful criminal act.

Loophole #6: imposes minimal penalties, lacks strong enforcement, and lacks detailed mechanisms for proactive monitoring of funding to trace complex ownership structures.

The danger – foreign entities could use shell companies, trusts, or U.S.-based intermediaries to obscure their involvement – a tactic seen in past cases like Chinese billionaire Sun Guangxin’s Texas land purchase of 140,000 acres in Val Verde (approx. 7% of all land in the county).

Remedy: Our law enforcement agencies, including the Texas Attorney General’s office, must be able to monitor transactions for illegal land acquisition, investigate and prosecute.

3/19/25 SB 17 Status

With opposition growing due to our publicizing the bill’s weaknesses, Senate leadership rushed this bill to the floor for a vote on 3/19/25 and passed it without amendments. The bill was received in the House on 3/20/25.

We have commitments from various State Senators that they will close these loopholes through Senator Tan Parker’s bill SB 2117 | Relating to the establishment of the Texas

Committee on Foreign Investment to review certain transactions involving certain foreign entities, creating a civil penalty. The identical House companion bill is HB 5007, by Lambert.

Joint project: State Republican Executive Committee Chair Deborah Fite; Christin Bentley, SD 1 SREC; Gaylyn Devine, SD 11 SREC and JoAnn Fleming, Grassroots America

Conservatives, help us save kids from permanent damage!

FACT: Texas law should not continue to give appalling legal justifications for the blatant sexualization of children.

In the 88th Session (2023), 11 bills were filed to repeal legal loopholes that allow sexualization of children. Not even one of the bills received a hearing! The last time such corrective bills received a hearing in the TX House was in 2019. Children are harmed every day by these loopholes!

There is NEVER A REASON to give a child porn and there is NEVER A REASON to have a child perform sexually for an adult.

Yet, Texas law says otherwise!

The Texas Penal Code (law) allows unethical and downright disgusting legal justifications for giving a child pornography (Section 43.24), for sexual performance by a child (Section 43.25), and for possession of child pornography (Section 43.26).

These “loophole” legal justifications vary by statute, but include scientific, educational, medical, psychological, psychiatric, governmental, law enforcement, judicial, and legislative exemptions allowing children to be exposed to sexual materials and situations.

Great news! Your Texas Senate is prioritizing legislation that will remove these intolerable, unjustifiable affirmative defenses from the Texas Penal Code!

Senate Bill 412 by Sen. Mayes Middleton will remove shocking legal justifications for sexual crimes against children. We commend Senator Middleton for his effort.

We asked Senator Middleton to strengthen the bill’s child protections through a more narrowly tailored exception that allows law enforcement and judicial officers to investigate these horrible crimes, but makes it clear that they cannot induce, employ, or authorize the sexual performance of a child for investigative purposes. (This is consistent with current legal interpretation and investigative protocols.)

Senator Middleton included this in the committee substitute. The bill was passed in the Senate on 3.19.25 and it was received in the Texas House on 3.20.25.

Christin Bentley, SD-1 State Republican Executive Committeewoman Chair, Stop Sexualizing Texas Kids

JoAnn Fleming, Executive Director, Grassroots America – We the People PAC

Who: Statewide conservative grassroots leaders JoAnn Fleming and Brandon Burden team up with Republican Party of Texas State Chairman Abraham George

What: Video discussion of the fallout from the Speaker’s race, the Empower Democrats Act (The TX House Rules vote/funding of Democrat Vice Chairs); how these actions should be viewed by conservatives serious about reforming the TX House; discussion features unintended consequences of premature actions.

Why does this matter? Establishment journos, politicians and special interest lobby groups claim the disagreements among Republicans in the Texas House are nothing more than bickering, driven by dastardly West Texas rich folks and their “Taliban” foot soldiers. Bless their hearts.

Far from trivial bickering, our disagreements are about nothing less than a fight for the heart and soul of Texas-style Liberty.

Grassroots conservatives know that just as Trump and Elon are in hand-to-hand combat with the DC Swamp – there is an Austin Political Sewer that’s a mirror image of DC cronyism, waste, and taxpayer abuse. Just as in DC, there are unprincipled Republicans in state leadership that would rather conspire with Democrats than support putting Texas citizens first.

This political reality keeps our movement growing stronger every day. Texans are increasingly aware that Austin is as broken as DC – just on a smaller scale. Change requires our active participation and dedication to the Long Game. Change requires strategic and wise actions – not impulsive, raw emotion.

Who should watch this video?

• Conservatives who love their families, traditional values, and liberty principles
• Anyone concerned that a handful of TX Republican State Reps. conspiring with the empowered House Democrat Vice-Chairs may roadblock Pres. Trump’s efforts to secure the border, protect the US, stop Big Gov’t, and destroy the Deep State
• Anyone wanting to pass the best Republican conservative priority bills and kill bad bills filed by Democrats and Republicans in the 89th Texas Legislative Session
• Anyone interested in holding Republican lawmakers accountable
• Anyone interested in the March 2026 Republican Primary
• The Praying Ekklesia
• Anyone angry at the 36 Republicans who joined with a majority of Democrats to elect Dustin Burrows as Texas House Speaker
• Anyone who agrees that Democrats should not be running the Republican-controlled Texas House!

Compiled by JoAnn Fleming

History of the 88th Session RPT Legislative Priority

Secure our Border/Protect Texans

(92.3% Voter Support 2022 TX Republican Primary)

(92% Voter Support 2024 TX Republican Primary)

• The Governor should declare an invasion under Article 1, Sect. 10, Clause 3 of the US Constitution to PROTECT Texans from the invasion, stop illegal entry, send illegal border crossers back to Mexico.
• STOP all taxpayer funded services and subsidies to illegal aliens.
• Legislature shall direct the governor to enter an Interstate Compact for Border Security.

88th TX Lege Results?

Presented by Tom Glass 7/8/23 for TCG Coalition Summit as RPT Border Security Report

Two of the three parts of this priority were implemented. Legislatively, SB 1403, the interstate compact bill by Tan Parker (steered through the House by Rep. David Spiller) passed. Abbott declared an invasion, invoking US Constitution Article I, Section 10, Clause 3 in a November letter and started repelling during the session.

There were no bills passed to stop taxpayer subsidies to illegals; however, we accomplished something talked about for over a decade but never done. We actually got a comprehensive bill drafted to stop funding taxpayer services for illegal aliens. There was ZERO interest from any Republican legislator to file it!

A few minor border bills made it through (see below), but all the big items on border security – legislative support for the Governor’s invocation of Article I, Sec. 10 of the U.S. Constitution, the statutory authorization for Texas law enforcement to engage in tide-turning, game changing, “repel at the border” tactics, and a new force or unit to deploy those efforts all fell short. Along the way, we learned that neither Sen. Brian Birdwell nor Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick understand or support the need for Texas to repel at the border or to invoke Texas’ self-defense provision of Article I, Sec. 10. They consider border enforcement to be a 100% federal issue.

Abbott’s actions demonstrate that he believes he has the necessary tools to repel at the border – Texas Constitution Art. 4, Sec. 7 control of the Texas military to repel invasions and the Texas Disaster Act, which he invoked to involve Texas law enforcement in repelling illegals at the border. He also has a budget from the legislature to deploy millions of dollars in resources as he sees fit.

Rep. Matt Schaefer believed the Governor needed a new organization dedicated solely to border security to take pressure off the part-time Texas military and off the DPS which is designed to enforce Texas law in their home districts. This effort (HB 20) was killed late in session by Dade Phelan by upholding a Democrat point of order. No results were seen from any of the 88th Session Special Sessions.

Other border security bills that passed:

• SB 1900 Birdwell – Designates cartels as foreign terrorist organizations; applies street gang laws to foreign terrorist organizations (approved by LP committee).
• SB 602 Birdwell – Designates Border Patrol as Texas peace officers, allowing them to arrest for state crimes while detaining for federal border offenses.
• SB 1133 Blanco – Compensates landowners for damage to property from border invasion.
• SB 423 Paxton – Cleanup bill allowing Texas military to use unmanned aerial vehicles on border.