He Put Regulators On A Shorter Leash
Dan Patrick backed SB 14, a 2025 law that makes state rulemaking easier to challenge and tells courts not to defer to agency interpretations.
Dan Patrick's brand is simple: yell "freedom," then write a rule about who gets to decide what freedom means.
Senate Bill 14 is a tidy example. Its official caption says it is about "reforming the procedure by which state agencies adopt rules and impose regulatory requirements and the deference given to the interpretation of laws and rules by state agencies in certain judicial proceedings." TLO shows it was signed by the governor on April 23, 2025, and is effective September 1, 2025.
The rulebook got a political choke collar
State agencies are not perfect. Texans should be able to challenge bad rules. But SB 14 is not just a customer-service complaint box for small businesses. It changes how agencies adopt rules, impose regulatory requirements, and defend their interpretations in court.
That means more fights move from public rulemaking into legal trench warfare. The winners are the people with lawyers on speed dial. Everybody else gets to wait in line while the grown-ups argue about procedure.
"Accountability" can become paralysis
A functioning state has to do boring things well: licensing, inspections, enforcement, public health, transportation, education. Patrick's Senate keeps discovering new ways to make the machinery grind louder, then calls the noise accountability.
If a rule is bad, fix it. If an agency is overreaching, restrain it. But do not sell Texans a government that cannot act unless the most lawyered-up player in the room says it may.
The contrast on the ballot
Vikki Goodwin offers a cleaner bargain: practical government that answers to Texans instead of a permanent Austin knife fight over who gets to gum up the gears.
Texas needs competence, not another Patrick-era trophy law where the press release is shorter than the downstream mess.
Sources
Meet the alternative: Vikki Goodwin
Texas has a choice. State Rep. Vikki Goodwin is running for Lieutenant Governor on a platform of fully funding public schools, protecting the grid, and keeping government out of small businesses it doesn't understand. If you're tired of Dan Patrick's priorities, there's somewhere else to put your vote.