The year 2025 promises to be a bellwether in politics. With the return of President Trump to the White House and Republican majorities in the U.S. House and Senate, there is a great deal of anticipation in what will happen at the federal level, and it is expected there will be significant changes in approach on both the regulatory and legislative fronts.
In Texas, the Texas Legislature will again take center stage as we head into the 89th Regular Session. Not only did the state lead the nation in population growth again in 2024, but Texas added more residents than any other state for the 14th year in a row. This addition of 560,000 new residents has swelled our population to over 31 million. All of these new people, coupled with those of us who have called Texas our home for a long time, place additional strain on our infrastructure and create numerous opportunities and challenges.
When the Texas Legislature begins its work, it will include a number of new faces — three in the Texas Senate (almost 10% of the body) and 32 in the Texas House (representing over 21% of the House). Each session provides new opportunities, but also new threats and a turnover of over 30% is certainly significant.
While the Senate, under the leadership of Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, expects a relatively run-of-the-mill opening, a showdown is expected to unfold in the House, where the first order of business after representatives take the oath of office will be selecting a new speaker.
Whichever candidate ultimately prevails in this contest, we expect much of the focus this session to be on carryovers from past years like school vouchers, power grid reliability, property tax relief, water infrastructure, roads and highway funding, the cost of higher education, and health care reform.
Since its leadership is largely unchanged, the Senate is expected to organize much more quickly. While all 31 members of the Senate are important to us, a majority of legislation impacting Texas franchised auto dealers goes through two key committees — Business & Commerce and Transportation. TADA will continue to do a great job making sure you know who serves on these committees and working to cultivate a relationship for our members with these committee members. As a significant employer, business and community leader, I hope you will reach out and offer to be a resource for these legislators.
TADA will do the same when the House names its committee members. With 150 members, there are more committees, but only a handful work on issues directly impacting franchise dealers.
This session, TADA is going to focus extra attention on building our grassroots advocacy efforts. All politics are local, and dealers are an integral part of the local communities. The TADA has been working with our metro association partners to coordinate Regional Dealer Days, hosting our members in Austin to personally meet with their legislative delegations.
This is in addition to our efforts each session to have dealers at the Capitol each Tuesday to visit with members and leadership. Both of these endeavors serve as an excellent way to keep our priorities top of mind with members.
If you have an interest in coming to Austin during the session, please don’t hesitate to reach out to TADA. If you haven’t seen the Texas Legislature in action, it is an eye-opening experience. Even more importantly, it is crucial for your local elected officials to hear directly from you on issues that are important to your businesses and community.
TADA is certainly here to help you in any way. We can help you navigate the Texas Capitol and assist in coordinating meetings. We are compiling talking points on a number of priority policy issues that can be used in your discussions.
On the priority front, TADA will be keeping close tabs on any proposed revisions to the state’s franchise laws and how they impact dealers and their customers. We are also working to update language to ensure manufacturers work fairly with their dealers on warranty and recall work. We also want to make revisions to the law that eliminated paper tags and required the hard plating of vehicles. We saw proposals last session that would force dealers to accept any financing arrangement from the customer and one that would allow a manufacturer to be involved in the selling of used vehicles. We will keep an eye on these and any other issues impacting franchised dealers and the customers you serve.
If you have questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to reach out. The foundation for TADA’s success is you. Thank you for your great work in your community, for your employees and your customers. Keep up the great work that allows the state of Texas to move forward!
