TADA endeavors are similar to that of a three-legged stool. The association works on the legislative, legal and regulatory fronts on behalf of new car and heavy-duty truck dealers across the state. As the legal and regulatory areas are a direct result of activities in the legislative arena, we will start with the legislative process and the elections.
Texas is one of only four states that have a biennial session. The next regular session will start in January 2025. Our regular sessions run in odd-numbered years for 140 calendar days. They start on the second Tuesday in January and run until around Memorial Day in the late spring.
Much of this campaign season has focused on presidential politics and it is shaping up to be as divisive as it was four years ago, with four or five states positioned to determine the outcome. Texas is solidly Republican, and polling suggests that will not be changing anytime soon. All the major statewide offices are currently held by Republicans (Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Attorney General, Comptroller, etc.) and none of these are up for election until 2026. On the 30-year noteworthy front, Texas Democrats haven’t won a statewide election since 1994.
Texas just finished its primary election runoffs last month, so there is a pretty good idea of the makeup for both the Texas Senate and Texas House. The Texas Senate is expected to operate in a similar fashion to how it has operated over the last several sessions with Gov. Patrick at the helm and a makeup of 19 Republicans and 12 Democrats with the one caveat below. There will be at least two new members in the chamber from open races — Molly Cook (D-Houston) and Brent Hagenbuch (R-Denton) each won their respective races. There is expected to be one competitive Senate race this fall in a district that runs from north of Corpus all the way to Brownsville.
In the 150-member Texas House, the picture is murkier. While there are only a handful of General election races in November that could slightly modify the 86 Republican and 64 Democrats breakdown from last session, the primaries resulted in significant changes. The Republican primaries, in particular, were filled with lots of action and there were significant changes to the representation for a number of these districts. Nine incumbent House Republican members were defeated in March and another six lost in the May run-offs. These 15 losses, along with one on the Democratic side, set the record for the most House incumbents to lose re-election, ever. Coupled with the 16 other members who chose not to run for re-election, it signals what could be a very different Texas House next session with lots of fresh faces and new ideas. Although current House Speaker Dade Phelan (R-Beaumont) narrowly won his re-election in a Primary run-off, he now faces challenges from at least two Republican members of the House to serve as Speaker next session. All the turnover and Speaker-race contention will likely make the next Legislative session a challenging one for the business community, but your TADA team is already at work meeting the newly-elected members and briefing them on the issues most important to your business.
The TADA Legislative Committee is preparing for the numerous challenges facing automotive dealers in the upcoming session, but we need your help to be successful in 2025. At the end of the day, all politics are local. Texas dealers have always enjoyed fantastic relationships with their local and statewide elected officials. With both the soon-to-be legislators and long-time elected officials, I want to encourage you to continue this effort. Reach out and be a resource for your local legislator. Host your legislators out at your dealership and show them the work that your employee family does to keep your business running and highlight your involvement in the community. Show legislators your service departments and talk to them about your employee training efforts and staff retention. It is so valuable to the elected officials and to our industry to have you host these meetings. If you need help making the contact, TADA is here to help.
On the legal front, there is a lot of activity, one focused at the state level, the other involving the federal government. There is a direct challenge to the state’s franchise laws which currently prohibit direct sales by manufacturers. At the federal level, the FTC has proposed new rules to establish more requirements on the sale, financing and leasing of new and used vehicles by motor vehicle dealers.
Both cases are slowly winding their way through the legal system and TADA will keep you up to date as more information becomes available.
On the regulatory front, there are numerous activities taking place at the Texas DMV and the OCCC — too numerous to list here. I would like to reference a couple of the ones that have attracted recent attention.
The first is the backlog in getting your dealer license renewed. Several bulletins have gone out highlighting the problem, and TADA would encourage you to submit your application early until the DMV is able to catch up on the backlog.
The second is the elimination of the temporary tag and the requirement that dealers hard plate all vehicles in the future, which was passed by the Texas Legislature last session. The DMV is working hard on proposed rules which will be unveiled later this fall. Since the final rules aren’t scheduled to take effect until July 2025, there will be an opportunity next session to work on revisions to this new law.
Finally, TADA’s efforts in all these areas would not be possible without the extraordinary work of our dealers. The franchise dealer system provides a robust network of vehicle sales and service outlets throughout our state that benefits Texas consumers and ensures the quality of life and safety on the highways for thirty million Texans. We know so many of you do so much good in your community every day. I want to thank you for your work and would ask that you share these endeavors and successes on your own social media and/or that you send them to TADA to share. I know you don’t do this for the credit, but it is important politically to be sure that our elected officials know just how deeply invested you are in your community. Each of you has done so much to make Texas a better place to be for future generations. Let’s continue to highlight these great achievements, both big and small!
