The 2025 School Choice Bill in Texas

I’ve been looking at SB 2, the school choice bill in the Texas Senate this session—and the arguments for and against it.

State Senator Brandon Creighton, author of SB 2, gives closing argument,
on the Senate floor, Wednesday, February 5, just before the bill passed in the Senate.
screenshot from here

I’ve been pretty clear that I am in favor of school choice. I claim the right of parents over the care and upbringing of children, which includes education.

Speaking ideologically (not practically), I also believe that education is not a proper role of government. And everything that government does beyond its proper role causes unintended consequences, usually the complete opposite of the stated purpose of the government action. So, if you want good education for all of our children, you need a non-governmental system.

For this reason, I am happy to see the federal government looking at abolishing the Department of Education—or, it may be moving out some non-educational purposes to other agencies and sending education money back to the states in block grants. (Why we need the federal government to take our money and then block grant it back to us is another question worth asking, but here we are.)

That said, I’m aware that states, for a century—and in some cases a century and a half—have taken on the task of education. And they’ve done it in the form of free public schools through 12^th grade. When many people say they “believe in public schools,” what they seem to mean is they believe that government institutions providing “free” education at taxpayer expense is the best form of education. I do not “believe in public schools” in that way. I believe there needs to be some sort of systemic change from the factory model we have now to something that works for each individual child—something under the control and guidance of the parents. And it does need to be provided to every child, regardless of family income—by some combination of philanthropy and community obligation, which could possibly include businesses being obligated to put money toward scholarships for each child.

Getting to there from where we are is a leap too huge for most to envision—even though it was the practice in our country up through most of the 19^th Century and into the 20^th. And note that regular people in a pub were educated enough to understand and discuss the Federalist Papers. I don’t foresee that we will recover true education—except family by family—anytime soon. We are stuck with the monopolistic government institution model. I am not fighting that. I am not trying to do away with public education. I am trying to make it better.

One thing that can make a monopoly better is options. The more the better.

Does the current bill, SB 2, which passed on the Senate floor this week, offer better options? Some. Not nearly enough to suit me. But I’ve long been willing to accept a little progress at a time, if that is what it takes. [In 2021 I supported a bill offering much less than this one—with a separate funding source, only for a very limited demographic of needy families; it was rejected.] This year’s SB 2 looks better than anything I’ve seen in past sessions. I’m willing to support it.

Let’s take a look at SB 2, and then talk about it.

About SB 2

The bill’s author, Sen. Brandon Creighton, offers this statement of intent: 

Texas voters have spoken loud and clear: they want meaningful school choice, and the Governor and Lieutenant Governor have made education freedom their first priority for the 89th Legislative Session. With their leadership and the strong mandate we have from parents across our state we must act decisively this session. Senate Bill 2 will serve more students with more funding than any proposal our body has considered yet.

In drafting this legislation, my office built upon the work accomplished during the special sessions with S.B. 1. As a result, the key provisions the Senate has worked together on, like anti-fraud safeguards, mandatory criminal history checks for vendors, rigorous reporting requirements, and robust data protections, are retained or expanded. Just as in prior iterations of the legislation, parents can direct their students' funds to preapproved vendors, but never have direct control of the dollars themselves, and no reimbursements are permitted.

Below are the key points:

Eligibility

Universal Access: Every student in Texas may apply and, if accepted, participate in the ESA program whether they are entering school for the first time, currently enrolled in public school, or currently enrolled in private school or homeschool.

Prioritization

If applications do not exceed the program's capacity, all eligible students are accepted.

If applications exceed capacity, 80 percent of available positions will be filled by lottery among students who previously attended public school and are either from low-income households or have a disability. The remaining slots will be filled by lottery among all other eligible applicants.

Allocation per Student

Base Funding: Each participating student will receive at least $2,000 per year in their ESA.

Private School Funding: If a family elects to enroll their child in an accredited private school, that student will receive $10,000 per year or $11,500 per year if the student has a disability.

As proposed, S.B. 2 amends current law relating to the establishment of an education savings account program.

So, to summarize, this is a bill to create an education savings account (ESA) program. Funding for this program is separate from and does not affect funding for public schooling, but it is based on per-child funding used for public schools. Each student gets $10,000 to use for private schooling (tuition and books), or $11,500 if the student has a disability. A homeschooled student would get $2,000 for use on curriculum and other designated expenses (paying the parent or a relative for tutoring or lessons would not be allowed); a homeschooled student with a disability would get $2,500.

By the way, when people refer to this as a voucher program, you can assume they are trying to stop it. A voucher would take public school funding and shift it to another recipient, such as a private or charter school. An ESA is more like a health savings account than a voucher; otherwise there could not be a homeschool use for it. And, again, the funding comes from a separate state grant, not in any way tied to public school funding. I’d like more choice—like being able to mix and match public school and private school classes or parts of a day, along with some tutoring or certification programs—any educational purpose. But this is a start.

The total $1 billion granted for the program in its first year (I think that would be 2026-2027) is enough to handle around 100,000 students out of the 5 million school-age children in the state, or 2% of students. Since all students can apply—not just those coming from public schools—this will not mean a 2% loss in students from public schools, but will be something less than that. As far as I can gather, the fear public schools have is the loss of students, since their allotment is based on a per pupil rate. But it’s also true that you don’t need as much money to educate fewer students—although, granted, the building still stands, and you pay a teacher the same for teaching 25 students in a class as you pay for 27 students. So there’s fear that they can’t manage. I sympathize. But we have a growing state, so that fear may only be valid in certain locations that do not see growth and have a relatively large number of students looking to escape.

At the close of the floor vote Wednesday night, Senator Creighton was able to give his closing argument. He pointed out that schools have never been properly funded, a battle he has been involved in since he was 19 years old. This has been a 40-year battle, including the drama of litigation. He said,

Public school stakeholders said for forty years, until that litigation is over, they would not support school choice opportunities. That litigation is over.

He reminded us that in the last session the Senate put forward historic money, a factor of 3X the normal. But teacher organizations came and spoke in their hearings, and told them, if it’s a choice of preventing (the then offer of) 40,000 ESAs for special needs and income vulnerable kids, or getting new money for teachers, they’d give up the teacher money to stop the choice opportunities for those who needed it.

That bipartisan bill they opposed last session included a pay raise of $10,000 for 83% of teachers; the only ones getting less were already near or at the top of the pay scale, so they’d have gotten whatever would bump them up to that limit. That’s what the teacher organizations opposed in order to prevent needy children from having a choice. Have we mentioned before that teacher unions are not about protecting teachers? And they’re certainly not about educating children.

Sen. Creighton gave this background to remind us who is really working to help public schools and all students, and who is standing in the way.

The Opposition

I have a number of teacher friends who are in a panic over this bill. Fact: If you’re being fed fear and panic, that ought to be a clue that you need to step back and gather more info from more sources.

There’s a statement going around about the differential in what Texas spends per student and what it’s offering for the taking of private schools in this ESA bill. (Here’s one example, passed on by a friend; I do not know this person, nor the one they’re crediting, but this person’s profile does show she celebrates pride month with her child, in case that tells you something about her core beliefs.) They say that public schools only get $6,500 per student, but the bill is giving $10,000 per pupil for use in a private school. I don’t know where they get the $6,500. I looked up the official numbers from TEA, and the state provides $9,956 per student; when you add in all funding sources, it’s $12,140 per student (after an adjustment down from $15,503 because of inflation). If they're trying to scream unfairness because of giving a larger amount to use at a private school than a public school, that's just wrong.

chart from Texas Education Agency transparency report May 2024

That same complainer also claimed Texas is in the bottom 10 states in student funding; but Texas is actually 33^rd, so there are 17 states with lower spending per student, rather than only 9. And it appears to me that states providing more per student tend to be states with higher cost of living, so teacher pay has to be higher, unrelated to education quality.

Another complaint is that schools are held accountable by standardized testing, and private schools are not. Senator Creighton believes they have addressed the accountability piece. But I’d be happy for public schools to have a better form of accountability. In the end, the parents decide whether the schools are meeting the needs of their children. The problem has been that, if the public schools failed, and the parents didn’t have resources, their kids were trapped in a failing school. This bill is aimed at helping those families in particular. If some already homeschooling or private schooling families are also helped out of the financial strains of providing what their taxpayer-funded public schools did not provide, so be it.

The bill requires that private schools accepting ESA money be accredited. There is no correlation between accreditation and quality of education. Most private schools are unaccredited, so this is, I believe unfortunately, a severely limiting factor in the bill. But it stops the panicking protectors of control from hyperventilating.

An additional argument against school choice (here’s an example) is that it’s a disguise for government control—as if a monopolistic taxpayer-funded government institutional public school system is not about government control.

I'm not sure what to make of this Churchill quote. Found the image here.

One of the arguments is that many states have the same language in their bills. Of course. Legislators do look to other states trying the same things, to look at language that has worked—and to look at the record in those states. As I’ve written, I became aware of ESAs in 2016. The presentation I first heard was from the Heritage Foundation, not some nefarious Soros-backed organization. They had already worked with Arizona on their fledgling program for special education ESAs, and a couple of other early adopters. This is now nine years later; of course other states are going to have similarly worded legislation. That doesn't make it a conspiracy.

Another organization this piece lists is Texas Public Policy Foundation. I looked up their statement online a month or so ago, because someone was claiming their goal was the destruction of public schools by taking money from them. Their statement is that school choice should come from a separate funding source, not touching public school funding. That is what SB 2 does—as you would expect, if you’ve been looking at past attempts at getting school choice. I don’t frequently research positions of TPPF, and I don't know how much, if any, input they had on this bill, but if their ideas are good, why rail against them?

I don’t see signs they’re associated with anything Soros-related. Soros is about putting in things like Common Core and other top-down “progressive” ideas that are pushed from the federal level on down. Fortunately, as I mentioned above, we have a president now who is about to quash federal control over state and local education and give us back our education freedom.

Another organization strongly behind school choice—and I believe helping to advise on the crafting of this bill—is Texas Home School Coalition. (President, Tim Lambert, shows steady support for it on X.) They, along with the vast majority of homeschoolers in the state support school choice, and are not fearful that this bill is a subterfuge for controlling their lives after they left public schools to DIY their kids’ educations. I assure you THSC is not Soros-backed either.

I’ve frequently seen anti-school-choice claims that other states with ESAs have not fared well; I have never seen research showing those bad outcomes. In fact, those states seem to like the outcomes they’re getting. Government infiltration into homeschools and private schools has not increased—one of the supposed fears. And in every case, their public school funding has increased, not decreased.

Outcome for This Bill

Some of the fearmongering made it seem this bill was about to be enacted. No. It made it through the Senate—as did four school choice bills two years ago (during the 2023 regular session and three special sessions). The Texas House is a roadblock. As of Friday, February 7, the 25^th day of the session, the House has not yet made committee assignments, let alone assigned bills to committees and held any public hearings on bills. It may be their strategy to yet again run out the clock and then tell constituents, “We did everything we could, but we just ran out of time.” They purposely ran out of time last session, or pretended some other excuse, for not giving any of those school choice bills a floor vote.

The new speaker, Dustin Burrows, chaired the Calendars Committee for that session. Among his ubiquitous campaign texts prior to his January 14, 2025, election, he says his opponent couldn’t be trusted on school choice. Hmm. Once he finally starts doing his job, we’ll see if he rushes to work on this Governor’s Emergency bill. He posted on X, following the Governor’s State of the State Address, February 2, that he was looking forward to getting to work on the Governor’s priorities.

Burrows post on X after Governor Abbott's State of the State

Anyway, those opponents still have House Committee hearings and floor votes in which to lobby and phone and email their representatives—because this week wasn’t actually time to panic yet; that’s just what they were told to do.

That also means there’s time to citizen lobby in favor of the bill, which I plan to do. My representative, who strongly supported Burrows, claims to be for school choice. I’d sure like her to prove it.

It comes down to this: do you believe that public schools or parents ought to have control over their child’s education? I believe it should totally be parents. A smidgeon of choice is at least a step in the right direction.

Resources

Here are some things I’ve written about ESAs (school choice and education in general would be a much longer list):

·        A Parent’s Job, May 2016 

·        The Separation of School from State, October 2016 

·        Disagreements Among Friends, February 2017 

·        The Family Educational Relief Program, March 2021 

·        Real Parental Choice in Education, March 2023 

·        Real Education Choice, August 2024 

Links to the bill online:

·        SB 2 Bill History: to know the bill's progress toward passing

·        SB 2 Text: the bill's original wording (which may be amended or replaced)

·        SB 2 Analysis: this includes the author's intent, plus several pages of pertinent information

Other resources:

·        Texas Scorecard’s Texas Minute, February 6, 2025, gives a couple of minutes to the issue: 

·        Governor Abbott’s full State of the State Address, February 2, 2025 

·        Governor Abbott’s promise to raise teacher salaries, on X, February 5, 2025

The Texas House Could Use Some Deep Cleaning

Back in December we talked about the race for Texas Speaker—a vote by the House members. To review, on December 7, the Republican Caucus met and voted. The rules they consented to abide by said that House Republicans would vote for the Caucus choice; that choice was David Cook. But the other candidate, Dustin Burrows—the hand-picked replacement of Dade Phelan, who had to step down because of his unpopularity, hard-earned, by thwarting Republican priorities—announced that, regardless of the Caucus vote, he had enough votes to be speaker.

That announcement was premature, and offensive. His list included several Republicans who were not supporting him, as well as some undecideds. And even his claim of getting all the Democrat votes was premature at that point. So we had a little over a month to convert the minority of Republicans backing Burrows. Spoiler alert: we failed.

Texas House Speaker Dustin Burrows,
screenshot from here

Usually this race is pretty invisible to us constituents. It’s just part of business on day one. And usually the outcome is well known ahead of time. But I was getting multiple text ads on my phone, trying to convince me that Burrows was the conservative choice—the one for border security and school choice, even though he had personally blocked those conservative bills last session, in his then role as Calendars Committee Chair (the committee where good bills go to die).

The Chair Vote

Fast forward to first day of session, January 14. Despite our grassroots efforts, Burrows’ minority of Republicans stood strong, and his Democrat coalition coalesced. There was no winner after the first round of voting. On the second round, a few Republicans switched over—to Burrows. One of these was Rep. Harless from here in Harris County. Sadly, my rep, Lacey Hull, despite our lobbying, stayed with Burrows from start to finish, and even gave a nominating speech. These betrayals to the conservatives gave the win to Burrows, for the Democrats and a minority of Republicans, just like we’ve had for the past 7 sessions or so.

Rep. Hull's X post attempting to convince us she's conservative.

Days later, they had to vote on House Rules. Among the rules was the vote to ban Democrat committee chairs—a grassroots priority. Yay!

Except, we wanted that in order to empower the majority Republicans, so we could get our bills passed. The Democrats gladly voted for this “loss of Democrat power.” Why would they do that?

It was a bait and switch. The new House rules indeed made it clear Republicans would chair all committees, but it also made it a rule that every committee vice chair would be a Democrat. In other words, it banned Republican vice chairs.

And then it changed the powers of the vice chairs so that they were the deciding factor in things like who would get to testify in committees, and when and whether issues would come up for discussion. The chair positions were turned into something like an administrative figurehead.

There’s more. Democrats could be appointed as chairs of any subcommittees—at the discretion of the House Speaker. And suddenly there was the invention of 12 new "permanent standing committees," a category that hadn't existed before. He could also decide who could be on these committees and subcommittees. We could have exerted Republican power by having more Republicans than Democrats on every committee and subcommittee—and by chairing any subcommittees. But our chairs don’t get to decide that; the Speaker does. And he’s intending to give something to the Democrats in exchange for their vote for him. And, did I mention, the 432-page Rules document got delivered at 4:00 AM of the day they would vote on them.

People are calling those rules the Democrat Empowerment Act.

House members usually get to debate the rules, and offer amendments. That was not allowed this time. Even the pre-filed amendments were disallowed. Take the rules as is or leave them—but leave them wasn’t an option. I mean, a House member could vote against them (many did), but all the Democrats plus the Burrows-voting Republicans made up a majority. So that was that.

Who Authored the Rules?

Rep. Steve Toth notes the initials at the bottom of the Rules pages; these included HLB. He asked Speaker Burrows whether these initials referred to Hugh Brady, the previous parliamentarian, and the answer was yes. He then asked whether Brady would be the parliamentarian again, even though Burrows had previously told Toth he would not. The answer was in was an inappropriate inquiry. But Toth persisted and got the non-answer that no permanent appointments had yet been made. (I looked it up to see if the appointment had been made and found this, from the Secretary of State’s Office, saying the House Parliamentarian is Sharon Carter, as has been the case since 2019, dated January 9, so that’s confusing.)

Rep. Steve Toth asks about the House Parliamentarian,
screenshot from here

Why is the name Hugh Brady coming up? Tom Glass gives credit to Bo French, Tarrant County GOP Chair, for figuring out the Rules authorship by Brady, because of the initials, and explains who Brady is in an X post on January 27:

Hugh L. Brady was appointed by Dennis Bonnen in 2019 as parliamentarian of the Texas House. Dade Phelan continued his tenure in 2021 and 2023.

Brady literally wrote the book on Texas House rules called Texas House Practice (now out of print and unavailable for purchase anywhere online) . He taught House procedure at UT Law. And he was an attorney in the Obama administration and parliamentarian for the Travis Co Democratic Party.

His law firm, Brady & Peavy earned fees while he was parliamentarian from multiple entities, including the City of Austin and Harris County to craft points of order for Democrats to use to kill conservative legislation that he then advised Bonnen and Phelan to sustain.

A lot of us had been wondering what he would be doing under Burrows. I had been told at the Capitol that he had not been appointed again….

One of the three initials on HR 4, the rules package rapidly rammed through without debate or amendment in DC Nancy Pelosi style was HLB, Mr. Brady's initials….

It is clear that the owners of Third Coast Bank (Dade Phelan, Dennis Bonnen & Dustin Burrows) have again won control for the swamp of the Texas House.

OK. We see now that the ostensibly Republican majority House Rules were written by an Obama administration Democrat. His priority was to empower the Democrat minority. 

Trying to Follow the Money

But what was that last part, about the Third Coast Bank?

Lt. Governor Dan Patrick brought this up, just days before the vote for Speaker. Brandon Waltens for Texas Scorecard explains:

In late 2019, Third Coast Bank acquired Heritage Bank, where former disgraced Speaker Dennis Bonnen had served as President, Chairman, and Chief Executive Officer. Bonnen currently sits on Third Coast’s Board of Directors.

Outgoing Speaker Dade Phelan’s brother, Lan Phelan, was a director of Third Coast from 2013 until at least 2016, according to filings with the Secretary of State. Additionally, a 2021 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission revealed that the bank’s Beaumont location was leased from Phelan’s family investment firm. Phelan’s most recent financial reports also show he owns shares in the bank.

Last year, Texas Scorecard reported additional connections between Third Coast Bank and House members. State Rep. Cody Harris (R–Palestine) was hired as Vice President of Business Development in 2021, shortly after Phelan became Speaker. Other lawmakers, including State Rep. Dustin Burrows (R–Lubbock), were also found to own shares in the bank.

On Sunday evening, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick unleashed a fiery critique on social media, accusing five key figures—Dade Phelan, Dennis Bonnen, Greg Bonnen (Dennis’ brother and a current House member), Dustin Burrows, and Cody Harris—of running the Texas House like a “personal business” through a revolving door of leadership positions and shared financial interests.

While Patrick acknowledged that these arrangements are not illegal, he argued they have created a closed system that sidelines dissenting members and punishes those who refuse to comply. “They treat members like employees, not like equally elected House members,” Patrick wrote, likening the group to a “non-criminal version of the Goodfellas.” According to Patrick, dissenters risk being locked out of key committee assignments or seeing their bills blocked from consideration.

I can’t tell from all this whether the motivation for thwarting the conservative grassroots, who are loudly demanding better results—they succeeded in primary wins this year over some 15 previous squishes—is because of the desire for money or power. Probably both.

What Can We Do?

We need to drain the swamp in Texas. And it’s going to be hard to do.

One step is to let our representatives know we are watching. Push for conservative legislation—harder than we ever have. And keep track of their votes—in committees and their floor votes—on all our priorities. (The Legislative Priorities that came up from the grassroots and were voted on by delegates at last May’s convention can be found here.) 

They’re trying to disguise themselves as conservatives. That means they’ll have some motivation to vote for at least some of our important legislation. By applying enough of the right pressure, we might not have an entirely wasted session.

Note that voting against the Caucus choice for speaker is a censurable event. So is voting against a bill supporting the Preamble and 10 Principles at the front of the RPT platform (here). Three such censures can result in being ineligible to be on the ballot in two years. This was a Rule 44 change, to give some teeth to censures; we’ll see if it legally holds up, and whether County GOP groups follow through with the censures.

Texas Republican Platform Preamble and Principles

And, probably simultaneously (depending on how the session goes), we’ll be looking for primary challengers; that vote is just a year and a month away.

The House hasn’t gotten down to business yet. Committee assignments were to have been announced January 31, but Speaker Burrows has said the announcement has been postponed. Meanwhile, the Senate has been working for two and a half weeks. They have held hearings, and have already had a floor vote on SB2, the Senate’s school choice bill. More on that another day. (I haven’t fully studied it yet, but I’m hopeful. It uses other funding for the ESAs, while more money is being allotted per child in public education, so the fearful cries you’re hearing from public ed are likely misplaced.)

Anyway, constant vigilance it is again. The session only lasts 140 days. This year it runs from January 14 to June 2 (but plan on work to wrap up several days before that).

More Resources

Besides those linked above, here are a few more resources:

·        Rep. Nate Schatzline on X explains the situation.

·        Tom Glass on X mentions and links to Chris Salcedo interview explaining the situation.

·        Carol A. Spencer blog post “No Dem Chairs Vote Rings Hollow” talks about the permanent subcommittees and other new House Rules.

·        Katy Area Republicans post on Facebook January 26, 2025 shows a Rep. Andy Hopper video explaining the situation.

Getting Right to Work

I was intending to keep a little history here, recording President Trump’s actions on day one in office as the 47^th President of the United States. I went to the White House site for the official record, although it may be the count is off, because some items do several things at once, such as appointing cabinet and other staff, and granting clemency to multiple individuals. (Order is newest to oldest, or start at the beginning here.) 

President Donald J. Trump on Day 1, January 20, 2025
Image credit Doug Mills/New York Times

I’ll note here that there is a specific purpose for an executive order: to carry out the law. It is not an extra-constitutional privilege of the president to make law by circumventing the legislative branch. Previous administrations’ practices notwithstanding, executive orders are to direct how his administration will carry out existing laws. 

I read that there were, on day one, 26 executive orders, 12 memoranda, 4 proclamations, plus 75 Biden executive orders that were withdrawn (which aren’t included in the list). Another list had 40 items—plus the link to the official Presidential Actions website.

Today (January 24) there is one, I call it a proclamation, but the item itself doesn’t say what it is. It’s a sort of summary of the executive actions of the First 100 Hours. In it they (the White House) say:

Within the first 100 hours of his second administration, President Trump [has] taken hundreds of executive actions to secure the border, deport criminal illegal immigrants, unleash American prosperity, lower costs, increase government transparency, and reinstitute merit-based hiring in the federal government.

“Hundreds” is more than my list through the week. So they must be counting the multiple items within many of these. Or there are things he's doing, or announcing, that are not on the official list. This is to say, I don't really know how many there are. He's been very busy.

I thought I’d just list them items, and then comment on a few. And that is what I’m about to do. But I ended up also listing the additional executive orders, memoranda, and proclamations through Friday, January 24, because important things keep happening. That may continue to be true, possibly even on the weekend, and certainly next week. It’s leaving us breathless.

Here’s the list. And then we’ll talk.

January 20, 2025

1.        President Trump Announces Cabinet andCabinet-Level Appointments   (staffing)

o   Scott Bessent, of South Carolina, to be Secretary of the Treasury.

o   Pamela Bondi, of Florida, to be Attorney General.

o   Douglas Burgum, of North Dakota, to be Secretary of the Interior.

o   Lori Chavez-DeRemer, of Oregon, to be Secretary of Labor.

o   Douglas Collins, of Georgia, to be Secretary of Veterans Affairs.

o   Sean Duffy, of Wisconsin, to be Secretary of Transportation.

o   Peter Hegseth, of Tennessee, to be Secretary of Defense.

o   Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., of California, to be Secretary of Health and Human Services.

o   Howard Lutnick, of New York, to be Secretary of Commerce.

2.        President Trump Announces Sub-Cabinet Appointments  (staffing)

3.        President Trump Announces Acting Cabinet and Cabinet-Level Positions  (staffing)

4.        President Trump Designates Chairmen and Acting Chairmen  (staffing)

5.        Flying the Flag of the United States at Full-Staff on Inauguration Day  Proclamation

6.        Initial Rescissions of Harmful Executive Orders and Actions   Executive Order

7.        Restoring Freedom of Speech and Ending Federal Censorship   Executive Order

8.        Ending the Weaponization of the Federal Government  Executive Order

9.        Return to In-Person Work  Memorandum

10.   Regulatory Freeze Pending Review  Memorandum

11.   Hiring Freeze  Memorandum

12.   Delivering Emergency Price Relief for American Families and Defeating the Cost-of-Living Crisis  Memorandum

13.   Putting America First in International Environmental Agreements  Executive Order 

14.   Granting Pardons and Commutation of Sentences for Certain Offenses Relating to the Events at or Near the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021  Proclamation 

15.   Holding Former Government Officials Accountable for Election Interference and Improper Disclosure of Sensitive Governmental Information  Executive Order 

16.   Declaring a National Emergency at the Southern Border of the United States  Proclamation 

17.   Memorandum to Resolve the Backlog of Security Clearances for Executive Office of the President Personnel  Memorandum 

18.   America First Trade Policy  Memorandum 

19.   Clarifying the Military’s Role in Protecting the Territorial Integrity of the United States  Executive Order 

20.   Unleashing American Energy  Executive Order 

21.   Realigning the United States Refugee Admissions Program  Executive Order    

22.   Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship  Executive Order 

23.   Securing Our Borders  Executive Order 

24.   Putting People over Fish: Stopping Radical Environmentalism to Provide Water to Southern California  Memorandum 

25.   Restoring the Death Penalty and Protecting Public Safety  Executive Order 

26.   Promoting Beautiful Federal Civic Architecture  Memorandum 

27.   Restoring Accountability for Career Senior Executives  Memorandum 

28.   Declaring a National Energy Emergency  Executive Order 

29.   Temporary Withdrawal of All Areas on the Outer Continental Shelf from Offshore Wind Leasing and Review of the Federal Government’s Leasing and Permitting Practices for Wind Projects  Memorandum 

30.   Reevaluating and Realigning United States Foreign Aid  Executive Order 

31.   Organization of the National Security Council and Subcommittees  Memorandum 

32.   The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Global Tax Deal(Global Tax Deal)  Memorandum  

33.   Protecting the American People Against Invasion  Executive Order 

34.   Unleashing Alaska’s Extraordinary Resource Potential  Executive Order 

35.   Protecting the United States from Foreign Terrorists and Other National Security and Public Safety Threats  Executive Order 

36.   America First Policy Directive to the Secretary of State  Executive Order 

37.   Establishing and Implementing the President’s “Department of Government Efficiency”  Executive Order 

38.   Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government  Executive Order  

39.    Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing   Executive Order 

40.   Reforming the Federal Hiring Process and Restoring Merit to Government Service  Executive Order 

41.   Designating Cartels and Other Organizations as Foreign Terrorist Organizations and Specially Designated Global Terrorists  Executive Order 

42.   Restoring Names That Honor American Greatness  Executive Order 

43.   Guaranteeing the States Protection Against Invasion  Proclamation 

 

January 21, 2025

44.   Keeping Americans Safe in Aviation  Executive Order 

45.   Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity  Executive Order 

 

January 22, 2025

46.   Nominations Transmitted to the Senate  (staffing) 

47.   Executive Grant of Clemency for Andrew Zabavsky  Proclamation  

48.   Designation of Ansar Allah as a Foreign Terrorist Organization  Executive Order 

49.   Executive Grant of Clemency for Terence Sutton  Proclamation  

 

January 23, 2025

50.   Federal Recognition of the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina  Memorandum 

51.   Strengthening American Leadership in Digital Financial Technology  Executive Order 

52.   Declassification of Records Concerning the Assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Senator Robert F. Kennedy, and the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  Executive Order 

53.   President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology  Executive Order 

54.   Removing Barriers to American Leadership in Artificial Intelligence  Executive Order 

 

January 24, 2025

55.   The First 100 Hours: Historic Action to Kick Off America’s Golden Age  Proclamation 

56.   Enforcing the Hyde Amendment  Executive Order 

57.   Memorandum for the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, the Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development  Memorandum 

 

Whew!

Some of the most notable are the promises kept to secure the southern border and to pardon and release the J6 political prisoners. There was hesitation on a very few J6 cases, because of actual violence, but they got their sentences commuted—that is, they were not exonerated like the 1500 or so others, but their time served is all that is required of their sentences, which were ridiculously harsh compared to criminals convicted of even worse violence but not related to J6.

He took on some woke issues right away. Another first day action was to declare that the federal government will only recognize two sexes: male and female. And no more DEI; the federal government is now merit-based—getting rid of illegal discrimination.

As exciting as Day 1 was, releasing all the classified documents related to the assassinations of JFK, RFK, and MLK was noteworthy. I’m looking forward to getting some verifiable truth related to those—even if it reveals deep corruption within some three-letter agencies, which is I think what most of us expect to see. This is part of draining the swamp and clearing out the corruption; you have to see what slime you have to shovel out, so you don’t cover over a rotting foundation.

The exciting news added today was in the last executive order plus the last memorandum of the day. Enforcing the Hyde Amendment means preventing federal taxpayer dollars from going toward abortions or abortion services or providers. This had been in effect since 1980 (after 300,000 abortions had already been paid for with federal funds).

The original Hyde Amendment allowed for funding only in cases where abortion was necessary to save the life of the mother. In 1993, the exceptions of abortions where the pregnancy had resulted from rape or incest were added (note that incest implies coercion, or technically rape, even though it wasn’t a one-time crime or was not repeatedly resisted by the victim). While Democrats such as Hillary Clinton ran saying they would get rid of the Hyde Amendment, no one had ever attempted it until Joe Biden in 2022. His first attempt was to eliminate the Hyde Amendment from an omnibus spending bill, but it was placed back in. So he did it by executive order. Trump’s executive order includes revoking two Biden executive orders from 2022:

·        Executive Order 14076 of July 8, 2022 - Protecting Access to Reproductive Healthcare Services 

·        Executive Order 14079 of August 3, 2022 - Securing Access to Reproductive and Other Healthcare Services [The link included in this week’s executive order did not have the right link for this, but I found it by the number.]     

It looks to me, from a quick read through the Biden executive orders, that he would simply not abide by the Hyde Amendment’s requirement not to fund abortions, because he supported abortion as a “women’s health care right.” This was in opposition to the Supreme Court ruling in the Dobbs decision in June 2022. So, thank you, President Trump, for taking care of this detail and removing our condemnation.

The memorandum that followed up was to prevent abortion funding to other nations, often through NGOs and non-profits and charities.

Vice President JD Vance, marching for life,
image from DC_Draino on Instagram

Another first day action was to declare an energy emergency. That might be a bit of a hyperbole. During the Biden administration, gas prices got pretty high, but they went down this past year, I’m assuming in anticipation of the election. The real concern has been preventing use of existing oil reserves, such as in Alaska, prioritizing some climate change faux science over actual energy needs. And there was the draining of the strategic oil reserves that Biden was pretty cavalier about. Add to that an expected increase in energy use with electric vehicles and with increased use of AI. So, maybe we weren’t exactly in a crisis, but we needed urgent changes. And those of us living here in Houston, up the road from the energy corridor of the energy capital, appreciate it.

Another big one was ending birthright citizenship. That one deserves an entire post, maybe another day. Let’s just quote the 14^th Amendment, Section 1, in case you need a refresher:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States AND SUBJECT TO THE JURISDICTION THEREOF, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.

I highlighted the part so many people fail to notice. This isn’t for persons who are accidentally born here when a mother with a visitor’s visa goes into labor during a vacation; such a child would still be a citizen of the mother’s and/or father’s country. In fact, people from our protectorates, such as American Samoa, who can freely visit here, are not entitled to citizenship merely by being born here. The purpose of the 14^th Amendment was to cover those persons who had been born and living in the country but denied citizenship during slavery. This amendment was ratified in 1868, shortly after the Civil War. It was much later (about a century later) that someone got the idea of applying this to illegal aliens, creating “anchor babies.” This is a correction of that misinterpretation. (Robert Gouveia does a good discussion here.) 

President Trump has said it will not affect those previously born here (prior to January 20, 2025) under the prior administration’s interpretation of the Amendment. So, all those people out there claiming he’s throwing young people out, some of whom have never known another country—get a grip. He’s just making sure the world no longer comes here thinking that, if they can just have a baby here, who would get citizenship, then that might be their ticket to being allowed to stay. President Trump is removing that illegal-alien magnet. And, of course, it’s going to be litigated.

There’s plenty more to cover, but this will suffice for now. And from here we just get to see how it plays out. My guess is that a very high percentage of these executive orders will bring us back into balance, and closer to the Constitution. And that will be a good thing.