Few anticipated state Rep. Marc LaHood’s (R-San Antonio) first legislative session to return to such a dramatic shut.
With simply days left within the state’s 140-day policy-making dash, the freshman lawmaker dealt an sudden blow to one of many state’s strongest lobbying entities — strolling out of a committee assembly in a transfer the group’s leaders say killed a pair of authorized reform payments supported by everybody from Gov. Greg Abbott to an Elon Musk-backed enterprise group.
It’s the kind of motion that might simply be career-ending within the cutthroat Texas Legislature, the place lobbyists’ {dollars} are important and GOP primaries current a relentless menace to those that step out of line.
“Most individuals, all they see is the marketing campaign assault advertisements …. so I feel it’s in all probability a good factor to say that lots of people had been stunned,” LaHood stated in a current interview with the Report.
However because the chamber’s conservative wing takes emboldened steps to dismantle any remaining energy of the GOP institution, LaHood, whose 121st Texas Home District has lengthy most well-liked extra business-centric Republicans, is rising as an unlikely champion of that trigger.
The 46-year-old gained a Northside state Home seat final yr with the assistance of an uncommon coalition of GOP backers, united by their need to root out fashionable incumbent state Rep. Steve Allison (R-Alamo Heights) so they might create a faculty voucher program.
Whereas LaHood certainly went on to assist push that long-failed conservative dream into legislation, he additionally aligned himself with a wing of the GOP that has a lot larger targets of reshaping the Texas Home.
This yr LaHood was certainly one of 52 Home Republicans who backed an unsuccessful conservative Home speaker candidate, suggesting on the time that the chamber’s present leaders had been an impediment to Republican coverage targets in a state the place their social gathering controls each lever of energy.
“Energy was brokered between individuals, and the price of that was a few of the Republican priorities, whether or not it’s border safety or college alternative,” LaHood instructed the Report months out from the speaker’s race.
Although that effort failed, the felony protection legal professional has since turn out to be the face of a unique conservative precedence: Dethroning the pro-business group Texans for Lawsuit Reform (TLR), which is among the many single greatest spenders in state legislative races and backed quite a lot of institution Republicans who misplaced final yr, together with Allison.
LaHood instructed the San Antonio Report he by no means imagined the authorized reform payments would turn out to be such a defining difficulty.
“I wasn’t actually occupied with something apart from the invoice, what I imagine the invoice did, what I imagine it didn’t do, and the way I imagine it will have an effect on Texans,” LaHood stated.
However his and different conservatives’ work derailing them has been the speak of the state’s political insiders since TLR’s leaders wrote to main GOP donors detailing the dispute after the session ended — setting the stage for an additional spherical of doubtless bruising primaries between the social gathering’s business-minded and conservative wings in 2026.
“We feared from the outset that Mr. LaHood was not philosophically aligned with the enterprise group, and we had been proper,” TLR’s common counsel Lee Parsley wrote. ” … we should redouble our efforts to elect sturdy, moral, legislators.”
In the meantime, conservatives who’ve almost run out of purple districts to flip in primaries are already utilizing LaHood’s reelection race a testing floor for messaging their concepts with a broader swath of voters.
LaHood responded to TLR’s leaders together with his personal scathing letter framing his actions as a rebuke of highly effective enterprise pursuits which might be used to unchecked affect.
“I can’t serve TLR’s particular pursuits which might be nonetheless reaping file income whilefinancing this foyer effort to strip individuals of their constitutional rights,” he wrote. “Nor will I be bullied into submission.”
Days later, he launched a reelection marketing campaign with a surprising $1.25 million raised within the eight days after the state’s fundraising moratorium was lifted.
Particular person contributors gained’t be made public till the marketing campaign finance deadline on July 15, however LaHood stated the quantity was early proof the social gathering’s outdated energy construction is on the decline.
“Our historic fundraising displays the truth which you could vote as a principled conservative Republican and nonetheless be an unapologetic voice for working-class households,” he wrote.
‘I don’t run from a struggle’
The LaHood identify is well-known past politics in San Antonio, the place Marc LaHood’s identify and picture seem ceaselessly on billboards promoting his household’s legislation agency.
His brother Nico was the onetime Bexar County District Legal professional who misplaced the place in a Democratic major in 2018. When Marc LaHood ran to reclaim his brother’s seat in 2022, he did in order a conservative Republican, elevating massive cash and a spotlight, however dropping by double digits.
Two years later, when Abbott signaled plans to major Republicans who voted towards his college voucher plan, LaHood joined the Home District 121 race earlier than the invoice had even made it to the Home ground.
Many native Republicans had been shocked to see him handily defeat Allison, a former Alamo Heights ISD Board president who had beforehand been a detailed ally of the governor.
However maybe much less noticeable in that major was the intra-party rigidity simmering over the Home’s vote to question Legal professional Basic Ken Paxton that summer time — divisions that might proceed to divide Republicans the next session after members of the Texas Senate voted to acquit him.
When Paxton requested the Home Appropriations Committee to cowl his authorized bills in a case introduced towards him by staffers, Allison emerged as a critic of the legal professional common. Effectively-heeled conservative teams that supported Paxton later rallied round LaHood to defeat Allison, together with West Texas oil billionaires Tim Dunn and Farris Wilks, who’ve been instrumental within the rightward shift of the Texas legislature.
Now LaHood is taken into account a rising star within the conservative motion, taking up fights its leaders wish to see occur at probably massive private expense.
In comparison with the deep-red districts held by different conservatives, his Texas Home District 121 contains rich, college-educated suburbs which have been trending away from Republicans on the federal degree, however nonetheless usually embrace extra centrist Republicans in state and native races.
After a bunch of brutal GOP primaries throughout the state LaHood was one of many few winners to face an costly common election as effectively — making his strategy on the legislature considerably stunning.
By the authorized reform group’s telling, LaHood was a freshman poised to solid important votes on whether or not a trio of payments the enterprise group needed may advance to the Home ground from the Home Committee on Judiciary and Civil Jurisprudence he served on.
LaHood was talked into supporting SB 30, geared toward reining in how a lot lawsuits cowl for medical payments, which in the end failed as a consequence of maneuvering by different conservatives, the group’s leaders stated.
However on two different payments, SB 39, associated to trucking lawsuits, and SB 779, associated to public nuisance lawsuits, TLR stated LaHood was the deciding vote and walked out of a gathering to kill them with out taking public positions that might upset enterprise pursuits.
“He rapidly left the committee room, figuring out that the committee chairman supposed to name for votes on our different two payments,” the group wrote within the now broadly circulated donor letter. “This might have compelled Mr. LaHood to place his opposition on the file. As an alternative of doing that, Mr. LaHood fled.”
LaHood contests that evaluation, saying he’d beforehand raised concern with the group’s leaders about parts of the payments that had been by no means addressed.
“The best way I interpret the payments, [they would have] had monumental results on on a regular basis Texans,” LaHood stated in an interview. “It affected patient-provider privilege, relationships and privateness, guidelines of proof. It was quite a bit larger than what they had been saying.”
LaHood is hardly alone in believing Texas’ decades-long authorized reform effort is approaching its pure limits.
Two years in the past it even received lawmakers to create a brand new enterprise courtroom to listen to instances involving high-dollar business disputes, which was expanded this yr to incorporate lower-dollar instances as effectively.
However after the TLR letter got here out, LaHood leveled some unprecedented public criticism at one of many greatest spenders for GOP causes.
“Merely said, TLR lies … I don’t run from a struggle,” LaHood wrote a surprising 1,170-word response that circulated rapidly on social media. “As I dug into the contents [of the bills], I used to be appalled on the breadth of what TLR was attempting to codify into legislation beneath the guise of ‘addressing dangerous actors.’”
A redefined proper
Amongst native Republicans, the dispute has sparked some renewed dialog about whether or not business-centric candidates will proceed to have the identical stake within the GOP’s future as they’ve prior to now.
San Antonio was as soon as a beacon of the social gathering’s reasonable wing, sending former Texas Speaker Joe Straus to the legislature, amongst many others centrists.
Now almost each elected Republican right here faces a major problem, and the social gathering has struggled to place up a struggle towards its many elected Democrats.
Thus far no high-profile candidates have raised their palms to tackle LaHood — who stays in good standing with Abbott and picked up an endorsement by President Donald Trump on Friday.
“His conservative bona fides are well-defined,” stated Elliott Griffin, an Austin-based political marketing consultant who works for LaHood and different Home conservatives. “There’s not a reputable problem from Marc’s proper in any respect.”
However after Allison’s race charted new territory on how points are framed to voters, some Republicans see room to attempt.
Texas GOP leaders had been upset with Allison’s opposition to high school vouchers, however few advertisements talked about that difficulty. As an alternative, opponents attacked the incumbent on points like border safety which might be nearer and dearer to the GOP base, but didn’t actually replicate his voting file.
An analogous argument appears to be shaping up towards LaHood.
“He’s from the left. Individuals didn’t know,” stated Austin-based Republican marketing consultant Craig Murphy, who labored for Allison and believes a challenger will emerge. “Whoever runs towards him goes to be operating from the proper.”
TLR’s leaders echoed that sentiment, pointing to their very own assist for LaHood within the common election race towards Democrat Laurel Jordan Swift.
“We weren’t positive what to anticipate with Consultant LaHood, and [we’re] not likely sure what he was considering,” Parsley stated.
“He was a freshman consultant on a committee the place, it seems he’s actually a swing vote. …Probably the most stunning factor to me, is that somebody in that place wouldn’t have a default place that might favor their very own political social gathering.”
From LaHood’s perspective, his strategy is extra open-minded than rubber-stamp.
“For those who ask round, Democrats, Republican, leaders, clerks,” LaHood stated, “the one factor they’d say is, ‘Marc will not be solely open to sit down down have a dialog, however I’m open to persuasion.’”
