The embattled Chair of the House State Affairs Committee, Rep. Chris Paddie, came under enormous pressure from Texans over HB 1359, the TEXIT bill. This, coupled with a recent censure from one of the anchor counties in his district, has driven him from office.

Anyone familiar with the Texas Nationalist Movement is familiar with the name Chris Paddie, because HB1359 was referred to his committee in March 2021. Even with thousands upon thousands of calls, video messages, emails, and visits both in district offices and in the Capitol, Rep. Paddie ignored the pleas of Texans and refused even to schedule the bill for a hearing, effectively killing it for the 2021 legislative session.

The people of TNM were undeterred and instead hosted a press conference in the Speakers Committee room and presented their own “virtual hearing” with an overwhelming 24 hours of video testimony in favor of allowing the people’s voices to be heard on Texas Independence.

Killing conservative bills in committee seems to be a trend for Rep. Paddie, though, and his home county GOP expressed their dissatisfaction by listing 18 grievances in their censure resolution, passed on Tuesday September 14, 2021 by a vote of 9-1.

One week after the censure vote by Harrison County GOP, Rep. Paddie has announced he will not seek reelection. The voice of Texans has finally been heard.

The grievances indicated that Rep. Paddie had voted directly against legislation that would promote the GOP platform and that he refused to let other important legislation pass out of his committee. 

Specifically, Paddie voted NO to appointing Republican chairmen to major committees, NO to an expedited calendar which would allow bills to move faster out of committee, and NO to the transparency of committee members being required to vote on record when they decline to schedule a bill on the calendar. 

House Bill 749, with forty-four (44) co-authors, and multiple similar bills were proposed to ban taxpayer-funded lobbying, which is a top priority of the Republican Party. All of these bills died in Rep. Paddie’s committee. 

One bill, Senate Bill 10, passed in the Senate 17-13 to ban taxpayer funded lobbying, but Rep. Paddie replaced the bill with a “Committee Substitute” he authored which expanded lobbying and gave an exemption for lawyers from being required to register as lobbyists with the Texas Ethics Commission.

Finally, the censure included major grievances regarding conservative values, as Chris Paddie allowed bills to die which would have protected the rights of the unborn, protected women from the invasion of male athletes into women’s sports, and protected religious liberties from government mandates in future emergencies.

It’s no wonder that Chris Paddie ranked 70^th most-conservative legislator out of 83 representatives in the Texas House in a Rice University Index.

Rep. Paddie accused the Harrison County GOP of attempting to tear the party apart, but his statement underscores the widening gap between so-called “conservative” politicians and the people they are elected to serve. 

If you are tired of politicians like Chris Paddie ignoring the voice of the people and abandoning conservative values, join with like-minded Texans at the Texas Nationalist Movement and help send the message to the legislators in Texas and in Washington.

Join the TEXIT petition campaign to overrule the committees in Austin that want to block the TEXIT question from the ballot. Together, we can make a vote on Texas Independence a reality in 2022.