Tea partier Dan Patrick Credit: Photo by John Anderson

Since Election Day, the joke around the Legislature has been that there are now three parties under the dome: the Repub­lic­ans, the Democrats, and the tea party. On Dec. 16, Sen. Dan Patrick, R-Houston, came one step closer to formalizing that reality when he announced his Tea Party Caucus of Texas. Members are required to sign off on the five points of the Texas Conservative Coalition‘s Pledge With Texans, committing them to an anti-tax, anti-federal agenda. So far, he’s attracted 48 state reps, but his call to arms has mostly fallen on deaf ears in the Senate, with only incoming freshman Brian Birdwell, R-Granbury, signing on.

Patrick has also failed to reach across the aisle. A coalition of leading House Democrats, including Pete Gallego, D-Alpine, lambasted his announcement as grandstanding, saying, “Texans have too many urgent problems to entertain ideologically driven proposals from the far right.” In a joint statement, the group reminded Tex­ans that this new caucus emerged from the same conservative bloc that has threatened to terminate the state’s Medicaid program. They warned, “Texas cannot afford to lose over $16 billion in federal matching funds, while starving our hospitals, neglecting our elderly and disabled and turning our backs on our children.”

This isn’t the first time Patrick has reached out of the Senate to dabble in House politics. In November, he tried to play kingmaker in the speaker’s race by organizing a sit-down between Speaker Joe Straus and his two conservative challengers, Ken Paxton from McKinney and Pampa’s War­ren Chisum – a meeting Patrick admitted violated “the traditions and practices of the state Capitol.” And back in April, he founded the Independent Conservative Repub­licans of Texas. Built on very similar political dogma as his tea party caucus, that group managed to get 16 senators and 62 reps on board, all Republicans. This seeming duplication of resources has left Patrick’s fellow Houstonian, Democrat Rep. Garnet Coleman, understandably baffled. He also warned that Patrick will need to keep the “racial animosity and troubling extremist elements” of the tea party movement out of the debate.

This article appears in December 24 • 2010.

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The Chronicle's first Culture Desk editor, Richard has reported on Austin's growing film production and appreciation scene for over a decade. A graduate of the universities of York, Stirling, and UT-Austin, a Rotten Tomatoes certified critic, and eight-time Best of Austin winner, he's currently at work on two books and a play.