TYLER, Texas — East Texas state Rep. Cole Hefner said he expects the major priorities of the 2025 state legislative session to be border security, property taxes and protecting kids.
"The members of the House will formulate our priorities through our votes, through the bills that we file, and that will come more into focus as we move forward," Hefner said.
In an interview with CBS19, Hefner, who represents Camp, Rains, Titus, Upshur and Wood counties and part of Smith County, said one of his priorities will be seeking to ban hostile foreign adversaries from owning land in Texas, like China, Iran and North Korea.
"We don't want hostile adversaries own and land close to our infrastructure, close to our military bases, controlling our food supply and so those that's a national security issue," Hefner said.
Regarding the possibility of property tax relief, Hefner said the representatives will have to look at the state budget's surplus first.
"We have to pay our teachers, we have to build roads, pay our law enforcement. But when we can, we need to return is return those tax dollars back to the taxpayer in the form of tax relief," he said.
Concerning abortion, Hefner said while he believes the bill banning abortion protects the mother's health, there has been some discussion regarding the need for clarity. He noted abortions have decreased significantly in Texas since passing the law restricting abortions.
On the issue of school choice and vouchers, Gov. Greg Abbott said he intends to make the issue a part of the upcoming legislative session. Hefner said he believes there will be a bill this session, but he's unsure of what that will look like.
"We've got a lot of new members (and) a lot of strong opinions on both sides of the issue. And so getting that bill to the floor that we can get 76 votes on is going to be the challenge before us. I think it will happen," Hefner said.
He thinks it's possible to pay teachers what they're worth and give parents education saving accounts to choose what's best for their family.
In other education news, some Republican lawmakers have filed bills seeking to not stop undocumented students from receiving in-state tuition.
"I think it's important that we as Texas taxpayers, we don't need to be paying to educate people that are not here legally," Hefner said. "So I think that's an important subject that we need to look at and work through. We'll see how that plays out, ... but I do believe that's something that we need to look at."
Hefner said he supports efforts that make sure non-citizens are not registered to vote in elections.
"We want each vote, the legal vote to be counted. We don't want cheating. We don't want people that shouldn't be voting to vote. We don't people voting more than once. It's a cornerstone of our whole republican form of government," Hefner said.
He added it's likely that the House would pass a bill on that issue.
Hefner also commented on the actions of the Texas House on Criminal Jurisprudence members that contributed to stopping East Texas death row inmate Robert Roberson. Hefner was one of several state representatives who filed a brief with the Texas Supreme Court denouncing the committee's actions.
"I'm a strong believer in in rules. The disagreement I had with some some of my colleagues was not necessarily their opinion of what may or may not be, but more about the process and honoring the different branches of government," Hefner said. "I do think it's important that we follow the right process and that we as a legislative branch stay in our lane and not overstep into the other branches of government."
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