Legislature Heralds State DOGE Inspired by Musk, Headed by North Texans

The Texas Legislature is taking a page out of President Donald Trump’s book with the creation of a committee aimed at rooting out waste and fraud within the government. 

Texas House Speaker Dustin Burrows announced the creation of the Delivery of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, Committee last week, and North Texas representatives pack the list of appointees. Southlake Republican Giovanni Capriglione was named chairman, and Euless Democrat Salman Bhojani will serve as vice chair. 

The committee’s creation pulls inspiration from the White House’s DOGE headed by billionaire Elon Musk. The group has slashed thousands of federal jobs and initiatives, including those tied to diversity, equity and inclusion, and has stirred controversy by gaining access to payment systems in the federal government. 

Although there are few details on what the Texas committee’s inaugural year will entail, Bhojani explained to the Observer that their efforts will look different than those of their federal counterparts. 

(For one, the Texas DOGE committee is made up of all elected officials who were voted into office by their constituents. The federal department appears to include Musk, elected to nothing by no one, lording over a handful of tech bros.) 

“I don’t think this is mass firings of committees and agencies and all that. That’s not what I’m thinking this DOGE is,” Bhojani said. “My goal is to work on how we can make the government more efficient by using technology like AI to expedite things.”

In an interview with NBC 5, Capriglione said he hopes to “increase transparency” so that Texans can better understand the day-to-day dealings of state agencies. He also wants to ensure the processes within those agencies are efficient through partnering with the Sunset Advisory Commission, the board charged with reviewing state agencies each decade and recommending reform. 

“To go and open up our public information act, to open up the public meetings act, so taxpayers, voters, constituents and the press can go and get as much information as possible,” Capriglione said. “Because technology and modernization is not just about making a faster computer, it’s about making more of this data available.”

The DOGE committee’s guiding principle will be an aim to improve the “user experience” of government dealings, where the user is Texas residents, he said.

The 5 D’s of Doge: doge, discover, disrupt, deliver, doge.

Members of the Texas House Committee on Delivery of Government Efficiency are already working hard and making plans to deliver! #txlege #txDOGE pic.twitter.com/iJMNazaStB

— Giovanni Capriglione (@VoteGiovanni) February 14, 2025

Bhojani, a lawyer with an education in technology administration and implementation, believes he makes a natural fit for the committee alongside Capriglione, who chairs the Innovation and Technology Caucus within the state House of Representatives. Other North Texas lawmakers named to the 13-person committee include Rhetta Bowers, D-Rowlett; David Cook, R-Mansfield; Ana-Maria Rodriguez Ramos, D-Richardson; Mike Olcott, R-Fort Worth; Tony Tinderholt, R – Arlington; and Linda Garcia, D-Mesquite.

The committee hopes to inject some technological savviness into Texas’ most “mundane and administrative” processes, Bhojani said. The number of North Texans appointed to the committee shows the “clout” the region has within the technology sector, he added.

“My experience has been that the government has generally been slow to adapt to new technology,” Bhojani said. “Chairman Capriglione and myself are a good pair, and the other members of the committee are also in that same boat. We want to hit the ground running by figuring out if there are inefficiencies in the processes right now.”

Capriglione cited trying to get a new driver’s license as a process that could be simplified and digitized to keep Texans out of the DMV. Bhojani pointed to “easy to implement” call-back technology that could reduce the amount of time Texans spend on hold with state agencies as another example of ways the state could lessen the burden placed on residents trying to engage with state agencies.

But Bhojani thinks it’s important that Texans know this won’t be a mass axing of anything – or anyone – that could be seen as bureaucratic bloat. 

“In any business you’re profitable by making sure that you increase revenues and reduce expenses, and that’s the kind of thinking cap I’m trying to bring into the committee,” Bhojani said. “We do want to be respectful of the people that have worked in our government for a long time. But at the same time, how do we bridge that and efficiency?”