Tallying Up What North Texas Reps Actually Got Done in the Legislative Session

It’s been one week since state representatives celebrated sine die, a Latin phrase that describes the adjournment of a meeting or session without a plan to resume anytime soon. Unless Gov. Greg Abbott calls a special session this summer, the Capitol will be empty until 2027.

And unlike two years ago, it doesn’t seem likely that a special session is on the horizon because nearly all of his major legislative priorities have passed. Bills targeting bail reform, property taxes and vouchers for private schools all sailed through the legislative chambers this year, standing in stark contrast to the 88th legislative session, where, after four special sessions, the governor could not get his voucher policy over the finish line.

So it was a good session for Abbott, and it was a good session for his No. 2, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, whose list of 40 legislative priorities largely rode the wave of an increasingly conservative legislative body. Nearly 9,000 bills were introduced this session. After 140 days, around 1,200 made it to Abbott’s desk.

Which left us wondering, how much did North Texas’ representatives get done down in Austin?

We took a look at LegiScan and tallied up exactly how many successful bills each Dallas-area representative had their name on. In some cases, these are bills that directly mirror the goals of Dallas. In other cases, they are deeply personal endeavors.

These aren’t victims. These are victors.

You either stand with them or you stand with their abusers. There is no middle ground.

As for the #txlege — we’ve made our choice to stand with them. And proudly so.

Grateful for the work of our Texas House Judiciary Committee in… pic.twitter.com/02GRp0cLtg

— Jeff Leach (@leachfortexas) March 19, 2025

For instance, Nathan Johnson and Royce West, both Democratic state senators from Dallas, authored Senate Bill 1494, which will finally allow Dallas to move its municipal elections to November. Reps Rafael Anchia and Toni Rose were House sponsors for the legislation. Passed with the help of four Dallas-area Democrats, SB 1494 is a direct response to the mandate issued by voters last November, who overwhelmingly passed a Dallas City Charter amendment to move elections in odd-numbered years to help promote higher voter turnout.

Another piece of legislation that responded to moves made on the city level is Johnson’s Senate Bill 2835, which will allow municipalities to amend their residential building codes to accommodate multi-family developments that are built with a single staircase. The law is a win for affordable housing advocates and reflects the Dallas City Council’s recently approved changes to the city's residential development code that could help incentivize developers to build small-scale housing density by removing costly barriers such as extra staircases.

In other cases, the laws passed in Austin are deeply personal to the lawmakers who champion them. Take, for instance, Trey’s Law, which will end the use of non-disclosure agreements in child sex abuse cases. The law is named for a Dallas native, Trey Carlock, who committed suicide after suffering abuse at the hands of his camp counselor, an assault that was silenced through an NDA. Representative Jeff Leach of Plano authored the original bill, and a Senate companion was passed on to the governor. Legislators heard testimony from Carlock’s sister and Cindy Clemshire, the woman who accused Gateway Church Pastor Robert Morris of abusing her at age 12.

With only around 15% of suggested bills making it to Abbott for signature, some legislators don’t get credit for a win, even if progress on an issue was made.

State Rep. Venton Jones is not the first legislator to attempt to repeal a provision of state law that criminalizes same-sex intercourse. In 2003, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the ban unconstitutional, and though it is now unenforceable, nobody has been able to get the votes to take the language off the books officially. Until that is, this session, when Jones’ House Bill 1738 passed through the House with 72 votes. The bill stalled out in the Senate, and so HB 1738 isn’t included in our official tally of what Jones got done. But sometimes, steps like a successful House vote are needed to set up a successful run in a future legislative session.

🏛️ Today, we made history in the Texas House. 🏛️
For the first time, the House voted to repeal Texas’ unconstitutional “homosexual conduct” law. This law has been unenforceable for over 20 years, but still sits on our books as a symbol of state-sanctioned discrimination.

I… pic.twitter.com/G79mzcAt9U

— State Rep. Venton Jones (@VentonJonesTX) May 16, 2025

Finally, many of these legislators can claim easy wins by co-sponsoring a widely popular, bipartisan bill that will pass anyway. Senate Bill 5 is a perfect example of this. The bill outlines the creation of the Dementia Prevention and Research Institute of Texas, a $3 billion research endeavor into a disease that has impacted Texans of all walks of life. Patrick outlined the bill as a top priority last fall — note the low bill number, as evidence of how important it was to the chamber leader. Of the 181 elected officials that make up the Texas House and Senate, 2/3rds signed onto the bill in support, and now each of those 130+ co-signees gets a tally in the win column, just how politics goes.

So, without further ado, here is how the 89th Legislative Session went for Dallas’ representatives. All of these numbers were pulled from the legislation tracking website LegiScan as of June 9. They include only passed bills that the representative authored or co-sponsored. Passed resolutions were excluded from our tally.

The Senate

Someone from Sen. Royce West’s office let us know if you guys have managed to catch up on your sleep yet. The senator is named on 60 bills that were sent to Gov. Abbott’s desk, by far the most of any other North Texas lawmaker.

Sen. Nathan Johnson claimed 26 successful pieces of legislation, while Senators Tan Parker, Bob Hall and Brian Birdwell had their names on 33, 11 and 14 bills, respectively.

The House

The Capitol’s partisan divide is especially apparent in the House, where Republicans significantly outpaced Democrats in passing legislation.

While his jurisdiction falls outside of Dallas proper, we’ll allow Rep. Giovanni Capriglione to take the credit for his 24 successful bills. Rep. Angie Chen Button was named on 17 passed bills, while Leach was on 15. Rep. Jared Patterson tallied 19 victories, while Tarrant County’s Tony Tinderholt and David Cook recorded seven and 16 bills, respectively. Rep. Morgan Meyer was named on 10 successful bills, and Mitch Little was named on 12. Rep. Matt Shaheen tallied eight victories.

The numbers are smaller for the Democrats, although Rep. Salman Bohjani did manage to land 15 pieces of legislation on Abbott's desk, an impressive number for a sophomore. However, Rep. Aicha Davis had him beat with 16 successful pieces of legislation.


Representatives Toni Rose and Rafael Anchia each tallied eight victories, Ana-Maria Ramos was named on seven passing bills, and Cassandra Hernandez hit double digits with 10.

Jones and Rep. Yvonne Davis each had four successful bills, while Reps Jessica Gonzalez, John Bryant, Rhetta Andrews Bowers, Terry Meza and Linda Garcia each had five.