This is an analysis piece from The Patriot Party Texas's conservative, Christian perspective. The claims below come from advocacy sources and a labeled opinion column, not neutral reporting; we attribute each one and have not independently verified every vote, so readers should check the roll calls at the Texas Legislature Online website.
As James Talarico campaigns for the U.S. Senate with a message aimed at moderate and undecided voters, Republican-aligned groups say his record in the Texas House tells a different story. Here is what they cite, with the source for each.
Taxes and spending. According to Texans for Fiscal Responsibility (TFR), a fiscal advocacy group, Talarico voted against 2019's SB 2, the property-tax reform law that lowered the voter-approval rate for many local governments from 8% to 3.5%. TFR also says he voted against a 2021 bill (SB 1341) requiring the state to check welfare rolls for deceased recipients, lottery winnings and out-of-state moves, and against a 2025 bill (SB 17) restricting real-estate purchases by certain foreign entities tied to adversary governments. The group lists bills he filed, including a 2025 “Texas Care Plan” (HB 5311) that TFR says would expand Medicaid, a minimum-wage increase (HB 5297), and a bill (HB 5315) that would end Texas's right-to-work status. TFR scored him 30 out of 100 on its 2025 index and gave him an F in each of 2019, 2021, 2023 and 2025. TFR also says he joined the 2025 special-session quorum break, which it says cost taxpayers tens of thousands of dollars per day. These characterizations, including the label “anti-taxpayer,” are TFR's policy judgments, and its post offers no independent cost analysis for most of the bills.
Public safety and guns. In an opinion column for The Daily Signal, commentator Deroy Murdock, a Fox News contributor, lists votes he says show Talarico is “soft on terrorism, hard on guns.” Murdock says Talarico voted no on SB 1518 (2023), which created a confidential registry for convicted terrorists after release, on HB 888 (2019), on penalties for misrepresenting a child as a family member at a border crossing with intent to commit trafficking, on HB 2366 (2021), raising penalties for using fireworks or laser pointers to impede police, and on SB 1120 (2025), which expanded rights of victims of protective-order violations and sexual assault. The column also says he authored 2019 bills (HB 3508 and HB 3506) that would have moved Texas from “shall issue” to “may issue” handgun permits, and that he co-authored but voted against the final 2023 school-security bill, HB 3. The bill numbers and tallies are factual claims; the framing is the writer's opinion. Separately, TFR says Talarico voted against SB 14 (2023), the ban on puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones for minors; Talarico told the Texas Tribune this month, “I do not support gender reassignment surgery for minors,” and the sources we reviewed do not reconcile the two.
The campaign response. Republicans say his town hall moderation contradicts his record. Chris Gustafson of the Senate Leadership Fund said he is “too liberal and too dangerous for Texas.” Talarico told the town hall audience, “We cannot afford Ken Paxton's corruption,” and has said the real crisis is affordability. In fairness, a "no" vote on a bill that passes with a large majority can reflect concerns about a specific provision, and none of the sources we reviewed include Talarico's explanations for these particular votes.
What readers can do. Voters of faith are taught to test claims rather than accept them. Every vote listed here can be looked up by bill number on the Texas Legislature Online site, and Talarico's explanations can be requested from his campaign. We will update this piece with any response.
Open questions: we have not independently verified the roll calls above, and the quorum-break cost figure comes only from TFR. We did not review Talarico's campaign response to each vote.