State Rep. Cole Hefner, R-Mount Pleasant, left, and state Rep. Jay Dean, R-Longview, say legislation they vote for in the recently completed 89th legislative session advanced conservative priorities, such as property tax cuts and protection of water rights. (Longview News-Journal File Photos)

Two state representatives serving East Texas said lawmakers passed several crucial pieces of conservative legislation during the Legislature’s 2025 session.

Rep. Jay Dean, R-Longview, and Rep. Cole Hefner, R-Mount Pleasant, said they worked to protect the region’s water rights, outlaw the purchase of land by foreign adversaries, reduce property taxes and invest in education during the 89th session of the Legislature. The session ended June 2, though Gov. Greg Abbott has called lawmakers back for a special session in July.

“It’s a huge success for conservatives and for the people of Texas,” Hefner said of the session.

Lawmakers passed dozens of bills addressing issues the state’s Republican Party set as its priorities for the legislative session, including bills to ban instruction of sexual orientation and gender ideology in schools, to prevent Texas land from being sold to foreign adversaries, to secure the state’s elections and to secure the southern border.

The Legislature appropriated a record $8.5 billion for public education to fund teacher pay raises, boost overall school funding and pay for other initiatives. Lawmakers also approved a voucher measure that will allow families to use public funds to pay for private education.

The state’s $333 billion budget is balanced and is billions below state spending caps, Hefner said.

Hefner was a co-author on Senate Bill 17, which he said is the “strongest bill in the nation” to restrict Texas land ownership by citizens of China, Russia, Iran and other nations deemed hostile toward the United States. The bill allows residents to file a complaint with the Texas Attorney General’s Office to investigate whether a landowner is in violation of the law. Ultimately, landowners who are in violation of the law would be forced to divest their land and would be prosecuted, Hefner said.

“We don’t want people coming over here and buying up land and controlling our food supply chains. We don’t want them posting up close to our critical infrastructure or military bases and things such as that,” Hefner said. “If you’re a non-citizen of the U.S. and deemed to be an agent of a hostile adversary, then you can’t own land here.”

While the bill is designed to protect national security, some opponents of the bill, such as state Rep. Gene Wu, D-Houston, have said it promotes anti-Asian discrimination, Houston Public Media reported.

Hefner and Dean also supported $11 billion in property tax relief measures this session: raising the state’s homestead exemption from $100,000 to $140,000, providing seniors and disabled people with an additional $60,000 exemption and continuing tax rate compression. It must be approved by voters in November, however.

East Texas water

Water rights have become a much larger political issue in East Texas in the past year. Decades-old plans to build the Marvin Nichols Reservoir in Northeast Texas have faced staunch opposition from residents who would be displaced, and the potential sale of water from Lake O’ the Pines to sources near Dallas drew the ire of residents.

Dean and Hefner supported legislation to remove the Marvin Nichols Reservoir from the state’s water source development plan, though that legislation failed. The Texas Water Development Board will conduct additional meetings regarding the reservoir.

Dean also authored a bill to reform the Northeast Texas Municipal Water District, which oversees the sale of water from Lake O’ the Pines.

House Bill 5659, which Abbott has signed into law, clarifies that board members of the district are strictly liaisons of the seven cities comprising the district, Dean said. Before any sale of water from the lake is approved, the city councils of at least four of the cities would have to vote in favor of the decision, according to the bill.

The bill also requires the district to conduct its meetings in public to prevent the organization’s leaders from discussing water sales in secret and under non-disclosure agreements, which public entities cannot use, Dean said. The district’s use of an NDA has been a key source of concern among East Texans this year.

“For them to be doing that — it was against the law,” Dean said. “We made sure in the new bill, the new law, that it’s very, very clear.”

Dean said he believes the Marvin Nichols project could be stopped.

“That deal has been slow-played for a long time for that very reason,” he said. “They know it’s a hard, uphill battle.”

Hefner said he, too, will continue to fight for the region’s water rights.

What constituents say

East Texas constituents and area Republican Party officials expressed varying views about Dean and Hefner’s performance during the session.

William McWhorter, chairman of the Republican Party of Gregg County, said Dean represented his constituents well during the session.

“He went down there, listened to the voters specifically for Gregg County,” McWhorter said. “He’s advocating for our interest and making sure that we’re pushing conservative policy.”

Stacy McMahan, executive director of the East Texans for Liberty PAC, said she believes Hefner “listens to the people in his district.”

“I know he’s meeting with the people in his constituency, and I see how hard he’s working,” she said.

Christin Bentley, who serves as the Republican Executive Committee chair for Senate District 1, said Dean and Hefner have strong conservative voting records on social issues, abortion, the Second Amendment and other key conservative priorities. However, she said each is a “big spender” who votes to grow government, driving up the cost of everyday living for Texans.

Bentley criticized Dean for voting in favor of Senate Bill 22, which is aimed at promoting film and TV productions in Texas. The bill will set aside $1.5 billion in cash rebates during the next decade that film companies can receive. Hefner voted against the bill. Other states have such programs.

Fuzzy Harmon, a precinct chair with the Republican Party of Harrison County and self-described “hardcore” Republican, said Dean and Hefner might have performed well on some conservative issues. However, he criticized Dean’s vote in favor of the film incentive bill, which he called “a handout to Hollywood.”

“They were already making movies here for free,” Harmon said. “Why don’t you just let them continue to make movies here for free and enjoy our southern hospitality and our friendliness?”

As for the film incentive bill, Dean said numerous constituents have expressed interest in filming around Caddo Lake, the only natural lake in the state, and that none of his constituents told him to vote against the bill. He said he believes filmmaking in the area could be an “economic boon.”

“It’s policy versus politics,” he said.

Conservative rankings

As self-described conservative Republicans, Dean and Hefner voted for significant pieces of conservative policy in the legislative session. Some constituents, however, said they didn’t go far enough.

Bentley noted that Dean and Hefner dropped several places in the 2025 Rice University rankings of Texas lawmakers, which measure how conservative or liberal a lawmaker is. The rankings are based on how a lawmaker votes on issues where Republicans and Democrats disagree.

Dean and Hefner were more conservative during the 2023 legislative session than they were in this year’s session, according to the university’s rankings.

Harmon shared Bentley’s criticism of Dean and Hefner for dropping in the rankings, saying the two have become less conservative the longer they’ve served in the Legislature.

Dean and Hefner, however, said they’re more concerned with passing sound policy rather than voting in favor of bills that might boost their rankings.

“It’s easy to come down here and yell and scream and vote ‘No’ on everything, and say, ‘Yeah, I’m No. 2 on Rice University (rankings),’” Hefner said. “But it’s another thing to be conservative, but yet effective, where you can actually pass the bills. And a lot of these critics are showing up at these bill signing ceremonies of these conservative bills that we passed.”

Dean said he has a highly conservative record as a representative of a highly conservative district.

“The commonsense people, conservative Republicans in my district, know that I take every issue — I study it, I do my due diligence — and my job is to make the best decision for the 200,000 people I represent,” Dean said. “There’s many times when we vote for good policy rather than for good politics.”

McMahan said lawmakers have to be able to work with everyone in the Legislature. She questioned how accurate or important rankings of lawmakers are. Some rankings could punish lawmakers for voting for good legislation simply because it was authored by a member of a different party.

“I’m more of a policy person,” McMahan said. Rather than rankings, “I focus more on the bills.”