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Texas State Representative, District 56

Texas State Representative: Two-year term. The Texas House of Representatives has 150 members from separate districts across the state. With the Texas Senate, the Texas House: enacts and amends laws; passes the state budget and raises or lowers taxes; passes proposed amendments to the Texas Constitution; and redraws congressional and legislative district maps every ten years. The Texas House has the exclusive power to impeach officials. Current annual salary: $7,200, plus $221 for every day the Legislature is in session, including any special sessions.

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  • Candidate picture

    Pat Curry
    (Rep)

  • Candidate picture

    Ralph Patterson
    (Rep)

Biographical Information

Qualifications: What training, experience, and characteristics qualify you for this position?

Elections: What changes should be made to Texas election laws to protect voting rights and ensure safe and secure elections?

Healthcare: What role should the state government play in promoting a healthy Texas population, and what steps would you take to ensure that healthcare is affordable and accessible for all Texans?

Economy: If elected, what specific legislative actions would you propose to bring good-paying jobs and economic opportunities to communities that have been left behind?

Energy: How would you ensure Texas has reliable, affordable energy while protecting the environment?

Water: What strategies would you support to secure Texas’s long-term water supply and manage growing demand over the next several decades?

Education: What policies would you support to ensure all Texas students have access to quality public education, regardless of school choice policies?

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Campaign Website http://PattersonForTexas.org
Conservative leader & grassroots activist. Former Chairman McLennan GOP and TX GOP Exec. Committeeman. Businessman, avid 2nd Amendment advocate. Committed to public safety and constitutional freedoms.
Voters must provide proof of citizenship for registration. Mail-in ballots need to have controls in place to prevent ballot harvesting. Penalties should be increased for voter fraud to discourage cheating. Paper ballots with electronic tabulation is a step toward voter integrity. We need to remove single points of failure.
Insurance companies and doctors/hospitals have controlled the process for too long. Giving citizens more control over their healthcare and payment options to force accountability for insurance and hospital cost is fundamental to taking back control. Texas should force full transparency over healthcare prices. Ensure SNAP benefits only go toward healthy food.
Identify areas that have lost population, jobs, and hope. Give businesses incentives to locate there, but only after they actually create good‑paying local jobs. Invest in basics: roads, water, broadband, connect schools with employers to train our young people for jobs that already exist. Protect taxpayers with strict accountability. Simply: no Texan should have to leave home to find opportunity.
Texas must keep the lights on, keep bills low, and protect God’s creation. We strengthen dispatchable power like natural gas and nuclear, harden plants for extreme weather, make renewables carry their share of reliability, and cut emissions through Texas innovation. That’s how we protect families, jobs, and our energy independence.
Texas must secure its water future the same way we should build our energy leadership: innovation, investment, and local control. Build new water supplies: reservoirs, reuse, desalination, and aquifer storage. Repair aging infrastructure, reduce leaks, and help rural systems modernize. Use market tools to manage demand, strengthen drought planning, and ensure every dollar is accountable.
I support strong public schools for every Texas student. That means fair, stable funding, competitive teacher pay, high academic standards, and full transparency for any school receiving public dollars. Strong schools mean strong communities, and that’s how we secure Texas’s future.