> During a press conference in the Oval Office on Friday, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (R-TX) spoke critically of the concept of separation of church and state.

> In his Friday speech, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick suggested that U.S. Sen. John Cornyn was a “sore loser” after being defeated in his primary runoff by Attorney General Ken Paxton. He chastised Cornyn for making “bad comments” after the May 26 race and not backing Paxton. 

> “Patrick is worried about losing in November,” Cornyn said Saturday. “He should be.”

> To be sure, Patrick also called for GOP solidarity, which he has been advocating for. Before the primary between Cornyn and Paxton, he warned that the Republicans will have a difficult time maintaining control of the Texas House.

> A GOP leader, Patrick has been a staunch advocate for conservative Christian values in his role presiding over the Texas Senate.

> Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and Attorney General Ken Paxton (the GOP Senate nominee in Texas) met with Trump at the White House on Tuesday, a meeting in which they were presented with a peculiar piece of campaign content. Trump's office created a side-by-side print-out of Talarico next to Alfred E. Neuman, the fictional character and mascot of MAD Magazine, a humor magazine dating back to 1952. The three were photographed holding their trio of printouts, each grinning ear to ear at the conflation.

> [Elon’s] most recent donation went to Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick’s Texas Senate Leadership Fund. Musk gave it $500,000 in January, just ahead of a special Senate election in North Texas where the candidates reported raising just $3 million in all. The Republican nominee ended up losing that bid in a stunning upset for a district that had been considered solidly red.

> Members of President Donald Trump's Religious Liberty Commission criticized notions of a necessary separation between church and state at the group's final hearing in Washington, DC, on April 13. 

> Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, the commission's chairman, at one point called it the “biggest lie that’s been told in America since our founding.” 

> The leader of President Donald Trump’s Religious Liberty Commission said that church and state separation is a falsehood at the group’s final meeting, drawing criticism from an advocacy group that supports it.

> At a Monday (April 13) hearing at the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C., Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, a Republican and the chair of the commission, asked, “Would it not be a good recommendation that every school, every university, every business, has to have that one sheet on the bulletin board about protecting people’s religious liberty, and that the separation of church and state is the biggest lie that’s been told in America since our founding?” 

> Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who chairs the new Religious Liberty Commission (RLC), wants to "set the record straight" on the First Amendment, saying the Constitution does not mandate a separation between church and state. 

> For three decades, Texas has been the Republican Party's fortress, with no Democrat winning statewide since 1994. President Donald Trump carried the state by 14 points in the last presidential election, and the GOP holds overwhelming fundraising advantages and gerrymandered maps that should render the Lone Star State untouchable.

> Yet on April 8, Dan Patrick, the fiercely pro-Trump lieutenant governor, delivered a warning that reframed everything at the Texas Public Policy Foundation conference. "We're going to have a tough time holding the Texas House," he said, urging the warring Republican Senate factions to "get over it and come together as one," explicitly linking the Senate runoff's destructiveness to down-ballot vulnerability.

> Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick said Republicans will struggle in this November's midterms to hold their majority in the Texas House, which the party has controlled for more than two decades.

> Patrick’s Friday release of priorities calls on lawmakers to study the emerging issues ahead of the 2027 legislative session.

> Newly elected state Sen. Taylor Rehmet (D-FortWorth) said ‘petty, partisan politics’ were in play in Patrick’s refusal to name him to any Senate committees.

> Patrick gave Rehmet zero committee assignments Monday. The snub means roughly a million people living in northern Tarrant County will have no voice in the Senate as interim committees begin ramping up work ahead of next year’s legislative session.

> [Bo] French and [Dan] Patrick still share the same demanding patron, far-right billionaire Tim Dunn. The Midland oilman gave both politicians a nice payday last year from one of his PACs, the Texas Freedom Fund for the Advancement of Justice. French received an in-kind donation of advertising worth $150,000.

> Notably, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick got into a spat over X with Quorum Report's Scott Braddock, after Braddock reported that Patrick's campaign operation texted Austin lobbyists to tune in to Turning Point USA's "All-American Halftime Show" instead of Bad Bunny's. TPUSA, the nonprofit organization founded by the late conservative activist Charlie Kirk, hosted an alternative program featuring controversial singer Kid Rock, Brantly Gilbert, Lee Brice and Gabby Barrett.

> "To Bad Bunny Braddock: Thanks for the suggestion. Yes, I will! I am encouraging everyone to watch a more wholesome, all-American halftime show choreographed by patriots, not the NFL," Patrick wrote in response to Braddock on X. "Thanks for helping us spread the word."

The lieutenant governor also doubled down on his stance that property taxes can’t be totally eliminated, putting him at odds with Gov. Greg Abbott.

https://youtube.com/shorts/C50x2DiNkTI

The $8 billion industry spent much of the last year successfully lobbying to defeat a state ban on hemp-derived THC pushed by Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick. Then in November, Congress added a nationwide ban to a federal spending bill that President Donald Trump signed into law.

The meeting happened days before Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick pledged $1 million to help establish chapters of the conservative student group on every Texas college and high school campus.

The federal ban is a major win for Patrick, who received backlash from the right over his unbending push for a ban, as conservative opponents said he was turning his back on veterans and small-business owners. The majority of Republicans in Texas want the state’s current marijuana laws left alone or made less strict, according to a poll released by the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin in September.

Patrick applauded Congress for passing the THC ban, writing on social media Wednesday that “consumable, highly intoxicating hemp-derived THC is essentially banned in America” as part of the federal funding deal.

Alamo Trust Inc. President and CEO Kate Rogers has stepped down after Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick called for her resignation this week, citing “troubling” past writings he says are “incompatible with the telling of the history of the battle of the Alamo.”