On Thursday night, as lawmakers in Austin closed the books on a special legislative session that upended state elections, leaders of the Denton County Republican Party gathered in the local elections administration office to debate: Does Representative Jared Patterson, who has typically ranked among the most conservative members of the Texas House, deserve the political death sentence?

Patterson, a Frisco Republican, had established himself over three terms as the face of the party’s push to remove LGBTQ books from libraries across the state. And the Texas GOP was on a hot streak: Republicans passed 42 priority bills during the 2025 regular session before returning to Austin this summer to curtail access to abortion pills, pass the so-called bathroom bill—mandating that transgender

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