Texas Successfully Defends Free Markets During 2025 State Legislative Session
Jun 9, 2025
With another Texas legislative session now in the books, the Lone Star State demonstrated once again why it continues to lead the nation as a champion of economic freedom. State lawmakers stood up for Main Street businesses and against attacks to free market principles by squashing legislation regarding debanking and interchange fees.
For example, State Senator Tan Parker (R-Flower Mound) introduced a resolution supporting federal efforts to combat debanking versus the potential development of a state patchwork of confusing and burdensome laws and regulations. Sen. Parker’s resolution encouraged lawmakers to advance legislation like Senator Tim Scott’s (R-SC) Financial Integrity and Regulation Management (FIRM) Act, which focuses on regulators’ ability to use “reputational risk” as a component of federal supervision to determine a bank’s safety and soundness.
“Recognizing the importance of a federal solution, Texas State Senator Tan Parker (R-Flower Mound) introduced SCR 44 this session, urging Congress to pass laws like the FIRM Act and modernize banking laws to ensure innocent law-abiding customers are not ensnared by outdated and onerous directives from the federal government.”
Conservative, free-market economist Vance Ginn, writing in The Austin American-Statesman, echoed Parker’s valid concerns about state-level overreach while spotlighting Senator Scott’s FIRM Act as a reasonable solution for defending fair financial access.
“Texans should care because a patchwork of conflicting state-level banking rules will reduce consumer choice, raise fees and shrink the number of banks willing to operate across multiple states.”
Lawmakers also recognized the potential harm of interchange fee legislation and the cost to businesses and consumers by shutting down the legislation, which would have forced businesses to implement new card processing systems that separate out the fees of every single transaction.
While big box retailers would be able to weather the massive costs of overhauling hardware and software upgrades that the proposed legislation required, Texas’ small businesses would be left behind and forced to take huge losses on their balance sheets. Following a study commissioned by AFFM and conducted by TXP, Inc., lawmakers rejected the bill knowing how it would hinder the Lone Star State’s free market system.
“After the large retailers reap most of the interchange savings, true small businesses could potentially be left with $243 in savings each – before taking into account the costs of implementation.”
TXP, Inc. President Jon Hockenyos, writing in The Dallas Express, noted the negative consequences on Texas consumers and small businesses if these interchange bills were to pass in the form of reduced credit card services and higher business operating costs. In particular, Hockenyos highlighted how these bills would jeopardize Texas’s economic progress.
“Texas is the 8th largest economy in the world. Lawmakers should consider the impact of these proposed interchange laws on economic progress, small businesses, and the free market principles that have made Texas both a national and global destination to conduct business.”
Texas is charting its own path—one that trusts markets, respects entrepreneurs and puts consumers first. Texans from all over the state should be proud their representatives upheld free market principles this session and build off the lessons learned in years to come.
