Committees For all of his four terms in the state House, Stickland was a member of the County Affairs Committee. The
Texas Right to Life Committee rated Stickland 78 percent favorable, Stickland voted against the legislation to establish a taxpayer-funded breakfast program for
public schools; the measure passed the House, 73–58. He co-sponsored legislation to provide marshals for school security as a separate law-enforcement entity. He voted for the extension of the
franchise tax exemption to certain businesses, which passed the House 117–24. He voted against the adoption of the biennial 2013 state budget. He voted to require testing for
narcotics of those individuals receiving
unemployment compensation. Stickland voted against a bill relating to unlawful employment practices regarding discrimination in payment of compensation, which nevertheless passed the House, 78–61. In 2017, Stickland offered an unsuccessful amendment to prohibit state aid to the abatement of feral hogs. In retaliation for Stickland's amendment, his Republican colleague,
Drew Springer, Jr., of
Muenster, backed by
Speaker Joe Straus of
San Antonio, obtained passage of another amendment to defund $900,000 from the Texas Department of Transportation earmarked for Stickland's hometown of Bedford. Stickland was one of the most prominent Republican state House members who designated themselves the "Freedom Caucus" (a right-wing grouping aligned with the
Tea Party movement). The group was founded at the beginning of the 2017 session. Stickland resigned from the Freedom Caucus in 2019. Stickland is one of only twelve House Republicans organized through the House Freedom Caucus, which he claims is the true representative of most conservative Republicans statewide. He has emerged as a critic of Speaker
Joe Straus and an ally in the House of
Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, the presiding officer of the
Texas State Senate. In 2017, Patrick and Straus quarreled over the
bathroom bill sponsored by State Senator
Lois Kolkhorst of
Brenham, which would require persons to use the public rest room corresponding with their genitalia at birth. Straus agreed to a more moderate bill because of what he called concerns about economic boycotts of Texas by business and athletic groups who view the bathroom legislation as infringing on the rights of
transgender persons. The Patrick-Straus split created an impasse on the legislation as the regular session wound down. Stickland said, "I absolutely think that there is a fight going on for the heart and soul of the Republican Party." This was the first bill introduced by Stickland to become law. at the end of the 2019 legislative session, when
Texas Monthly published its perennial Best and Worst Legislators list, it gave Stickland the "first-ever Cockroach Award" for "a lawmaker who accomplishes nothing but always manages to show up in the worst possible way." The reasons given for the newly created award included a "needless" Twitter fight between Stickland and a prominent vaccine researcher, in which Stickland
called vaccines "sorcery" before saying he was only objecting to government-mandated vaccines, and Stickland's verbal sparring with other representatives who resurrected Governor Greg Abbott's signature $100 million plan for high school mental health services after Stickland used a procedural maneuver to kill it. The
NRA Political Victory Fund graded Stickland an "A" rating and endorsed him in 2014. In 2017, Texans Uniting for Reform & Freedom scored Stickland 104 percent. In 2017,
Texans for Fiscal Responsibility scored him at 100 percent and rated him as one of the top 10 Best Legislators of 2017. In 2019,
civil rights group
Equality Texas gave Stickland a zero percent rating. Environmental groups gave Stickland low ratings; the Texas League of Conservation Voters gave Stickland a 14 percent rating in 2015, while Environment Texas gave Stickland a 10 percent rating in 2019. The
marijuana legalization advocacy group
National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) gave Stickland a 58 percent rating in 2019. The Texas Association of Realtors gave Stickland a 50 percent rating in 2013. ==Defend Texas Liberty PAC==