All from the Texas Tribune:
- Bill requiring Ten Commandments in Texas classrooms fails in House after missing crucial deadline.
A bill requiring the Ten Commandments to be posted in Texas classrooms is dead after failing to get a vote by the House before a crucial Tuesday night deadline.
Senate Bill 1515 sailed through the Texas Senate on party-line votes last month and received initial approval from a House committee on May 16, but it was among dozens of bills that didn’t get a House floor vote before the midnight deadline.
The bill would have required public school classrooms to display copies of the Ten Commandments that are at least 16 inches wide and 20 inches tall, and “in a size and typeface that is legible to a person with average vision from anywhere in the classroom.”
Democrats in both chambers had fiercely opposed the idea, saying it would be an insult to non-Christian Texans and an attempt to erode the separation of church and state. The legislation was the latest in an ongoing push by conservative Christians to center public life around their religious views. This session, lawmakers have called church-state separation a “false doctrine” as they push legislation that has concerned non-Christian groups, including a bill to allow unlicensed religious chaplains to work in Texas schools. That legislation has been supported by figures that have also endorsed using school chaplains as a tool for evangelism.
Christian groups have been emboldened by recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions that they believe have shown a blueprint for injecting Christianity into public education, though some experts have raised questions about the constitutionality of the Ten Commandments bill because it could be seen as an endorsement of one religion over another.
In the early Wednesday hours, the Texas Senate pushed the GOP’s priority immigration legislation creating a new state border police force closer to the finish line.
House Bill 7 would also make it a state crime for migrants to enter the state anywhere but a port of entry, create a mandatory 10-year minimum sentence for human smugglers, and devote $100 million for new detention centers, courts, security and economic development projects for border communities.
It’s the most sweeping of a Republican package of bills that aims to stiffen the state’s response to a record number of crossings at Texas’ southern border. It also tests the limits of a state’s authority to enforce immigration laws, which have traditionally been the purview of the federal government.
HB 7 initially passed the Senate just after 1:30 a.m. Wednesday — nearly 16 hours after senators entered the chamber Tuesday — on a 19-12 vote along party lines. The bill still needs final approval by the chamber before it will go back to the House, where lawmakers can accept the Senate’s changes or seek a compromise.
“House Bill 7 will enhance border security operations, provide more tools to law enforcement and prosecutors, and increase the safety of the border region in Texas,” state Sen. Brian Birdwell, R-Granbury, said when first laying out his bill after midnight.
Earlier versions of the bill’s border police unit drew intense criticism for aiming to allow civilians to serve as officers, which opponents said would have allowed unlicensed vigilantes to patrol Texas’ border.
Early Wednesday morning, Birdwell told fellow lawmakers the new Texas Border Force would have both commissioned law enforcement officers and noncommissioned employees. Only the commissioned law enforcement officers would have arrest powers or be allowed to carry guns under the bill, he said. State Sen. Phil King, R-Weatherford, who offered the amendment to clarify the duties of the two kinds of employees, said noncommissioned employees could transport people arrested by the unit and provide other logistical support.
- Texas lawmakers OK bill that aims to keep sexually explicit material out of school libraries.
House Bill 900, which would set new standards for school libraries to keep sexually explicit content off bookshelves, is heading to Gov. Greg Abbott’s desk. Librarians, legal experts and some parents are concerned that the bill’s language is vague and broad enough to ensnare books that are not inappropriate.
“House Bill 900 is simply another tool that we as a state can use to do all that we can do in our communities and in our schools to address harmful sexually explicit material,” state Sen. Angela Paxton, R-McKinney, said on the Senate floor Tuesday night.
The upper chamber formally approved the bill with a 19-12 vote along party lines just before midnight Tuesday. Without any changes to the legislation, HB 900 is now on its way to the governor. Abbott’s office didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment regarding his support for the legislation.
