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Texas: The Nuttiest State Party in the Nation?

By dianeravitch
June 29, 2026 //
3

Michelle H. Davis, writer of “Lone Star Left,” poses a challenge for her readers: who is the biggest nutter in the Texas Republican Party? Believe me, this is not an easy choice. Imagine being locked in a room with some of these people and trying to contest their peculiar fixations and conspiracy theories. I include this post because it will help you understand the governing party in one our most consequential states. Don’t expect normal.

Davis’s writing is so delightful, in a sardonic Texas way, that I thought you would enjoy reading her insights, maybe sending a contribution to the folks who are running against nutters. If you open the article, it contains links to candidates.

She writes:

I say nutter, you might say loon, or crank. A nutter is basically a Republican in our government who has confused a Facebook meme with a legislative agenda. Seriously, the State Legislature is full of them.


For example, last year, Wes Virdell filed a bill to make it a felony to control the weather. Virdell’s bill was aimed at chemtrails, the conspiracy theory that the government is poisoning the sky with jet contrails to manipulate the climate, the sunlight, and your mood. Virdell told the House Licensing Procedures Committee that he hadn’t planned on bringing this one, but “I had several constituents in my district ask me to file a bill related to this.” Seventeen of his House colleagues signed on as co-authors.


Or take Stan “Confederate Stan” Gerdes, who introduced the F.U.R.R.I.E.S. Act, that’s the Forbidding Unlawful Representation of Roleplaying in Education Act, because he’d heard a rumor that kids were using litter boxes in his local school district. The superintendent of his own district had already told him there were no litter boxes. He filed the bill anyway.


These aren’t outliers. Every session now produces its own crop of bills built on something somebody saw on Facebook, and Texas Republicans keep handing them committee hearings, co-authors, and gubernatorial endorsements.


That’s what a nutter is. A true believer who legislates from conspiracy theory, who can’t or won’t distinguish between a hoax and a constituent complaint worth taking seriously, and who gets rewarded for it instead of being laughed out of the building.


And when you think you’ve found the looniest one in the building, Texas hands you a bigger nutter.


Montgomery County gave Cecil Bell the ax.
This is why we’re talking about nutters today. Cecil Bell was a dumb redneck and a nutter out of Montgomery County, who held his seat for 14 years. Yesterday, when I wrote about his Democratic opponent, Nicole King, in the Meet the Candidate series, I honestly didn’t check whether he lost his primary this year. I can actually do this cool party trick and recite all the Texas House members by memory. Well, not anymore.


So, Cecil Bell, after 14 years of being a QAnon nutter in Montgomery County, is out, and Kristen Plaisance (R-HD03) is in. And from what I’m hearing, she’s about three tacos short of a combo plate.

On her website, she argues that government overspending is causing skyrocketing property taxes. And she promises to end property taxes. Which really shows that she doesn’t understand ANYTHING about Texas’ state spending or how property taxes work.


And then there’s a whole bunch of deranged priorities that make no sense at all:

*Protecting and educating our children with Texas values, not federal agendas.

*Ending the weaponization of government against citizens and people of faith.

*Standing up to federal overreach and protecting Texas sovereignty.

Makes you wonder what’s going on in rural (checks notes) Montgomery County, Texas, where the white Republicans are so fearful of the feds a.k.a. Donald Trump, who they love and worship.

So, now that the primaries and the runoffs are over and done with, we’ve avoided it as long as we can; it’s time to talk about the Republicans who are no more, and their shiny new cuckoo replacements.


Congress.


These are the Republican districts only. Maybe we can flip some of them. We’ll talk about Democratic challengers in blue districts another day.


TX02: Dan Crenshaw ➡️ Steve Toth. This was a genuine litmus test for Texas Republicans, way before their convention hit. Dan Crenshaw was not a centrist or a moderate by any means. Yet, the Republican base started calling him a “RINO,” and that became the slow death of his political career.


You see, in the Republican world, they accept those among them who are criminals and pedophiles, but if you are a traitor to their cult-think, you become a RINO, a liberal, and shunned forever from Republican functions, Evangelical churches, and weekly cross burnings. It’s a recurring thing that happens in the Republican Party, sometimes for a bad vote, sometimes for aligning yourself with the wrong person, but most often it’s from internet rumors by the social media armies of the right. In Crenshaw’s particular case, I don’t know the origins of his downfall, but Toth won by being more committed to “the cause.”


New York native Steve Toth doesn’t even live in this district. Before becoming a government official, he was a pool guy. And he really hates Black people and American history.

Shaun Finnie is the Democrat running for TX02.

TX08: Morgan Lutrell ➡️ Jessica Steinmann. Morgan Lutrell decided not to seek re-election. The Republican who won the primary in this district is Jessica Steinmann, who describes herself as an “America First conservative, President Trump and Ted Cruz alum, Christian, proud wife, mother of two, and proven fighter for the America First agenda.” 🤮


On her website, she says “Trump” about roughly every five words, and her priorities seem to be to get Black people out of higher education, non-Christians out of the military, kill the planet, make sure AI isn’t regulated, and to inspect every athlete’s genitals before they can engage in sports.


Laura Jones is the Democrat running for TX08.


TX09: 🫨 ➡️ Alex Mealer. So, Republicans drew this district to be red in their racial gerrymandering last year. This seat was Al Green’s, so I don’t know whether we still call it a blue or red district. But I’ll add this caveat. I think this seat could be blue in November, and it’s not as safe as Republicans think.


California native Alex Mealer is this wacky Republican who has been wreaking havoc in Harris County for the last several years. She ran against Lina Hidalgo for County Chair in 2022 and lost. She has a history of spreading election conspiracy theories online, and now she’s running for Congress.


According to Mealer’s website, she wants to protect the petrochemical complex, bar AI regulations, and reduce flooding. It’s so stupid, it hurts. She wants to take severe actions that will lead to increased flooding and reduce flooding.


Leticia Gutiérrez is the Democrat running for TX09.


TX10: Michael McCaul ➡️ Chris Gober. After 23 years in office, McCaul, one of the wealthiest members of Congress, finally retired. Good riddance. Gober, pronounced “goo-ber,” proudly proclaims himself to be the only Trump-endorsed candidate in TX10.

Not one of these Republicans has a priority, a care, or a personality beyond, “Trump is my daddy.” Gober’s issues are the same as the rest, “stop weaponization of the fed, beat China, AI dominance.” Yet, like the rest of them, he has no policy ideas on how to do any of that, or any proof that it’s happening now or needed.


Caitlin Rourk is the Democrat running for TX10.

TX19: Jodey Arrington ➡️ Tom Sell. The only thing I’m going to miss about Jodey Arrington is calling him Frodo Baggins on his social media every time he makes a post. Seriously, you won’t be able to unsee it.

But there’s always a bigger nutter, and the Republican running for this district, Tom Sell, is absolutely one. For one, on his website, he says he wants to “Stop Sharia Law,” which is a dog whistle for bigotry for people who can’t even define Sharia Law. He also says he wants to “Stop Leftwing radicals from injecting woke politics into the US military.” Wtf does that even mean? No gay people in the military? No women? No Black people? Who knows with these fuckers.


Kyle Rable is the Democrat running for TX19.


TX21: Chip Roy ➡️ Mark Teixeira. Virginia native Chip Roy is another Republican who fell to the RINO bug. Which is pretty funny, considering he’s also a screwball who spent the last six months trying to convince Texans there was an invasion of “Marxists and Muslims.”


Teixeira is a Maryland native and a former Texas Rangers baseball player who is now retired from sports, during which he earned roughly $213 million over his 14-year playing career. He wants to get into Republican politics and stick it to the little guy. According to his website, he loves Trump, fossil fuels, and incarcerating marginalized communities. He also believes in superstitions, the boogie man, and “Cultural Marxism.” Another out-of-touch, rich, white guy from some other state than Texas, looking to continue to make sure that Texas remains the state with the highest poverty, most uninsured, and most children living with hunger.


Dr. Kristin Hook is the Democrat running for TX21.


TX22: Troy Nehls ➡️ Trever Nehls. Twin Wisconsin natives, Troy and Trever Nehls, are two peas in a pod. Corruption? They like it. Women? They hate them. Trump’s boots? They kiss it. Talk like they’re lost in the woods without a flashlight? Both of them do it.


Honestly, the Nehls brothers’ politics are as identical as their hatred for liberty and freedom for Texans. We think we’re switching them out, but they may have been playing the swicharoo on us this whole time, and continue to plan on doing so. 🤷🏻‍♀️


Marquette Greene-Scott is the Democrat running for TX22.


TX23: Tony Gonzalez ➡️ Brandon Herrera. While this story was going on, I didn’t talk about it much because it’s sad as hell, and there were plenty of other outlets who were glad to drop all the juicy details. Gonzalez had an affair with a staffer, whose husband discovered the affair, and this led to the staffer’s suicide by self-immolation.
But there’s always a bigger nutter.


North Carolina native Brandon Herrera also goes by the moniker “The AK Guy,” as in “armalite rifles.” He’s a gun manufacturer who only moved to Texas in 2023 with the specific intent to run for Congress. He’s also a popular YouTuber who makes shooting videos, including the recreation of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. On his YouTube channel, he has also joked about veteran suicide, glorified Nazis, and mocked the Holocaust.


The Congressional district he’s running for is where the massacre in Uvalde happened. One time, at a campaign event, he left an unexploded grenade at a restaurant, and the restaurant had to call the bomb squad. He wasn’t charged, as it was chalked up to an “accident,” and some Texas police are right-wing dipshits, too.


Katy Padilla Stout is the Democrat running for TX23.


TX38: Wesley Hunt ➡️ Jon Bonck. Wesley Hunt ran for Senate and lost. Oh well. Goodbye. Hopefully, we don’t hear from him again. The Republican looking to replace him is Jon Bonck, short for “bonkers,” because he put out a whole ad saying that “we need Christians like Trump and Ted Cruz in Congress.”


Trump, the pedophile rapist, is the Christian values he looks up to. And this is from his website:

Faith belongs in public life? What? These people have legit never read the Constitution, never read the Federalist papers, and the only people they listen to are their pastor and Trump. This bonkers guy is very, very weird.


Melissa McDonough is the Democrat running for TX38.


We’re going to have to do a Part Two.


This was longer than I expected, and we still have the Legislative races to go through. So, we’ll do part two. I’m not exactly sure when.

Categories Bigotry, Cruelty, Ethics, Extremism, Ignorance, Republicans, Texas

Texas Mandates Bible Readings in Public Schools

By dianeravitch
June 29, 2026 //
16

When Texas Governor Greg Abbott was promoting vouchers, he usually accused the public schools of “indoctrinating” students. This was untrue. The five million students in the state’s public schools come from every imaginable background, and teachers were not indoctrinating them about anything, neither in politics nor religion.

He wanted them to go to Christian schools, where they were certain to be indoctrinated into the doctrines of one faith. Now that he is spending billions for children who are in private and religious schools, the Texas State Board of Education just passed a measure that introduces religious indoctrination into the public schools.

Which Bible will be used? The Protestant Bible? The Catholic Bible? The answer is obvious.

What about children who are not Christian? Or children whose families don’t believe in religion? Isn’t their right to religious freedom violated?

The Dallas Morning News reported:

Bible passages will be taught in Texas public schools, the State Board of Education decided on Friday.

The Republican-majority board voted 9-5 in favor of a required reading list that includes Bible stories but no representation of other religions, wrapping up a monthslong battle.

Roughly 5.5 million children are enrolled in Texas public schools, and the new standards would affect students for years to come…

On Friday, board members decided to stagger implementation of the reading list: elementary school students will see the new standards in the 2030-31 school year, sixth graders in the 2031-32 school year, seventh and eighth graders in the 2032-33 school year, and high school students in the 2033-34 school year…

The new required reading list, mandated by the Texas Legislature in 2023, has over a dozen Bible passages or stories, with at least one biblical text in every grade except kindergarten. In first grade, students will read Noah’s Ark by Peter Spier, and in later grades, excerpts from the books of Luke, Matthew and Genesis.

The list does not include the central texts of any other religions, prompting critics to say the required reading is promoting Christianity, violating the First Amendment. Educators and parents warned that non-Christian students could feel excluded.

Categories Religion, Separation of church and state, Texas

Anti-ICE Protestors in Texas Given Harsh, Excessive Prison Sentences

By dianeravitch
June 25, 2026 //
6

The Guardian wrote about an extraordinary case in Texas, in which the Trump administration and two Texas judges meted out the equivalent of life sentences for those who participated in an anti-ICE protest that turned violent.

The Trump administration used the trial to show that it would seek draconian punishment for those who protested against its policies. The prosecutors treated the protestors as Antifa, the dread and shadowy anti-fascist group that has no address.

The Guardian described the protest, which turned violent:

Last year on the Fourth of July, a small group from Dallas-Fort Worth held a night-time noise demonstration, setting off fireworks outside the Prairieland Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention facility south of the cities, in solidarity with the detainees. A few protesters broke away and spray-painted graffiti on employees’ cars and a security post, slashed the tires on a government van, and broke a security camera. The facility’s guards ordered the protesters to disperse, and most of them did. When a police officer arrived at the scene, drawing his gun, an armed protester shot her rifle, hitting the officer in the shoulder. The officer survived.

After a three-week trial, a jury found eight of nine protesters guilty of “providing material support to terrorists”, among other crimes. For the Sotos, this “material support” included owning a “printing press” used to print anarchist zines and being part of a leftist book club, the federal government argued. The couple had already left the scene by the time guns were drawn. All eight of the defendants sentenced so far have received unusually harsh sentences – 30 to 100 years – essentially life in prison.

The Guardian article focused on a married couple, Elizabeth and Ines Soto. They were not at the scene when guns were drawn. But agents found a printing press in their home, where they printed leftist literature. Elizabeth was a member of the Emma Goldman book club. Elizabeth was sentenced to 50 years in prison. Her husband will be sentenced on July 1.

The protestor who fired a weapon, Benjamin Song, was sentenced to 100 years in prison.

Certainly, it is unlawful to bring a weapon to a demonstration and unlawful to fire it at an officer of the law. Slashing tires and attacking property is illegal.

Yes, those involved in acts of violence should go to prison. Those who commit crimes should go to prison. But their sentences are wildly disproportionate to their crimes. In the case of the Sotos, it is not clear that they committed any crime.

Here is a summary of the U.S. government’s case against them.

Categories Accountability, Cruelty, Extremism, Texas, Trump

The Lunatic Fringe of the Texas GOP Won!

By dianeravitch
June 19, 2026 //
1

Michelle H. Davis of “Lone Star Left” closes out her coverage of the Texas Republican convention. Her incisive reporting demonstrates the lunacy and cruelty that now dominate Texas Republicans. Well, at least they didn’t adopt a resolution to give the death penalty to any woman who dared to have an abortion. That’s something.

She writes:

The Republican Party of Texas is a party of hate and a party of cruelty. They were built in smoky back offices and pulpits in the early 1970s on the Moral Majority and the New Right. Then, they conquered Texas through the shady legal maneuverings of Tom DeLay and Karl Rove. The men at the top built an empire of corruption and theft. Theft of our water, theft of our clean air, theft of our labor. 

Texas Republicans have long had everything they’ve wanted. For decades, the rich have gotten richer, and the poor have gotten poorer. But it’s not enough. They have to keep people voting for them somehow. Dumb down education. Appeal to the most extreme elements. That’s all they have left. 

In 1964, the John Birch Society found its moment at the Republican National Convention. Barry Goldwater didn’t fully embrace them. But he didn’t reject them either. When Nelson Rockefeller stood at that podium and named the John Birch Society alongside the Ku Klux Klan as examples of extremism that the party should refuse, the crowd booed him off the stage. Goldwater then declared, “extremism in defense of liberty is no vice.”

Goldwater was a total shit.

The Birchers never went away. And over the next sixty years, what was once considered the lunatic fringe became the Republican mainstream. The “deep state.” The “new world order.” Conspiracies about globalists, infiltrators, and enemies within. It’s the same playbook.

Which brings us to the 2026 Republican Party of Texas Convention.

The “Abolish Abortion” plank failed the final vote in the platform. That’s the one that would have handed the death penalty to any woman who received abortion care. Any woman. A minor. A rape survivor. Doesn’t matter. But don’t mistake that for a victory, because the men who stood on that convention floor and pushed for it are still on the ballot. Including: 

  • Rep. Bret Money (R-HD02). You can donate to his Democratic opponent, Fatima Muse, HERE. 
  • Rep. David Lowe (R-HD91). You can donate to his Democratic opponent, Yisak Worku, HERE. 

But what did pass on the platform? 

Banning IVF. Banning Sharia Law. 

In 2026, the Birchers write the Republican Party platform. 

Why IVF? Well, because they say this is a person:

But, actually, that ⬆️ is a mouse embryo I found on Google. But if women who are struggling with fertility are not allowed to have IVF in Texas anymore. 1- It will eventually spread to other states, and 2- what kind of repercussions will come from this? 

America already has a history of this. 

  • The Indian Adoption Project, beginning in the early 1950s, adopted Native children out primarily to non-Indian families to reduce reservation populations. By the time Congress finally acted, approximately one-third of all American Indian children had been removed from their homes. The Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978 was the legislative response, and the right has been trying to gut it ever since.
  • Between 1998 and 2008, nearly 30,000 Guatemalan-born children were adopted by US parents. The US Embassy in Guatemala knew as far back as 1995 that birth mothers’ lives were threatened if they tried to reclaim their children. Guatemala shut it down in 2008.

The Evangelical Christian adoption movement has a documented history of manufacturing an “orphan crisis” to justify removing children from living parents in developing countries. Even Erika Kirk had an orphanage in Romania, which she was later accused of sex trafficking children out of. 

Banning Sharia Law? 

First of all, they already tried this in the 2015 Legislative session during the last time Muslim panic swept the state of Texas. During that time, Beth Van Duyne, the then-mayor of Irving, was directly responsible for the statewide outrage and upset. This was simialar to the Muslim panic after 9/11. Maybe, not that bad. But the Republicans go back and forth between which marginalized group they hate most each year. This year, it happens to be Muslims. 

When you Google “What is Sharia Law,” you get a lot of different answers, so hear it directly from Rep. Salman Bhojani (D-HD92): 

From the Republicans’ perspective, it really boils down to ignorance and bigotry. Just like the “Show Me Your Papers” bill. Just like the DEI bans. Same rhyme, different verse. 

All the Texas transplants, pretending to be Texans. 

Now, don’t get me wrong, we love our transplants. They add to the vibrant culture that makes our state so unique. But nothing chaps my hide more than a bunch of dudes that moved here in their 40s rambling on about how THEY represent Texas values more than ME. Like, sirs, I have a grandfather and a great-uncle in the square the day JFK got shot, and they were both born in Dallas.

And all of these Republicans, the wealthy ones, who came here to get into politics or nepo-baby their way into their daddy’s corporation that came to Texas for the low taxes, they think the Texas spirit is all about taking as much as you can for yourself, while screwing everyone else at the bottom, and hurting anyone different from you. 

Senate Majority Leader Tan Parker, born and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, stood at that podium and invoked the Alamo. He talked about faith, family, liberty, and the God-given right of free people to govern themselves. He said Texas is proof that freedom works. 

Parker has been rated as one of the most dangerous anti-choice legislators in Texas. He’s endorsed by both Texas Right to Life and Texas Alliance for Life. His legislative priorities in 2025 centered on capital markets packages and making Texas a hub for financial services, because when women are dying from abortion ban complications, and Texas has a maternal mortality rate that rivals that of developing nations, but Parker’s focus is on helping rich people move their money here faster. 

The man flew in from Pennsylvania, wrapped himself in the Texas flag, invoked the memory of the men who died at the Alamo, and has spent nearly two decades making life harder for the working Texans he claims to represent.

Same thing with Dannie Goober yesterday. 

The rest of the planks we covered mostly passed. 

The full platform will be posted on the Republican Party of Texas website in the coming weeks. Read it. Share it. Make sure every voter in your life knows exactly what these people are planning.

Because we already know what’s coming in the 90th Legislative Session. They’ve written it down for us. Frozen embryos have more rights than the mothers who made them. Muslims are the designated enemy of the cycle. A Texas that looks less like the state we love and more like the fever dream of a John Birch Society pamphlet from 1962.

They are telling us exactly who they are.

The question is whether we’re going to let them keep doing it.

We can stop them by flipping the Texas House. Democrats need a net gain of just 14 seats to break Republican control, and the candidates to do it are on the ballot right now. 

The line in the sand is at the ballot box.

Categories Bigotry, Cruelty, Elections, Ethics, Extremism, Gender, History, Ignorance, Republicans, Texas

The GOP in Texas: Pissing on Texans Since 1998

By dianeravitch
June 18, 2026 //
3

The greatest mystery in Texas is why people who aren’t rich continue to elect Republicans, who do nothing for them other than to whip up culture war issues.

Michelle H. Davis reports on the latest state convention of the Texas Republican Party. You should read this to understand their thinking, or lack thereof. One candidate promises to investigate George Soros. Another asks the audience how they feel about Texas becoming a Muslim state. The big event was that hard-right Governor Greg Abbott brought an elephant to parade around, and the elephant pissed before he left the convention. Davis thought the act was symbolic of what Republicans do to ordinary Texans.

She is very witty writer. You will enjoy reading her account of the very unserious swindlers who run the state.

She writes:

Undoubtedly, by now, you’ve seen the biggest news of the Republicans’ Convention. Governor Abbott closed his speech by bringing out an elephant, which promptly peed all over the floor. It was performance art. A perfect representation of what the Republican government in Texas has been doing to the people for years. 

It’s rumored that some of the people in the front rows could hear Abbott cackle, “Ha! It’s raining,” as the incident occurred. 

Attendance for the Republican Party of Texas’ (RPT) Convention was way down. Notably, at one point yesterday, only 38 people were watching the live stream. (And one of them was me, lol.)

Then, if you follow the Texas Democratic Party on social media, you may have seen this meme they shared of Senator Bettencourt’s quote on the polling environment. 

The Convention has thus far been a disaster. Today is the final day. I’ll have the report on that tomorrow, which means we’ll be pushing out our Meet the Candidate article this week to Monday (stay tuned). Yesterday, they elected the new Chair of the Republican Party of Texas. 

D’Rinda Randall, new Republican Party of Texas Chair. 

So, this is really interesting. And it’s also a lot to unpack. First, you have to understand that the RPT elects a new Chair every two years. And by the time their cycle is up, they always have some faction against them, and they get pushed out. Abraham George is out. Before him, it was Allen West. Before him, it was James Dickey. And so on. Typically, Republicans break their own bylaws to elect their favored chair. I’m not sure if that happened this time. My emails are open. 

Randall was the Vice Chair under Abraham George. Like with the Democratic Party, the Chair and Vice Chair must be of opposite genders. Randall is the first Republican woman to chair in Texas since 2003. Stick a pin in that, we’ll circle back around. 

The Vice Chair who was elected to serve under Randall is David Covey. You may remember that Covey ran a multi-million dollar campaign against Dade Phelan (R-HD21) in 2024, had Trump’s endorsement, and still lost. He was a loser. 

Now, it’s important to understand where the Republican Party is with women’s rights in 2026. Not just women’s rights, but with women being seen as people. 

Check out this report from CBC News earlier this week at the Erika Kirk Christian National Convention in San Antonio, where a bunch of women said they were willing to give up their right to vote:

Dumb-dumbs. Who even puts that garbage in their head in the first place? The same people who add to the Legislative priorities:

  • To impose the death penalty on any woman who receives abortion care, even minors and rape survivors.
  • To ban IVF.
  • To ban all egg and sperm donation clinics.

It’s all connected. 

Don’t you find it strange that at the same time, Republican women are talking about freely giving up their right to vote, the willingness to sacrifice their lives for an ectopic pregnancy, and that all of a sudden, the Republican Party of Texas would elect its first woman in over 20 years? 

Of course, the Republican rumor mill is going wild with conspiracies. Before we jump on that bandwagon, we’ll have to see how they can cannibalize each other in the coming months. 

The keynote speakers woke up, showed up, and said nothing.

One of yesterday’s keynote speakers was Ken Paxton, and he looked awful. He might have been hungover. He shuffled out on stage, slouching, looking like he just woke up, no excitement, no energy, just, “I’m here.”

The speech itself was a masterclass in saying nothing for eight and a half minutes. Trans panic. Biden. Chuck Schumer. Open borders. The radical left. You’ve heard it. You’ve heard it a thousand times. He called James Telerico “Low T-arico,” “Sixgender Jimmy,” and “Talifreako.” He was like a middle schooler who thinks he’s the funniest kid on the bus.

He didn’t talk about the cost of living. He didn’t talk about gas prices. He didn’t talk about the rising unemployment rate. Or the increasingly difficult access to healthcare. 

Paxton, who hails from North Dakota, said the words “Texas values,” then he talked about culture war garbage. It’s hard to believe that anyone takes this man seriously. 

Or Dan Patrick, who, besides, said on stage, Talarico was going to hell, came out wearing a black pleather jacket and matching boots. 

Of course, it will never beat this jacket ⬇️, but it was a close second.

Black pleather turtleneck and matching boots, in June, in Houston, and explained, unprompted, that it was his “time travel suit.”

Sir, it is 95 degrees outside, and you look like a community theater villain.

He ran two campaign ads on the convention floor. The first one was Paul Revere warning colonists that the British were coming, except the British were James Talarico, an 8th-generation Texan, unlike Danny, who is from Maryland. The second one was the Alamo. Because nothing says “I’m in touch with modern Texas voters” like reaching back to 1836.

Then he recited the Alamo, the lyrics to a Johnny Cash song from 1960. He just said them, without rhythm, not singing them. He stood on that stage in his time-travel turtleneck, performed a Johnny Cash song, and presented it to the delegates of the Republican Party of Texas as a history lesson. It was really weird. 

He called Democrats “socialist, leftist, communist, and idiots,” in that order. He declared that the entire transgender rights movement is just a plot to make Republicans argue with each other. 

This is the Lieutenant Governor of Texas. This is a man who is one heartbeat from the governorship. This is who shows up in a pleather turtleneck and recites Johnny Cash and condemns his political opponents to eternal damnation in front of a live audience.

Texas values, from the mouth of a Marylander.

But peel back the costume and the lyrics, and you find a frightened man. He spent a big chunk of that speech begging Republicans not to stay home and doing the math out loud. Talarico starts at 45%. He only needs six more points. If Republicans aren’t unified, if rural turnout softens, if the sore losers stay home. Dan Patrick knows exactly what happens.

The man in the time travel suit is scared.

Good.

And speaking of weird. 

Mayes Middleton, for those keeping score at home, is a billionaire from Galveston who has purchased every office he has ever held. State rep. State senator. And now, Republican nominee for Attorney General of Texas, because when you have that kind of money, the next rung on the ladder is just another check to write.

You may remember Mayes from my piece on where that money actually came from.

At the Convention, Middleton took the stage and delivered what can only be described as a greatest hits collection of things that are not real problems in Texas. I don’t know what else to expect from nepobaby billionaires who have only ever harmed their own lives. He announced he will investigate George Soros on day one. He announced he will “attack Sharia law” as organized crime.

He compared Nathan Johnson and James Talarico to Santa Anna. Somehow, the Democrats are to the left of Santa Anna. He said that. Out loud. Into a microphone.

And then, because he apparently needed you to know he is a relatable family man, he told a story about his four-year-old daughter calling him “MAGA Mayes” after watching too much TV. He thought that was charming. 

His opponent, Nathan Johnson, is a Dallas state senator with a long legislative record. Middleton’s record is a checkbook. But in the Republican Party of Texas in 2026, that’s apparently enough.

The only nepo-baby more out of touch than Mayes Middleton is Bo French. Yes, also a nepo-baby. Republicans love electing men with soft hands. 

Bo French is the Republican nominee for Texas Railroad Commissioner, which, if you don’t know, regulates the oil and gas industry. It does not regulate Muslims. It does not regulate DEI. It does not regulate the Green New Deal. It regulates oil and gas.

Bo French does not appear to know this.

He asked the crowd (and this is a direct quote), “Do you want Texas to become a Muslim state?” At a Railroad Commissioner speech. He just needed you to know that was on the table. That was a concern he had about the Railroad Commission.

He cited Genesis. He cited Proverbs 14:34. He explained that God’s command to exercise dominion over the earth is actually a mandate for responsible oil and gas extraction. The Bible, Bo French has determined, is pro-drilling.

The bar was on the floor, right next to the elephant puddle.

Low attendance. A new party chair elected amid swirling conspiracies. A hungover Senate candidate workshopping middle school nicknames. A Lieutenant Governor in a pleather time travel suit who performed Johnny Cash and sent a man to hell. A billionaire who has never earned anything listing things that aren’t real problems. A Railroad Commissioner candidate who is very concerned about the Muslim takeover of oil and gas regulation. And an elephant that peed on the floor while the Governor of Texas watched.

This is a party that is performing. And the performance is getting sloppier, louder, and more desperate by the year, because underneath all of it, Dan Patrick’s math is right. They know how close this is. They know what’s coming. And they have nothing to offer the people of Texas except fear, nicknames, and Johnny Cash lyrics they didn’t write.

Meanwhile, Texans are losing farms and losing access to healthcare. Paying more for everything. And the people responsible for that spent three days in Houston talking about George Soros and Sharia law and what gender God is.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the 2026 Republican Party of Texas.

They’ve been pissing on you for years and calling it rain. The elephant just finally did it in front of everyone.

Categories Bigotry, Cruelty, Elections, Extremism, Gender, Hypocrisy, Ignorance, Lies, Republicans, Texas

Sara Stevenson: If You Want Kids to Read, Don’t Cut Librarians

By dianeravitch
June 12, 2026 //
3

One well-known way to encourage children to read is to give them access to school libraries, staffed by librarians.

But the Austin, Texas, school district is heading in the other direction. It is cutting librarians. This will hurt children.

Retired AISD librarian Sara Stevenson wrote this article for the Austin American-Statesman:

The Austin school district is projecting a historic $181 million deficit and is proposing to cut librarian positions to half-time in 23 schools that serve fewer than 400 students. The result would be the elimination of 10.5 librarian positions, while others are stretched between two campuses.

This proposal comes in spite of recent assurances. As a May 6 article in the Austin American-Statesman noted, superintendent Matias Segura told families at a budget meeting that the district wouldn’t consider cutting counselor or librarian positions.

I remember in February 2012, when the Austin Independent School District faced another budget crisis and school librarians were at risk. At a school board meeting, speaker after speaker testified so persuasively for librarians that then-superintendent Dr. Meria Carstarphen announced, “OK, everyone loves their elementary school librarian, so we’ll save them and only cut the secondary ones.”

She said this in frustration. But in a way she was also acknowledging that sometimes the most important things in an education, like the care and support of a librarian, are unquantifiable.

A librarian split between two campuses cannot provide the same level of instruction, collection management and student support that a full-time librarian can. And these newly proposed cuts to library staff will save the district an estimated $897,000, less than one-half of 1% of the projected deficit.

The fiscal situation is dire, not only in Austin ISD but in Dallas and other districts across the state. A major reason is that our state government refuses any meaningful increase to per pupil funding despite inflation exceeding 30% since 2019. The Texas Standard reportsthat the $55 per pupil bump the Legislature granted to school districts through House Bill 2 needed to be $1,590 just to keep up with inflation. 

If more than 88% of the budget is for personnel, the district has run out of alternatives to cutting staff. Teaching, like nursing, is a very hands-on profession that centers on personal relationships and connections. Cutting Music and Fine Arts, library programs, and crucial teacher planning periods while increasing class sizes and teacher class loads will cause students and their families to suffer.

When you eliminate the very people who do the work of education, you lower the quality of that educational experience. Families, including those who have always supported the district, will know and feel the difference. They’ll also do whatever they can for their children’s well-being. More will continue to leave. 

Elementary school librarians are crucial in leading classes that not only supplement the curriculum but also directly teach it. Most importantly, they select books and provide the circulation systems and programming for children to practice their reading in order to improve their literacy skills, the very foundation of education. 

Malcolm Gladwell wrote in his book, “The Tipping Point,” that groups of 325 people or fewer have more informal cohesion and benefit from more personal connections and a shared accountability. We experienced this firsthand at Bryker Woods Elementary, where my children went and where I was a student librarian. Just because a school is small does not mean its students don’t deserve the same level of professional service. 

Librarians also build one-on-one relationships with students. Often the children who flock to the library are the ones who most need individual attention and affirmation, either socially or academically. As former Ann Richards librarian Shawn Mauser once said, “The teacher gets to be the mother, but the librarian gets to be the crazy aunt.” They help the students who need extra intellectual stimulation beyond the classroom or more individualized practice in free reading. Without strong library programs with professional librarians, children and families will not be served. 

As a former Austin ISD librarian and someone who has been advocating for library programs and more school funding for years, I am saddened to see our school district in such straits. I can’t help but believe that if we, as a community and as a state, really valued our children, who are our collective future, we would make wiser choices. A budget is not just a list of expenses but a moral document. It names our priorities. 

Categories Budget Cuts, Librarians, Libraries, Texas

Mike Miles Is Ruining Some of Houston’s Best Schools

By dianeravitch
June 11, 2026 //
7

Texas State Commissioner Mike Morath took control of the Houston Independent School District in 2023. Morath fired the respected superintendent, replaced the elected board with an appointed board, and named Mike Miles as the new superintendent on June 1, 2023.

Miles had already served in a similar role in Dallas, where his top-down style alienated teachers and drove many of them to quit. Morath, a computer software guy, served on the school board in Dallas. Otherwise, he has no education experience. Gina Hinojosa, who is running for Governor against Greg Abbot, has said the first thing she will do if elected is to fire Morath.

Miles’ tenure in Houston has been controversial. He imposed a lock-step, scripted curriculum. He has fired large numbers of respected principals, and many teachers have quit. But test scores are up!

This column by Lisa Falkenberg, Pulitzer-Prize winning senior columnist for The Houston Chronicle, provides a different perspective on Miles in this article.

She writes:

Stuck in traffic one morning in October, I tried to make small talk with my 13-year-old daughter in the back seat.

“What are you reading these days?” I asked.  

“Nothing,” she said.

Nothing.

I felt a thud in my soul.

This was the same big-eyed girl, the same consummate straight-A student who, just a few years earlier, had to have her nose physically dislodged from a book several times a day so the family could reacquaint ourselves with her face.

In elementary school during the pandemic, she finished “Little Women” in two days. If you had asked her if she loved reading, she might have responded similarly to Scout Finch in “To Kill a Mockingbird”: “I never loved to read. One does not love to breathe.”

“You’re not reading anything?” I prodded the middle-schooler. “Not even in English class?”

She paused, giving me a look that said I should know better.

“Mom,” she said. “I don’t even have an English teacher.”

Ah, yes. I had forgotten.

For months, I had written about other schools within Houston ISD, scrutinizing superintendent Mike Miles’ reforms in the state’s takeover, his closure of libraries and sidelining of storybooks, all the while harboring some relief that my own three kids’ campuses had been somewhat insulated from the changes.  

Until this year, that is, when the district’s instability, fluctuating expectations and teacher exodus hurt my kid, too.

Some like to pretend that Miles’ move-fast-and-break-things approach is only affecting students at the poorest-performing schools for whom any change must be better than what they had. That’s not true. The Houston Chronicle has reported that aspects of Miles’ controversial curriculum or instructional model have seeped into virtually all of HISD’s 274 campuses.

That includes some of the highest-performing schools that never needed academic rehabilitation in the first place. These are schools for which families sweat lottery admissions to gain entry, and some even buy houses or rent apartments just to be zoned to them.

My middle child attends one of these, an “A”-rated Vanguard campus for advanced students that we entered through a lottery. When I tell people what’s happening there, some don’t believe me. I can’t blame them. Miles’ effect on HISD’s best schools isn’t what grabs headlines.

Still, here’s a glimpse of what we’ve seen. I’m not naming the school because my goal isn’t to have this column tied permanently to the campus name in Google searches. It’s to open eyes. 

 A week or two before that conversation with my daughter in the car, she told me she feared her English teacher would quit because district observers were prodding him about his lackluster use of whiteboards and response cards — key tools in Miles’ New Education System.

The observers even handed out their own worksheet packets, she said, as the teacher stood by and watched. By October 24, an administrator informed parents that the teacher had submitted his resignation. 

I couldn’t understand why the district was meddling with a good school that supposedly had autonomy. Miles has argued that even some top schools need NES methods because achievement gaps persist. That’s apparently not the case at my daughter’s school, which earned high marks in achievement, progress and closing gaps.

Miles’ methods — top-down management, strictly controlled curriculum, frenetic pace and high-stakes quizzes — appear to have led to some testing gains in schools where students were severely behind. HISD has gone from 56 “F” campuses to zero. That does seem like progress. 

But Miles’ charter-like approach is less effective with advanced students, such as those attending Vanguard or International Baccalaureate programs known for rigorous, often individualized and project-based curriculum that go far beyond worksheet packets.  

Miles’ strict protocols have driven away thousands of teachers at all levels of talent and tenure. In the 2024-25 school year, one in three teachers didn’t return, nearly double the state’s rate. This school year alone, more than 30 of the 73 teachers at my daughter’s school have left, double the annual average of the first two years of the takeover, according to Chronicle reporting and district records I obtained through a public information request. 

Miles argues that high teacher turnover isn’t a problem. He says HISD retains around 90% of exemplary teachers. But most teachers we lost at “A” schools were clearly doing something right. The problem is that Miles defines “exemplary” in part by obedience to his program.

Our loss is someone else’s gain. When my daughter told me in tears that her cherished cheerleading sponsor was leaving to teach science somewhere else, I hugged her and asked if she knew where the teacher was going.

“St. John’s,” she told me. [St. John’s is an elite private school.]

Yes, St. John’s School in River Oaks, one of the most prestigious private high schools in the nation.

In some ways, higher-performing HISD campuses are more vulnerable to the instability caused by high turnover. Unlike Miles’ NES campuses, they don’t have a “teacher’s apprentice” ready to take over if a teacher quits.

When my daughter’s English teacher left, the class was led for weeks by a string of substitutes who mainly assigned worksheet packets — sometimes ones they’d already completed.

“I don’t mind,” my daughter told me at one point. “We’re not learning anything anyway. It’s English. You just pick the longest, best answer.”

When I was her age, growing up in Seguin, Texas, I was holding my breath with Anne Frank in the attic. I was losing the feeling in my toes as a Jack London protagonist struggled to light a fire in sub-freezing temperatures. I don’t remember my eighth-grade English teacher being particularly inspiring, but we read some inspiring literature that stays with me 30 years later.

My daughter’s class was without a teacher for several weeks before the school announced a replacement. The new teacher’s start was delayed by training and illness, emails explained, but finally, she was in the classroom.

After a few days, I asked my daughter if the teacher was actually teaching.

“Yes,” she said. “She reads from the slides.”

Just before Christmas break, I attended a parent meeting that filled the library with worried, frustrated moms and dads complaining of even bigger problems. Several described how their straight-A students were failing algebra because the teacher refused to teach or answer questions about the district slides she was reading. Some parents said they had to hire tutors. It was affecting their kids’ confidence. School administrators assured parents they were bringing over kids from a nearby Vanguard high school to tutor the middle-schoolers in algebra.

My daughter wasn’t affected by that situation. But in English, midyear testing showed she’d dropped 10 points – “low average growth” – putting her back to where she’d been a year earlier.

In late January, yet another note came from administrators: “An Update On Your Child’s English Teacher.”

The new teacher had resigned as well.

The administrator wrote that he was “pleased to share that there will be no gap or delay in the continuity of instruction for your children.” A language arts interventionist had agreed to step in to teach the class. She had been at the school for a while, and our kids were “in good hands.”

“We know that changes and transition can sometimes cause anxiety,” the email noted in closing. “We are here to support your children.”

I didn’t doubt the administrator’s sincerity. I doubted that he had any real power in this top-down regime to fix things.

The new teacher soon assigned a book, an actual book. I started to celebrate. Turns out, my daughter had been assigned the same book the year before. (She tells me she’s read “The Giver” several times, first in elementary school.)

In a parent meeting, I asked the principal why, when whole books are so rarely assigned these days, students were repeating titles. His response was unresponsive.  

“We didn’t read it anyway,” my daughter told me later. “We just read parts of it.”

This middle school, to which I sent both my girls, is still excellent in many ways.

It has some dedicated, truly inspiring teachers who are hanging on. It’s a racially and ethnically diverse campus that offers rigor to smart kids from all kinds of neighborhoods. It molds bright minds into award-winning debaters, dancers and leaders. It still provides some high-quality instruction to kids whose families can’t afford private school or prefer a public school for their child.

For a long time, it was a shining example of what a public school could be.

I thought the point of this takeover was to make more of those. Not fewer.

My daughter’s situation is nowhere near what some special-education students are facing amid district-ordered relocations.

She’ll be OK. She began her own reading regimen this semester and was able to boost her end-of-year English score by several points. I’ve bought a copy of Anne Frank’s diary, which we plan to read this summer before she heads off to high school.

Hopefully, she’ll have another teacher down the road — perhaps a book whisperer like her Harvard Elementary librarian, Ms. Garcia — who can help rekindle her passion for reading.

But let’s not pretend what my daughter got this year in English class was quality.

Let’s not pretend it exemplified the “high-performance culture” that Miles champions, a culture that leaves no time for hallway chatter or holiday parties, no time for the small rituals that make school feel like school, and yet, somehow, tolerates the incessant disruptions of thousands of teacher departures, including from the best schools.

Miles said he could bring up the bottom in HISD without bringing down the top. I wanted to believe him.

I’ve seen something else. 

Lisa Falkenberg is a three-time Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and the Houston Chronicle’s senior columnist. Falkenberg formerly led the Chronicle’s editorial board as vice president and editor of opinion. In May, Falkenberg shared a Pulitzer Prize in editorial writing for a series on the dangers of stopped trains in Houston. In 2022, she led the editorial board to their first Pulitzer Prize for a series debunking the “Big Lie” of voter fraud and examining Texas’ long history of voter suppression. 

Categories Education Industry, Ethics, Extremism, Failure, Fraud, Houston, State Takeover, Texas

ProPublica: Texas Medical Board Sanctions Three Doctors Whose Inaction Caused Pregnant Women to Die

By dianeravitch
April 28, 2026 //
4

ProPublica fearlessly reports on injustice, profiteering, and malignant public policy.

In this article, ProPublica reports on a decision by the Texas Medical Board to sanction three doctors who withheld treatment from pregnant women who needed medical intervention and died because they didn’t get it. The doctors were following the state’s strict abortion ban, which harshly punishes any doctor who aids an abortion unless the fetus is dead.

ProPublica reports:

Two of the doctors failed to properly intervene as a pregnant teenager repeatedly sought care for life-threatening complications, the board found. The third did not provide a dilation and curettage procedure to empty a miscarrying patient’s uterus, and she ultimately bled to death.

As ProPublica investigated those preventable deaths and five others across three states in the past few years, reporters found that abortion bans have influenced how doctors and hospitals respond to pregnancy complications. Facing risks of prison time and professional ruin, doctors have delayed key interventions until they can document that a fetus’ heart is no longer beating or that a case meets a narrow legal exception. Some physicians say their colleagues are discharging or transferring pregnant patients instead of taking responsibility for their care.

Doctors and lawyers have questioned why medical boards, which oversee physician licensing and investigate substandard care, have not played a more active role in guiding doctors on how to uphold medical standards within the constraints of the law. When asked by ProPublica in 2024 what recourse miscarrying patients had when a doctor denied them necessary treatment, the president of the Texas Medical Board said it had no say over criminal law but that patients could file a complaint and “vote with their feet” to seek care from another doctor.

Since then, the Texas board has taken more steps than those in other states, publishing guidance this year that provides case studies on how doctors can legally provide abortions to patients with certain medical complications. The state Legislature ordered the board to create the training materials as part of the Life of the Mother Act, which was passed after ProPublica’s reporting and made modest adjustments to the state’s abortion restrictions in an attempt to prevent additional maternal deaths.

Georgia, where Amber Thurman died after doctors did not try to empty her septic uterus for 20 hours, has not revisited its ban or disciplined key doctors involved.

Maternal care experts say health care providers will continue to hesitate to offer standard care as long as bans carry serious criminal consequences — Texas’ law can put a physician behind bars for 99 years. But those who spoke to ProPublica say that medical board sanctions are one of the few levers that can provide a counterweight, pushing hospitals and doctors to provide standard care despite uncertainty over vaguely written laws.

Michelle Maloney, who is representing the families of both Texas patients in malpractice lawsuits, said she was pleasantly surprised by the board’s recent actions. “Over the course of my career, I’ve had many horrific, horrific death cases. For someone to get disciplined by the medical board, especially while there’s ongoing litigation, is just extraordinarily rare,” she said.

In 2024, ProPublica reported on the case of 18-year-old Nevaeh Crain, who began experiencing severe pregnancy complications when she was six months pregnant in 2023. Although she exhibited clear signs of an infection, doctors at two hospitals sent her home. On her third visit, as Crain’s condition deteriorated, a doctor did not send Crain to the intensive care unit until he could confirm fetal demise with two ultrasounds. Texas law requires doctors to create extra documentation before performing procedures that could end a pregnancy. By the time the doctor had logged there was no fetal heartbeat, the medical record shows, Crain was too unstable for surgery. She died with her fetus still in her womb.

Categories Accountability, Cruelty, Ethics, Gender, Health, Medicine, Texas

Peter Greene: The Texas “Ten Commandments” Ruling Is Irreligious Baloney

By dianeravitch
April 23, 2026 //
16

I sent out a bulletin when I learned that the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals had reversed lower federal courts and approved the Texas law mandating the display of the Ten Commandments in every classroom.

Peter Greene read the opinion and in this post he shows what a lot of malarkey it is. The more than five million children in Texas public schools are attached to many different faiths or to none at all, but the state is promoting only one. The Founding Fatheres would be horrified.

Greene writes:

Texas was one more state passing a law to mandate the display of the state-approved version of the Ten Commandments. That law was challenged, and U.S. District Judge Fred Biery blocked the law; Texas AG Ken Paxton asked the full 17 judges of the conservative 5th Circuit Court of Appeals to revisit the case and overturn the decision. This week they found in favor of the law. “It doesn’t violate the First Amendment at all,” declares the court in a ruling that depends heavily on some really special reasoning.

Paxton and the state used the tired old talking point that this isn’t a religious thing– they’re just “honoring a core ethical foundation of our law” that’s an important part of the nation’s history and heritage and anyway there’s no such thing as the “bogus” separation of church and state, which (you may have heard) is a phrase that does not appear in the Constitution (much like the Ten Commandments).

Anyway, the full court went by a slim majority for Paxton, the decision written by Judge Stuart Kyle Duncan.

First the court disposes of the Establishment Clause. And boy do they dispose of that.

If you’ve been following the dismantling of the wall between church and state, you may recall that Kennedy v. Bremerton, the case of the coach who wanted to lead prayers on the 50 yard line– a case that SCOTUS decided by actively ignoring facts— put a final stake through the heart of the Lemon Test, a three-pronged test for whether or not someone was violating the Establishment Clause (legal scholars have assured me that Lemon was not really used, anyway, but let’s move on). This new decision makes it a point to dance on Lemon’s grave and then announce the new test of the clause–

In place of Lemon, courts now ask a question rooted in the past: does the law at issue resemble a founding-era religious establishment?

In other words, is the state trying to “establish” a religion the same way that the King of England established the church of England. Colonies in the 1600s achieved religious uniformity through civil power. If we don’t see “laws compelling attendance at the official church; laws controlling doctrine, worship, and governance; laws punishing dissenters; laws exacting religious taxes; and laws deploying churches for public functions,” then there’s no infringement of the Establishment Clause.

The Texas law doesn’t “tell churches or synagogues or mosques what to believe or how to worship” and it doesn’t punish anyone for rejecting the Ten Commandments. It rejects the plaintiffs’ argument that putting the decalogue up in a classroom is inherently coercive. “Not so,” says the glib-ass judges. The law doesn’t require religious observance. So, no Establishment Clause violation, because this law doesn’t all look like the Church of England in the late 1700s.

The plaintiffs had a go at using the historical argument themselves, saying there’s little evidence that schools had a “tradition” of posting the Ten Commandments. But that, says the court, is a whole other thing. The plaintiffs try to argue that “if a practice does not fit within some historical tradition, it violates the Establishment Clause,” but “that does not follow.” See (stay with me here) if something has a root in 18th century tradition, then it is okay, but just because it doesn’t have a root in tradition, that doesn’t mean it’s not okay– so argues the court.

Meanwhile, in states across the country today, simply allowing students to be exposed to a rainbow on a classroom poster is considered too intrusive and might offend some people’s religious beliefs.

Anyway, that’s the new rule according to this court– the state can endorse, publicize, support, pick religious winners and losers, and expose students to as much religion as it wants, as long as it doesn’t start punishing anyone for disagreeing.

What about the Free Exercise Clause?

The plaintiffs brought up Mahmoud v. Taylor, the SCOTUS case that involved parents who wanted to opt their children out of being exposed to books with gay stuff. The plaintiffs likely felt that Mahmoud’s foundation of “parents should direct the religious upbringing of their own children” applied here, but the District Court gets around that, mostly by misrepresenting Mahmoud.

The case rested on the idea that being exposed to books with gay characters would disrupt the educational instruction of parents (the decision also rested on misrepresentation of those books as well). But the district court sees something far more sinister. “Those materials were deployed by teachers with lesson plans designed to subvert children’s religiously grounded views on marriage and gender.”

But nobody is making the students recite, believe, or “affirm their divine origin” (a phrase that I think assumes a fact not in evidence), the court believes the plaintiffs didn’t prove that the law “substantially burdens their right to religious exercise.”

There’s lots more (Duncan uses a footnote to take issue with Biery’s “creative” opinion). I’m going to just pick a few moments.

In a concurrence, Oldham argues that maybe the plaintiffs don’t even have standing because this is textbook “offended observer” stuff:

From top to bottom, the idea is that the plaintiffs (1) worry that they will one day see a poster; (2) worry that they might find that poster offensive; so (3) they invoke federal jurisdiction for protection from potential, hypothetical future offenses.

This is, I guess, totally different from being offended that somebody might some day ask you to make a cake for a gay wedding.

The dissent pushes back on some of the legal arguments. Kennedy did not throw out Stone or the Lemon test, and it was plenty clear that it “observed” the “heightened concerns with protecting freedom of conscience from subtle coercive pressure in the elementary and secondary public schools.” The case established a concern about exactly the kind of coercion that SB 10 represents. Put a poster of commandments in front of impressionable children (with the directive that the poster be visible from any place in the room) and you have coercion. And it is true that SCOTUS went out of its way (and far from reality) to argue that the praying coach was praying privately and personally and not exerting any coercion on his players, suggesting it would have been coercive otherwise.

Oh, there are pages and pages of legal argle bargle here, papering over a decision that joins some Texas leaders in saying, “We want to promote our brand of Christianity to be the dominant religion in this state.” And as always, I will argue that this kind of stuff is bad for everyone, that religion is not improved when the state tries to edit sacred texts and commandeer and control expressions of faith.

In that spirit, let’s wrap this up with the opening of Judge Leslie Southwick’s separate dissent.

What is not part of my dissent is a rejection of the importance of searching for faith. Religion, though, is a matter of the mind and the heart. Faith cannot flourish when it is forced. A poem voices my concern and, I humbly offer, that of the First Amendment:

The livid lightnings flashed in the clouds;
The leaden thunders crashed.

A worshipper raised his arm.

“Hearken! hearken! The voice of God!”

“Not so,” said a man.

“The voice of God whispers in the heart

So softly

That the soul pauses,

Making no noise,

And strives for these melodies,

Distant, sighing, like faintest breath,

And all the being is still to hear.”

Stephen Crane, The Black Riders and Other Lines, Lines xxxix (1895), reprinted in The Collected Poems of Stephen Crane 41, 41 (Wilson Follett ed., 1930). Like any effective poetry, these lines can give different meaning to different readers at different times. In this opinion, they capture for me that government promotion of religion in every classroom is simulated lightning and thunder, compulsorily seen and heard.

Categories Bigotry, Democracy, Extremism, Religion, Separation of church and state, Texas

Federal Appeals Court Approves Texas Mandate of 10 Commandments in Every Classroom

By dianeravitch
April 21, 2026 //
15

A group of parents sued Texas to stop a law requiring the display of the Ten Commandments in every public school classroom in the state. They said that the state endorsement of one religion violated their freedom of religion. In a narrow 9-8 vote, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals sided with the state, against the parents.

Whose religious freedom will the Supreme Court uphold?

Governor Greg Abbott is determined to tear down the wall of separation between church and state, while doing his best to undermine public schools.

Reminder: the vile Governor Abbott faces an election this November. He has a strong opponent, Gina Rodriguez, who is a legislator, a public school mom, and a passionate advocate for public schools.

Pooja Solhatra wrote in The New York Times:

A federal appeals court on Tuesday narrowly upheld a Texas law that requires public schools to display posters of the Ten Commandments in classrooms.

By 9-to-8, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled that the law does not violate the separation of church and state, reversing two lower courtdecisions. The court also ruled the measure does not restrict parents’ right to direct their children’s religious upbringing. 

“Students are neither catechized on the Commandments nor taught to adopt them,” the ruling said. “Nor are teachers commanded to proselytize students who ask about the displays or contradict students who disagree with them.”

Since Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, signed a law in 2025 mandating the religious displays, families of various faith backgrounds have challenged it, arguing that the law amounted to state endorsement of religion. The law was passed amid a broader conservative push to infuse Christianity into public schools, and several other Republican-led states have passed similar laws.

The organizations representing the 15 Texas families who filed the lawsuit said in a statement that they were disappointed in the decision and planned to ask the Supreme Court to reverse it.

The Texas law mandates the displays in a “conspicuous” location in each classroom on a typeface visible from anywhere in the room. The posters must be at least 16 inches wide and 20 inches tall and must include the text of a particular version of the Ten Commandments. Schools are not required to purchase the posters, but they must accept donations of them.

In separate rulings last year, two federal judges in the state sided with the challengers, saying the law likely violated the First Amendment. Those rulings effectively blocked the law’s enforcement across 24 Texas school districts, including in Houston and Austin.

But the attorney general, Ken Paxton, had encouraged school districts that had not been blocked to hang the Ten Commandments posters, threatening legal action against those that did not comply.

Open the link to finish reading the article.

Categories Religion, Separation of church and state, Texas
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