AUSTIN, Texas (CN) — Lawmakers in the Texas Senate Education K-16 Committee gave initial approval Tuesday to two bills that would put more Christian teachings and practices in public schools, setting Republicans up with a second chance after similar proposals failed to become law in 2023.
Senate Bill 10, authored by Weatherford Republican Senator Phil King, would require a 16 by 20-inch poster of the Ten Commandments be conspicuously displayed in every public primary and secondary school classroom.
King said Tuesday the bill is meant to return Texas schools to a time before the Ten Commandments and prayer was purged from public schools by the U.S. Supreme Court in a string of rulings that found display of the Ten Commandments and prayer violated the First Amendment’s establishment clause.
“It is time for Texas to pass SB 10, to bring back the historical tradition of recognizing our national heritage and to help eliminate out-of-date legal thinking,” said King. “Senate Bill 10 restores those liberties that were lost and reminds students all across Texas of the importance of a fundamental foundation of American and Texas law, the 10 Commandments.”
Also approved was Senate Bill 11, under which school districts would need to allow for a moment of prayer or reading from Christian texts, including the Bible, during the school day.
The bill’s sponsor, Senator Mayes Middleton, a Republican from Galveston, said that the bill would put prayer back in schools, making good on his belief that “in Texas, schools are not God-free zones.”
Under the bill, a school district’s board of trustees will vote on whether to adopt a policy requiring every school in the district to provide a period of prayer or reading of Christian texts during the school day. Parents must give consent for their child to participate and all activities must take place away from students whose parents have not given consent.
Both King and Middleton were responsible for bringing near identical pieces of legislation two years ago, during the 2023 Texas Legislative session. Both of those earlier proposals were passed by the Senate but failed to get a full vote in the state House of Representatives. Despite the past failure, both lawmakers are hopeful that these resurrected measures will pass this session.
If not for U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, lawmakers might not have pursued measures like these at all.
In that case, the court found that the Bremerton School District in Washington violated the First Amendment rights of Joseph Kennedy, a high school football coach who was suspended for praying with players after games.
Kennedy was himself present for Tuesday’s committee meeting, where he spoke in favor of the proposals. In an interview with Courthouse News, Kennedy said that SB 11 “protects the freedom of religion and helps people like me, coaches and educators, that we can be who we are and practice our faith in public.”
The bills did receive some pushback from Senator José Menéndez, a San Antonio Democrat, who said he worries SB 10 is favoring one faith practice over another and that SB 11 could lead to the alienation or bullying of kids who do not participate.
Levi Fiedler, political coordinator for Texas Freedom Network — a progressive religious, LGBTQ and educational rights group — told lawmakers that SB 11 may lead to religious coercion.
“Special periods set aside for prayer and Bible reading are inherently coercive,” Fiedler told the senators. “Students would feel pressure to participate in such activities. This could be to fit in with their peers or avoid negative consequences from a teacher who participates in prayer time.”
Both SB 10 and SB 11 were voted out of the committee with unanimous support from the committee’s nine Republican members. Democrat Royce West of Dallas joined Republicans in voting in favor of SB 11, while voting present on SB 10. Menéndez voted against the proposals.
If SB 10 or SB 11 were to become law, they would likely face legal challenges. In 2024, a federal judge struck down a Louisiana law passed in 2024 requiring the Ten Commandments in classrooms, finding the law violated the First Amendment. That ruling is currently under review by the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.
While putting Christian practices and documents into schools is a core goal of these laws, they also serve to act as a vessel for creating change as Kennedy did in Supreme Court precedent.
King, speaking on his bill, said that he expects SB 10 to be challenged and blocked, but hopes that it becomes the case to overturn the 1980 Supreme Court ruling in Stone v. Graham, in which the nation’s highest court struck down a law requiring the display of the Ten Commandments for violating the establishment clause.
“Somebody will file a lawsuit and some judge will issue an injunction,” said King. “Hopefully, it will work its way up to the U.S. Supreme Court, and that bad law of Stone v. Graham will be overturned.”
The Senate has not indicated when a full vote will be held on SB 10 and SB 11.