Texas Senate passes bipartisan bills to put prayer back in schools, and the Ten Commandments

The Texas Senate continues to pass bills identified as legislative priorities by Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, with the most recent focusing on religious freedom.

The Senate passed a bipartisan bill Tuesday to put prayer back in public schools. SB 11, filed by state Sen. Mayes Middleton, R-Galveston, passed by a vote of 23-7. It heads to the Texas House.

The bill would allow teachers and students, with parental consent, to opt into a period of prayer and reading of the Bible or other religious texts during school hours.

“Our schools are not God-free zones,” Middleton said. “We are a state and nation built on 'In God We Trust.' You have to ask: are our schools better or worse off since prayer was taken out in the 1960s? Litigious atheists are no longer going to get to decide for everyone else if students and educators exercise their religious liberties during school hours.”

Middleton thanked President Donald Trump and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick “for making prayer in public schools a top priority,” arguing, “There is no such thing as 'separation of church and state’ in our Constitution, and recent Supreme Court decisions by President Trump’s appointees reaffirmed this. The goal of this bill is to promote freedom of religion for teachers and students in the place where they spend most of their time – school.”

The Senate is also poised to pass SB 10, filed by state Sen. Phil King, R-Weatherford, which would require every public-school classroom to post a copy of the Ten Commandments beginning in the 2025-2026 school year. The first two readings passed, the third was scheduled for Wednesday. If it passes, as it's expected to do, it will head to the Texas House.

“By placing the Ten Commandments in our public-school classrooms, we ensure our students receive the same foundational moral compass as our state and country’s forefathers,” Patrick said.

In the last legislative session, the Texas Senate passed King’s bill, which died in the Texas House. Last year, Louisiana became the first state to allow the Ten Commandments to be displayed in public schools. The Louisiana law is being challenged in court.

In response, Patrick said, “Texas WOULD have been and SHOULD have been the first state in the nation to put the 10 Commandments back in our schools. Last session the Texas Senate passed Senate Bill 1515, by Sen. Phil King on April 20th and sent it over to the House, to do what Louisiana just did.”

“Every Texas Republican House member would have voted for it,” blaming former Texas House Speaker, Dade Phelan, R-Beaumont, with whom he had a public feud. He said Phelan “killed the bill by letting it languish in committee for a month assuring it would never have time for a vote on the floor. This was inexcusable and unacceptable. Putting the Ten Commandments back into our schools was obviously not a priority for Dade Phelan.”

Because of a 2022 Supreme Court ruling that a Washington state high school football coach had the First Amendment right to pray after a game, Texas and Louisiana filed their bills arguing they are constitutional.

After Louisiana’s bill was signed into law, the ACLU and Americans United for Separation for Church and State sued. A federal judge ruled the law is unconstitutional, prompting Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill to appeal and defend it against several challenges. The case is expected to eventually be ruled on by the U.S. Supreme Court.

In January, Murrill issued a guidance for public schools on compliance on the law. It includes four parameters, including stating that displays of the Ten Commandments must be donated and not use public funds. Murrill maintains that the law is “plainly constitutional because there are constitutionally sound ways to implement it.” The guidance letter also includes a draft resolution that schools can use to adopt the guidance.

Roughly 20 years ago, on June 27, 2005, Texas won a legal challenge to a Ten Commandments monument being erected on the Texas Capitol grounds over whether it represented an unconstitutional establishment of religion. At the time, then Attorney General Greg Abbott defended the monument, arguing before the U.S. Supreme Court that it was constitutional. He won and the monument remains on the capitol grounds.

Abbott, who supports the bills allowing for prayer in school and Ten Commandment displays, said on the anniversary of his win last year, “Faith and freedom will forever remain the bedrock of Texas.”