U.S. State News Catch-All
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Christofascist legislators in Texas increasingly dropping the pretense about “religious freedom”
www.texastribune.org
“Testifying this month against bills that would put more Christianity in Texas public schools, the Rev. Jody Harrison invoked the violent persecution of her Baptist forefathers by fellow Christians in colonial America.
Harrison hoped the history lesson would remind Texas senators of Baptists’ strong support for church-state separations, and that weakening those protections would hurt people of all faiths.
Instead, she was rebuked.
“The Baptist doctrine is Christ-centered,” Sen. Donna Campbell, R-New Braunfels, responded sharply. “Its purpose is not to go around trying to defend this or that. It is to be a disciple and a witness for Christ. That includes the Ten Commandments. That’s prayer in schools. It is not a fight for separation between church and state.”
… Efforts by the Christian Right to put more of their religion in public schools are not new. But the tone of those debates in Texas has shifted this session, with bill supporters and some lawmakers openly arguing that such legislation is crucial to combating dropping church participation rates and what they say is a directly related decline in American morality.
… Throughout those hearings, lawmakers and bill supporters frequently said that church-state separation is a myth meant to obscure America’s true, Christian roots. They argued that many of America’s ills are the natural consequence of removing Biblical morality from classrooms. And they framed their legislation as an antidote to decreasing church attendance, communism or eternal hellfire.
"To realize that only 25% of our kids in schools today have been in a church is absolutely horrific and something that we all need to work on to address,” said Sen. Tan Parker, R-Flower Mound, repeating a statistic offered by one bill supporter during testimony. “That should make everybody listening absolutely scared to death," he added.
…
Recent polling from the Public Religion and Research Institute found that, of all Americans, about 10% adhere to Christian nationalism and 20% sympathize with aspects of it. Experts say that, despite accounting for a small segment of the broader country, Christian nationalists and their allies have been able to incrementally accumulate power through a long-term political strategy and a well of deep-pocketed donors.
In Texas, the Christian Right’s rising influence has coincided with the state GOP’s alignment with two West Texas oil billionaires, Tim Dunn and Farris Wilks, who have given tens of millions of dollars to push their far-right religious and social views. And groups like Project Blitz, a coalition of Christian groups with deep Texas ties, have used that long-term approach to steadily normalize their views and chip away at church-state separation without drawing widespread opposition. …”
In Texas, Christian right grows confident and assertive
Emboldened by court rulings and election victories, the Christian right is outspoken as it pushes its moral views through the Texas Legislature.
www.texastribune.org
“Testifying this month against bills that would put more Christianity in Texas public schools, the Rev. Jody Harrison invoked the violent persecution of her Baptist forefathers by fellow Christians in colonial America.
Harrison hoped the history lesson would remind Texas senators of Baptists’ strong support for church-state separations, and that weakening those protections would hurt people of all faiths.
Instead, she was rebuked.
“The Baptist doctrine is Christ-centered,” Sen. Donna Campbell, R-New Braunfels, responded sharply. “Its purpose is not to go around trying to defend this or that. It is to be a disciple and a witness for Christ. That includes the Ten Commandments. That’s prayer in schools. It is not a fight for separation between church and state.”
… Efforts by the Christian Right to put more of their religion in public schools are not new. But the tone of those debates in Texas has shifted this session, with bill supporters and some lawmakers openly arguing that such legislation is crucial to combating dropping church participation rates and what they say is a directly related decline in American morality.
… Throughout those hearings, lawmakers and bill supporters frequently said that church-state separation is a myth meant to obscure America’s true, Christian roots. They argued that many of America’s ills are the natural consequence of removing Biblical morality from classrooms. And they framed their legislation as an antidote to decreasing church attendance, communism or eternal hellfire.
"To realize that only 25% of our kids in schools today have been in a church is absolutely horrific and something that we all need to work on to address,” said Sen. Tan Parker, R-Flower Mound, repeating a statistic offered by one bill supporter during testimony. “That should make everybody listening absolutely scared to death," he added.
…
Recent polling from the Public Religion and Research Institute found that, of all Americans, about 10% adhere to Christian nationalism and 20% sympathize with aspects of it. Experts say that, despite accounting for a small segment of the broader country, Christian nationalists and their allies have been able to incrementally accumulate power through a long-term political strategy and a well of deep-pocketed donors.
In Texas, the Christian Right’s rising influence has coincided with the state GOP’s alignment with two West Texas oil billionaires, Tim Dunn and Farris Wilks, who have given tens of millions of dollars to push their far-right religious and social views. And groups like Project Blitz, a coalition of Christian groups with deep Texas ties, have used that long-term approach to steadily normalize their views and chip away at church-state separation without drawing widespread opposition. …”
That’s something a lot of people don’t understand. If these Medicaid cuts go thru, facilities will close. Then even people who can pay there on way either thru insurance or out of pocket will be scrambling for a new facility to take them.
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Here’s where $10 million donation to DeSantis’ Hope Florida effort went
The money to the Hope Florida Foundation went to two organizations that later gave to a political committee, records show.
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“… The payments, laid out in campaign finance records and documents released to the Times/Herald by the foundation on Friday, raise questions about whether the DeSantis administration diverted Medicaid dollars through Casey DeSantis’ key initiative to a political campaign.Here’s where $10 million donation to DeSantis’ Hope Florida effort went
The money to the Hope Florida Foundation went to two organizations that later gave to a political committee, records show.www.tampabay.com
… The payments, laid out in campaign finance records and documents released to the Times/Herald by the foundation on Friday, raise questions about whether the DeSantis administration diverted Medicaid dollars through Casey DeSantis’ key initiative to a political campaign.
…
The flow of money from the charity to big-dollar contributors to the governor’s political causes is already stirring debate in Florida’s Capitol, where House Republicans are digging into how the DeSantis administration is spending public money.
Republicans have said that the administration may have broken the law by steering millions of dollars to the Hope Florida Foundation from Centene. The company entered into talks with the Agency for Health Care Administration after it was overpaid for Medicaid services.
DeSantis on Thursday said the $67 million settlement, of which $10 million went to the charity, was “100% appropriate” and part of a “good deal” the state negotiated with Centene. …”
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“… The measure still has some legislative hurdles to clear before Gov. Greg Abbott signs it into law, but the House vote — 85 to 63 — secured a win that was decades in the making, propelled by the governor’s hardball politics last year. It was also a significant defeat for Democrats, teachers’ unions and some rural conservatives who had long worried that taxpayer-funded private-school vouchers would strain public school budgets.
The program would be capped at $1 billion in its first year, but could grow quickly, potentially reaching an estimated $4.5 billion a year by 2030. The funds can be used for private school tuition and for costs associated with home-schooling, including curriculum materials and virtual learning programs.
The bill was championed by an ascendant wing of the Republican Party, closely allied with President Trump and important conservative donors, including Betsy DeVos, Mr. Trump’s wealthy former education secretary, and Jeff Yass, a billionaire financier from Pennsylvania and a Republican megadonor.
… Conservatives and some liberal allies, especially in urban centers, have long argued that vouchers would free parents from underperforming public schools, while competition from private schools would force public education to improve.
Opponents, especially teachers’ unions, have argued just as vociferously that taxpayer-funded vouchers would drain resources from public education and leave children with the fewest resources stuck in underfunded public schools of last resort. …”
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“… Supporters of private school choice said that because Texas was the last major Republican-led state to embrace the policy, attention would now shift to Washington. Mr. Trump and some congressional Republicans are attempting to pass a federal tax credit for private school scholarships, which could spread private school vouchers nationwide, including into Democratic-led states. …”
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“… The Texas program would provide about $10,000 to students for private school tuition, or up to $30,000 for disabled students. It would also offer up to $2,000 for home-schooling costs.
If demand exceeds funding, priority for the money will go to children with disabilities and those from low-income and middle-class households who were previously enrolled in public schools. But the money could eventually become available to any child, including those already enrolled in private education.
The funding will come out of the state’s general fund.
Nationwide, more than one million American students now use public dollars for private education, double the number from 2019. The Texas program is expected to reach up to 90,000 students in its first year.
… A casualty in the fight over education savings accounts in recent years has been new funding for Texas public schools, which have not seen their budgets increase along with inflation. As part of the negotiations to win over the Texas House, lawmakers also approved nearly $8 billion in additional funding for public schools. Advocates said something closer to $20 billion was needed to get back to 2019 school funding levels in Texas. …”
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Background on bill:
Tort Reform in Georgia Headed to the Governor’s Desk
The Georgia Assembly passed sweeping tort reform on Friday, March 21, 2025. Governor Brian Kemp had announced his tort reform package on January 30, 2025.
www.productlawperspective.com
Mulberry Heel
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No surprise at all. Vouchers are nothing more than a way to destroy public schools by gradually transferring more and more of their necessary funding (necessary as in maintaining buildings, providing pay raises to teachers and staff, keeping decent benefits, etc.) to vouchers which in most states are poorly-regulated and which studies have shown are not usually used by low-income families, but rather by well-to-do families who could likely have afforded a private school education anyway.
In Arizona, one of the first states to start a major voucher program and which has been used as a model by other red states, its become a huge boondoggle for some families, with a report last year showing that some parents spent voucher money to help purchase "kayaks, espresso machines, ski passes, Broadway tickets, and high-end Lego sets." And there's also (no doubt deliberately) very little way for the AZ state government to keep track of how voucher money is spent or show that it is actually improving education for children in the state. It's really just a massive grift of state taxpayers by often well-heeled parents, courtesy of GOP legislatures intent on tearing down public education in their states.
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It has actually been a long and previously losing fight in Texas as rural but otherwise very conservative Republican districts have worked with the minority Democrats to block prior attempts to pass this sort of bill in Texas. It took a lot of billionaire donor money to primary resisting Republicans and finally bully this through. The political back story is really interesting… but the billionaires finally won out, absent some last minute issues with ironing out the differences between the House and Senate bills.
Mulberry Heel
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Eventually rural public schools in some states are going to start closing as federal and state funds keep drying up and local funding in many poor counties simply won't be enough to keep them open, especially as (conservative Christian) homeschooling reduces enrollment in some rural areas. Schools will be consolidated and in some rural areas parents will have to drive their kids longer distances just to get them to school. And yet these rural areas like the ones in Texas will no doubt continue to vote for people like Abbott and Paxton and Cruz (and Trump) to their own detriment.
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