Texas Is Getting A Lot Worse... And It's Been Pretty Bad For A Long Time

I'm No Fan Of John Cornyn But There's A Lot Worse Than Him Now

This has gone poorly

When Texas was still a Democratic state, Martin Frost was chair of the DCCC and Matt Angle was his chief of staff. Today Angle is the founder and director the the Lone Star Project, a go-to website for Texas political news. Last week Angle wrote a column, Dead Senator Walking, about John Cornyn’s 2026 electoral prospects. Cornyn, a hard core conservative, isn’t considered MAGA-aligned enough and Angle called his political prognosis fatal. “He is caught in MAGA crosshairs, and it is unlikely that he will remove himself from the line of fire between now and the Texas Republican Primary next spring. Cornyn is seen as a RINO who won’t embrace the authoritarian, burn-it-all down, xenophobia that dominates the Texas Republican Party. MAGA doesn’t necessarily demand that every Republican be an extremist OG like Dan Patrick, but if you’re late, you better embrace the hate. Greg Abbott proved the point. Abbott kept up the appearance of temperance for a while but once he drank the Kool-Aid, he quickly won over MAGA wack jobs by making cruelty Texas policy— like imposing forced birth on pre-teen rape victims and ramming private school vouchers down Texans' throats.”

MAGA knows John Cornyn doesn’t have a viable base within the Texas Republican Party anymore. Republicans still wearing his establishment brand have been culled from the herd, either through primary losses or retirements.

Texas attorney General Ken Paxton has been sizing up Cornyn for years. Despite Paxton’s corruption having been exposed by whistleblowers within his own office and an open FBI probe into criminal bribery, Paxton will be the favorite if, as many expect, he challenges Cornyn for his Senate seat. Even if Paxton decides against the race, Cornyn is vulnerable to any number of other Republicans with real MAGA bona fides.

…Cornyn has a choice.

He can see the writing on the wall, think about his legacy as a public servant, and deny Paxton and other MAGA extremists the satisfaction and the ability to push him out by leaving gracefully on his own. Has he forgotten being booed off the stage at the Texas RepublicanParty convention?

Or Cornyn can foolishly keep trying to win over a MAGA cult that hates him and count on an old-line mainstream Republican base that is all but extinct.

Over the first few weeks of Trump’s new term, Cornyn has been surrendering his dignity day by day. He voted to approve unqualified and unsuitable Pete Hegseth to lead our nation’s armed forces. He lobbed softball questions to Trump’s FBI appointee Kash Patel who wrote a book vowing retribution against Trump’s political opponents and has publicly stated that he will prosecute members of the press. Cornyn is giving. Pass to both anti-vaxxer Robert Kennedy Jr who sits as a direct threat to public health and to Tulsi Gabbard whose loyalty to our nation can be credibly questioned.

Don’t expect the MAGA mob in Texas to be impressed. They will hound and harass Cornyn until he decides against re-election or gets taken out in the primary. Politically, John Cornyn is a dead senator walking. It’s too late for him to save his political hide, but it’s not too late for John Cornyn to save his soul as a public servant.

What a shithole country… I mean state. Yesterday, Alex Driggars reported that state Sen Phil King (Weatherford) and Mayes Middleton (Galveston) filed bills Monday would mandate the Ten Commandments be displayed in every public school classroom and would allow districts to designate time for prayer and Bible reading during the school day. “The legislation mandates that the poster be legible and conspicuous, and it prescribes the text to be printed on the poster, which appears to be an abbreviated version of the Ten Commandments found in the King James Bible. Proponents of Ten Commandments legislation have said the text is foundational to American democracy with moral principles that extend beyond a particular religion. ‘The Ten Commandments are part of our Texas and American story. They are ingrained into who we are as a people and as a nation,’ King said in a statement announcing SB 10. ‘Today, our students cry out for the moral clarity, for the statement of right and wrong that they represent. If our students don’t know the Ten Commandments, they will never understand the foundation for much of American history and law.’”

The other bill, “SB 11 would allow a school district or charter school's board of trustees to ‘adopt a policy requiring every campus of the district or school to provide students and employees with an opportunity to participate in a period of prayer and reading of the Bible or other religious text on each school day,’ the bill states. ‘Our schools are not God-free zones,’ Middleton said in a statement announcing his bill. ‘Litigious atheists are no longer going to get to decide for everyone else if students and educators exercise their religious liberties during school hours.’ In the statement, Middleton asserted: ‘There is no such thing as separation of church and state in our Constitution.’”

Their arguments are legally and historically indefensible and represent a blatant assault on the principles of religious freedom and pluralism that form the bedrock of American democracy that neither King nor Middleton seem to grasp. They’re not merely advocating for religious expression— they’re attempting to impose a specific sectarian doctrine on public school students in violation of the First Amendment.

If you ever took a civics class you know that, contrary to King’s claim, the Ten Commandments are not the foundation of American history or law. The U.S. Constitution is explicitly secular and makes no reference to Christianity, Moses or biblical law. In fact, the only mention of religion in the Constitution is in a restrictive capacity. The First Amendment prohibits the government from establishing a religion or preventing free exercise thereof. Mandating the display of the Ten Commandments in classrooms violates this clause by using state authority to endorse a specific religious text. Article VI explicitly forbids religious tests for public office, a stark contrast to the theocratic vision these senators seem to embrace.

If American law were based on the Ten Commandments, we would see criminal statutes mandating worship of a single deity, banning graven images and outlawing working on the Sabbath— none of which exist in our legal system because the Founders rejected theocracy in favor of religious liberty. The Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled against government-imposed religious instruction in public schools.

As for the right-wing myth of “No Separation of Church and State”— Middleton’s claim— it is a dishonest distortion of constitutional history. While the exact phrase is not in the document, its principle is deeply embedded in American law and governance. Thomas Jefferson explicitly articulated this idea in his 1802 letter to the Danbury Baptists, stating that the First Amendment builds “a wall of separation between Church & State.” James Madison, the primary architect of the Constitution, echoed this view, warning that government entanglement with religion leads to both political corruption and religious degradation. By denying this well-established legal doctrine, Middleton is engaging in historical revisionism to justify state-imposed Christianity. The irony in Middleton’s rhetoric is striking— he claims to champion “religious liberty” while seeking to erode it. True religious liberty does not mean the state forces religious texts into classrooms or pressures students into religious participation. It means individuals have the right to choose their own beliefs without government interference.

Public schools— more so now than ever before— serve a diverse population of students—Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, atheists and others. Forcing the Ten Commandments into classrooms sends a clear message: some students’ beliefs are officially sanctioned while others are marginalized. That is the very definition of religious coercion.

King’s mumbo jumbo that students “cry out for moral clarity” is just bullshit. The idea that morality is dependent on state-sponsored religious texts is both insulting and demonstrably false. Ethical reasoning, empathy, and civic responsibility are taught through a combination of parental guidance, education and personal conscience— not by plastering religious edicts on classroom walls. Furthermore, if morality were truly the concern, these senators should focus on addressing poverty, gun violence and systemic inequalities that impact students rather than using them as pawns in a Christian nationalist crusade. Their bills are not just unconstitutional; they’re a dangerous attempt to erode the secular foundations of American governance and impose religious orthodoxy through state power. Their efforts echo theocratic regimes, not a pluralistic democracy, just what you would expect from MAGA Texas Republicans. If these senators were truly concerned with protecting religious liberty, they would defend the rights of all students to practice (or not practice) religion free from government interference. Instead, they seek to exploit public schools as instruments of religious indoctrination, undermining the very freedoms they claim to uphold. This is not about history. It’s not about morality. It’s about power— specifically, the power of the state to impose one religious doctrine over all others. And that is exactly what the Founding Fathers warned against.

Lt. Gov Dan Patrick, the three-term Republican who presides over the Senate, designated SB 10 and SB 11 as priority bills for the 89th Legislature. Patrick expressed frustration last year when a similar 10 Commandments bill, which King also carried, passed out of the Senate  in 2023 but missed the legal deadline to be brought up for a vote in the Texas House. A bill allowing for prayer and Bible-reading time also failed last session.

…Critics of SB 10 and SB 11, such as the progressive advocacy group Texas Freedom Network, argue the bills would blatantly violate the U.S. Constitution's Establishment Clause, which prohibits the government from sponsoring or favoring a religion.

"Forcing public schools to display the Ten Commandments and explicitly allowing school staff to encourage prayer transforms our schools from inclusive educational spaces into institutions that promote specific religious beliefs," TFN political coordinator Levi Fiedler said in a statement to the American-Statesman. "This direct violation of church-state separation not only disregards our constitutional principles but also disrespects the diverse faiths and beliefs of Texas families. Texas lawmakers should remember that public education is about teaching, not preaching."

Rick Rosen, a retired Texas Tech University School of Law professor, told the Statesman that the legislation appears to contradict established case law regarding religion in schools.

"In 1980, the Supreme Court held in Stone v. Graham that a Kentucky statute requiring the posting of the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. Based on Stone, the proposed Texas statute seemingly violates the Establishment Clause," Rosen said.

"Perhaps our legislators believe that with the current composition of the Supreme Court, such a statute will pass constitutional muster. In addition, the Supreme Court has, on a number of occasions, held that school prayer violates the Establishment Clause," he continued.

Rosen also said the constitutionality of the Texas proposal could hinge on a case currently before the U.S. Supreme Court regarding an Oklahoma Catholic school— St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School— which was granted approval by the state to operate as a public charter school and receive public funding. The Oklahoma Supreme Court rescinded the agreement between the Oklahoma City and Tulsa dioceses and the state, citing the First Amendment, and the U.S. Supreme Court agreed last month to review the case, Rosen said.

"At stake in the St. Isidore case is whether a state must approve and fully fund religious charter schools. If the Supreme Court rules in favor of St. Isidore, it may be likely to sustain the proposed Ten Commandment and school-prayer laws," Rosen said.