Texas
Gov. Abbott signs Ten Commandments bill mandating displays in Texas classrooms
AUSTIN — A law requiring Texas public school classrooms to display the Ten Commandments is poised to take effect Sept. 1 after Gov. Greg Abbott signed the bill Saturday.
However, it is expected to face legal challenges.
Rocío Fierro-Pérez, political director of Texas Freedom Network, said the law ignores the separation of church and state by telling children “what kind of faith is acceptable.”
“No child should be told by the state that their beliefs are wrong, or that they don’t belong in their own school,” she said in a statement. “This is government overreach in its most dangerous form.”
Schools must conspicuously display a 16-by-20-inch poster or framed copy of the Ten Commandments in every classroom with text that can be read by anyone inside the room with average vision under the new law.
Texas’ attorney general must defend public schools in any lawsuits they face from the mandate, meaning taxpayers will foot the bill.
The ACLU, ACLU of Texas, Freedom From Religion Foundation and Americans United for Separation of Church and State have warned Abbott that they would file a lawsuit if he signed the legislation. In a joint statement late last month, they called the bill “blatantly unconstitutional.”
The civil liberties groups say the new law violates the 1980 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Stone vs. Graham. The court held then that Kentucky’s law requiring class displays of the Ten Commandments was unconstitutional and violated the establishment clause of the First Amendment — which prohibits the government from establishing a religion.
The organizations also noted a federal court blocked Louisiana’s Ten Commandments law from taking effect last year. That court ruled Louisiana’s law violated the Stone precedent and is “discriminatory and coercive.” That case is being appealed.
Supporters of the Ten Commandments law in Texas counter that the 2022 Supreme Court ruling in Kennedy vs. Bremerton School District made it possible for states to pass such laws. The court held that high school football coach Joseph Kennedy’s personal midfield prayer after games was protected by the free exercise and free speech clauses of the First Amendment.
The high court’s Kennedy opinion noted that the justices had “long ago abandoned” what’s known as the Lemon test, a three-pronged approach to determine whether something violated the establishment clause separating church and state.
Instead, the court said possible violations should be determined by “reference to historical practices and understandings.”
Matt Krause, an attorney with First Liberty Institute, expressed confidence that the incoming law will ultimately be upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court.
“The Ten Commandments is unique in American history and culture in that it was ubiquitous,” he said in an interview, likening it to historic U.S. documents such as the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. “It squarely meets that history and tradition test more uniquely and more squarely than any other document, really, in American history.”
In Louisiana’s case, the federal court ruled it “remains bound to follow Stone until the Supreme Court overrules it.” Even without using Stone as the precedent, the court found that the law is still unconstitutional because it “fails to select historical documents generally and versions of the Decalogue specifically ‘without regard for belief,’” making it discriminatory on top of its mandate being coercive to students.
“Government officials have no business intruding on these deeply personal religious matters,” the civil liberties groups said in the joint statement last month. “We will not allow Texas lawmakers to divide communities along religious lines and attempt to turn public schools into Sunday schools.”
The Ten Commandments law is among more than 300 policies Abbott signed Saturday. Sunday is the last day the governor can sign or veto bills passed by the Legislature this session.
Abbott also signed bills into law that protect public school employees’ right to engage in religious speech or prayer while on duty and require trustees to vote whether schools in their district must allow a period for praying and reading religious texts.
“Today, I signed critical legislation passed in the 89th Regular Legislative Session that protects the safety of Texans and safeguards the individual freedoms that our great state was founded on,” Abbott said in a statement. “Working with the Texas Legislature, we will keep Texas the best place to live, work, and raise a family.”
CEDAR PARK, Texas – Cedar Park police are warning residents to be vigilant after Wells Fargo bank employees alerted them to a possible jugging situation Thursday morning.
“Jugging” is a crime in which a suspect waits for someone to withdraw money from a bank or ATM, then follows the person to steal the cash. The offense became a felony in Texas last September.
The backstory:
“It’s a fairly common phenomenon. We deal with it several times a year, ranging anywhere from $500 to we had one incident a few years ago with a $100,000 loss,” said Cpl. Dan Kitchens, Cedar Park Police Department.
On Thursday, April 30, bank staff described suspicious behavior from a group of men who were watching customers and appeared to be casing the location.
“Once we got in the area, the vehicle that the suspects were occupying went mobile, and we were able to follow it into another bank, Bank of America,” Kitchens said.
Kitchens said when the suspects noticed his police cruiser, they took off, leading officers on a high-speed chase. The pursuit went through the Riviera neighborhood, where two men jumped from a moving car.
Officers eventually caught the pair after a brief foot chase. They were identified as Gabriel Lara and Nicholas Barrientos.
Meanwhile, the driver continued but did not get far.
“They crashed on the 183 to 45 flyover when it was starting to rain really heavily,” Kitchens said.
The driver, Ruben Barrientos, was taken into custody at the crash site.
All three men are from Waco.
“We did interview them after the pursuit and the driver did say they came down to the area to conduct jugging-type robberies or burglaries,” Kitchens said.
They are only facing charges for evading arrest because police intercepted the suspects before any jugging incidents were committed.
“We do believe that they were involved in a jugging last Friday. We didn’t have a reported victim yet, but that was not in Cedar Park, that was in Austin,” Kitchens said.
Detectives have also since connected the trio to an active case out of Oklahoma, in which a victim was followed to a place of worship and approximately $25,000 was stolen.
Police remind residents to be aware of their surroundings, not to leave cash inside vehicles and to call 911 if they believe they are being followed.
The Source: Information from the Cedar Park Police Department and interviews conducted by FOX 7 Austin’s Katie Pratt
A small plane crashed among trees in Texas Hill Country, killing all five people onboard, officials said on Friday.
The crash happened in the dark late on Thursday night in Wimberley, a city about 40 miles south-west of the state capital, Austin, the Hays county judge, Ruben Becerra, said in a post on Facebook.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said the Cessna 421C crashed around 11.25pm with a pilot and four passengers on board.
“I just heard a loud crash. I felt everything vibrate,” Stacey Rohr, who lives nearby, told local channel KEYE-TV. “Everything was up in flames. It was crazy.”
Cecil Keith said he heard what sounded like an engine backfiring – “pow, pow, pow” – when the plane flew over his house moments before the crash.
“Something was definitely wrong,” he told the TV station.
The plane took off from Amarillo, in north-west Texas, about two hours earlier and was headed to New Braunfels national airport, near Austin, according to the flight history. It crashed not far from its intended destination. Aerial images show the remains of the aircraft destroyed in a wooded area.
Becerra said he would not release the names of the victims until family had been notified.
He said a second aircraft traveling in the area landed safely at the airport in New Braunfels, about 30 miles north-east of San Antonio.
One pilot said he and the Cessna pilot were flying there together, according to air traffic control audio.
“I haven’t heard anything from him,” the pilot says on the recording.
A controller responds: “He started to move erratically and now his track is disappeared from the scope. So we want to make sure everything’s all right with him.”
At least one pilot in the area confirmed the troubled plane’s locator emergency device had emitted a distress signal. The controller called 911.
It was mostly cloudy in the New Braunfels area shortly before the crash and there was a thunderstorm two hours later, the National Weather Service said.
Wimberley, with a population of about 3,000, and New Braunfels, with a population of about 116,000, are both tourist destinations in the Texas Hill Country, drawing hikers attracted to the woody rolling hills and others for tubing on rivers in the area.
EL PASO, TEXAS (KFOX14/CBS4) — State Rep. Vince Perez raised concerns on Thursday about how local voters could be affected after a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision allowed the Texas redistricting map to remain for the 2026 elections.
On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed a lower court ruling that had blocked Texas from using its redrawn congressional map. The Supreme Court’s decision allows the redistricting plan to remain in place for the 2026 elections.
A three-judge federal panel had previously blocked the new map from being used in November, finding the plaintiffs were likely to prove the state had engaged in racial gerrymandering.
While some Republicans across the country praised the Supreme Court’s ruling, Democrats denounced it, saying it threatens the foundation of the Voting Rights Act.
During a press conference in El Paso on Thursday, Perez said the decision could have consequences for Texans who have been involved in redistricting fights.
“This is very concerning for all of us who have been fighting the redistricting battle right here in Texas,” Perez said.
He added, “The ruling opens the door to unleash more redistricting across the entire state.”
While Monday’s decision will allow the redistricting map to remain for the 2026 elections, questions remain about future elections in Texas and across the country as the Supreme Court on Wednesday struck down a Louisiana voting map, finding that lawmakers redrew the map in an unconstitutional racial gerrymander, in a ruling that weakens the reach of a key Voting Rights Act provision.
The justices ruled 6-3 that Louisiana’s newly redrawn congressional map relied “too heavily on race.” The map had created a second majority-Black district in the state.
Voting rights organizations have challenged the redistricting maps, citing arguments that it violates the Voting Rights Act.
“With the new maps, there are a series of other lawsuits that are pending that essentially continue some of the same claims that applied earlier, in particular that it violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act in putting racial minority groups, Latinos and African Americans, in a position where they are less likely to be able to exercise the ability to choose candidates of their preferred choice,” said Kareem Crayton, vice president of the Brennan Center’s Washington, D.C. office.
WATCH THE FULL PRESS CONFERENCE:
Texas lawmaker warns Supreme Court redistricting ruling could affect local voters (Credit: KFOX14/CBS4)
RECOMMENDED: Supreme Court allows Texas’ redrawn congressional map to stand for 2026 elections
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