A bill that would have required Texas public school classrooms to display the Ten Commandments is dead after lawmakers in the Texas House of Representatives failed to meet a critical deadline Tuesday night.
According to The Texas Tribune, SB 1515 easily passed the Texas Senate along party lines last month and received initial approval from a House committee May 16, but was among a number of bills that did not receive a vote before the midnight deadline.
Introduced by Republican state Sen. Mayes Middleton earlier this year, the bill would have mandated that all "elementary and secondary" schools in Texas display a copy of the Ten Commandments in a "conspicuous place" and "be at least 16 inches wide and 20 inches tall."
Under the proposed legislation, if a school classroom did not post a copy of the Ten Commandments, it would be required to accept a "privately donated poster or framed copy of the Ten Commandments provided that the poster or copy" met the criteria specified in the bill.
The Tribune reported that Democrats in both chambers of the state legislature were vehemently opposed to the measure, calling it an attempt to erode the separation of church and state and an insult to Texans who are not Christian.
Middleton told The Washington Post that "absolutely no separation of God and government" exists, and that things changed when prayer was taken out of schools.
"That has been confused; it's not real [separation of church and state]," he said. "When prayer was taken out of schools, things went downhill — discipline, mental health. It's something I heard a lot on porches when I was campaigning. It's something I've thought about for a long time."
The New York Times reported that the bill seemed designed to test the limits of the Supreme Court's conservative majority in the wake of decisions like last year's Kennedy v. Bremerton School District. The court found that high school football coach Joe Kennedy's First Amendment rights had been violated when the Washington school district prevented him from praying on the field.
"The law has undergone a massive shift," Matt Krause, a former Texas state representative and a lawyer at First Liberty Institute, reportedly said during a State Senate hearing last month. "It's not too much to say that the Kennedy case, for religious liberty, was much like the Dobbs case was for the pro-life movement."
Texas Republicans' rushed efforts to pass bills Tuesday were hindered by Democrats, who delayed the proceedings by continually speaking at length throughout the day, according to the Times.
The tactic prevented the Ten Commandments bill, among others, from coming up for a vote.
"This bill was an unconstitutional attack on our core liberties, and we are happy it failed," David Donatti, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, said in a statement. "The First Amendment guarantees families and faith communities — not politicians or the government — the right to instill religious beliefs in their children."
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