Monday, June 2nd, is the last day of the 89th Legislative Session. In these final hours, both staff and members are increasingly weary from the lack of sleep due to early mornings and late nights. There are tense negotiations on the final remaining bills where the Senate and House haven’t reconciled differences in different versions […]
First, I would like to open this week by wishing all of our mothers a very happy Mother’s Day. I have been blessed in life to have a wonderful Mom who was taken from this world much too early due to illness, but she left a great impact on me. In so many ways, my […]
Before I provide a legislative update, let me first open with a personal note. I want to express my heartfelt thanks and gratefulness for the many kind expressions of condolences so many of you extended to me, Terry, and our entire family in the wake of our son Josh’s passing. We miss him terribly. And […]
Returning the Ten Commandments Back to our Classrooms: SB 10 It’s time to return the Ten Commandments back to our classrooms where they were displayed for over 200 years, and I’m pleased the Texas Senate has passed my legislation to do so. Few documents in the history of Western civilization and in American history have […]
First Economic Development Committee Meeting Hears My Legislation to Establish Texas Trade Office in Israel Last Monday, I held the first meeting of the new Senate Economic Development Committee, which I chair. One of our first bills heard was SCR 24, legislation I authored to create a new trade office in Israel, which will provide […]
Stopping “Deepfakes” and AI Fake Images Used to Exploit Children This week, the Criminal Justice Committee on which I serve passed numerous bills to address the troubling rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI) being used to create fake images of children which can then be used to groom and abuse them. You may have heard the […]
Reining in Abuse Of the Texas Lottery: SB 28 Passes Senate When the Texas Lottery was created in 1992, the intention was to allow local Texans an opportunity to play and win, not to have out of state or overseas entities rig the game. The Legislature’s intent was clear: tickets were to be bought in […]
Legislative Progress This Week Bail Reform – Keeping Dangerous Criminals off our Streets: You may remember last week I wrote to you about four bills reforming our broken bail system that were voted out of the Criminal Justice Committee. This week, those four bills were passed by the full Senate: SJR 1 – requires the […]
The work of your Texas State Senate is in full swing, with important action this week on providing property tax relief as well as progress on reforming a broken bail system that has allowed violent criminals to get out of jail and harm our citizens. Lots of folks from SD 10 were in Austin this […]
Today, I filed SB 10, priority legislation that would require Texas’ public schools to once again display the Ten Commandments in classrooms. SB 10 follows the historic 2022 U.S. Supreme Court decision which overturned a faulty legal precedent used since 1980 to prohibit these displays. The Ten Commandments are part of our Texas and American story. […]
