Lawyers from Winning Case in Louisiana
Take Texas Commandments Bill to Court
Capitol Inside
July 2, 2025
Governor Greg Abbott and the Texas Legislature's ruling Republicans have put 11 major school districts in the line of fire with a Ten Commandments mandate that religious leaders and families from a cross-section of faiths and geographical locations challenged in federal court on Wednesday.
The 65-page lawsuit that 16 plaintiffs filed in a U.S. district court in San Antonio is the second of its kind to appear in the past eight days. The latest legal challenge asserts that the commandments requirement in Senate Bill 10 is a blatant violation of the First Amendment's establishment clause.
The suit today revolves the same lines of reasoning that compelled a federal court of appeals ruled a Ten Commandments law in Louisiana to be "plainly" unconstitutional two weeks ago. U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled in a unanimous decision that the Louisiana law caused an “irreparable deprivation” of First Amendment rights by forcing public schools to display a state-certified Protestant version of the Ten Commandments in classrooms like the new Texas mandate will do if it ever takes effect.
The appellate court issued the decision that blocked the Louisiana law's implementation on June 20 - the same day that Abbott signed the Texas version into law. Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick conceived the Ten Commandments requirement in a bill that failed in the House in 2023. Louisiana Republicans seized on the missed opportunity and beat the Lone State to the punch when they approved the law that's been jammed up in the courts.
But Abbott has been undaunted and defiant by the developments in Louisiana where local school officials have been barred from enforcing the commandments law there. The governor expressed unwavering confidence in a post on X five days after the federal decree in Louisiana. Abbott mentioned the role that he'd had as the Texas attorney general in a suit against the state.
"Signed a law to put the Ten Commandments in Texas classrooms," Abbott said in the social media message on June 25. "Faith and freedom are the foundation of our nation. If anyone sues, we'll win that battle. Just like when I defended the Ten Commandments Monument on Texas Capitol grounds at SCOTUS."
The Texas governor took the opposite view on a THC ban in a bill that he vetoed on June 22 based in large part on legislation that appeared to have stalled in the courts in a case out of Arkansas. Abbott said the THC prohibition wouldn't stand a chance to survive in the judiciary. Patrick disputed the legal prognosis and predicted that Arkansas would win the legal fight that Abbott cited.
Patrick argued that Republican leaders in Texas had never let the threat of legal action interfere plans they have and bills they want to pass. Abbott and Patrick have clearly tuned out threats on SB 10 and a separate but related measure that requires school districts to set aside time in the day for prayer or Bible reading and is almost certain to be a target of First Amendment suits as well.
The districts that are defendants in the suit to block the commandments mandate include several in the San Antonio area including Alamo Heights, Northeast, Northside and Lackland. The Austin school district is named in the suit along with the Dripping Springs and Lake Travis districts. The Houston, Fort Bend and Cypress-Fairbanks school districts are targeted in the document as well.
The lawyers in the suit filed in Texas today are the same as those who represented the plaintiffs in the case in the Ten Commandments case in Louisiana. The list of attorneys for the plaintiffs in the new Texas lawsuit includes the New York firm Simpson, Thatcher & Bartlett and lawyers for the ACLU, the Americans United for the Separation of Church and State and the Freedom from Religion Foundation. The plaintiffs include people who are Christian, Jewish, Hindu and Unitarian.
more to come ...
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