Texas Values™ And Other Tall Tales

Inside the last week of Texas lawmaking, where facts go to die and bills get weirder by the hour.

Last night, I re-read the article I wrote yesterday and realized I called Texas Republicans “stupid” at least five times. That wasn’t very nice of me. I meant to do it six.

But in all seriousness, calling them stupid isn’t fair. Republicans aren’t stupid. They’re just chronically allergic to facts, hostile to nuance, and deeply committed to the ancient art of legislating by gut feeling. It’s not a lack of intelligence, but a talent for ignoring anything requiring reflection, research, or reading past the headline.

So no, we shouldn’t call Republicans stupid. Even when they work very hard to earn it. We should call them what they are, which is dangerously unqualified to govern in a functioning democracy.

With only seven days left in the Legislative session, I plan to approach this next week with a light-hearted tone. We should laugh at them instead of letting them get under our skin. Because humor is sometimes the only shield we’ve left against the absurdity of watching elected officials confuse petty performance with policymaking.

Let’s talk about meat.

Specifically, Briscoe Cain’s (R-HD128) burning desire to protect his God-given right to shove meat into his mouth without interference from science, progress, or anything remotely resembling the 21st century. During the final debate on SB261, which bans the sale of lab-grown meat in Texas, Cain treated us to a deeply unhinged TED Talk on why Texans must be saved from the horrors of “cell-cultured protein.”

Apparently, this bill isn’t just about meat. It’s about freedom. Because nothing screams liberty like the government banning a food product that literally no one is forcing you to eat. But Cain warned his colleagues that this whole lab-grown meat thing is part of a sinister vegan plot led by, brace yourself, the Good Food Institute (terrifying!) and a guy named Bruce who once worked for PETA (lock your doors, y’all).

He told the chamber that this bill is about protecting Texas from cow fart-hating scientists who love animals too much. Cain’s bottom line? Come hell or high water, nobody’s depriving his mouth of meat.

SB25 is what happens when you try to solve a massive, systemic, corporate-driven health crisis by duct-taping together recess, kale, and a committee.

Now let’s talk about SB25, the bill that started as “let’s teach kids to eat vegetables” and somehow morphed into a four-hour nutritional fever dream complete with lobbyists, pesticides, gym class wars, and a surprisingly emotional defense of marching band cardio.

At face value, it’s about requiring PE in schools, nutrition classes in college, and food labels for ingredients banned in the UK, like Red 40, titanium dioxide, and the soul of Little Debbie.

But then it got weird.

The bill’s author, Lacey Hull (R-HD138), laid out the facts like she was hosting a Netflix special called “America: We’re Fat and It’s Killing Us.” She had charts, stats, and deeply unsettling facts about the number of children unfit for military service due to obesity.

And for a moment, the room was united, Republicans and Democrats holding hands across the aisle, shouting in unison, “Let the children eat fruit!”

But this is Texas, so of course, things spiraled.

We got amendments upon amendments. Salman Bhojani (D-HD92) wanted mindfulness courses. Trent Ashby (R-HD09) wanted to strip the bill of pesticide labeling (because nothing says “freedom” like mystery chemicals in your cornflakes). And in perhaps the most Texas moment of the day, Brad Buckley (R-HD54) stood up to passionately defend a child’s sacred right to skip gym class to play travel ball.

Vikki Goodwin (D-HD47) filed an amendment arguing that marching band should count as PE. To which I say, yes, if you’ve ever tried to play a tuba in polyester at 103°F, you deserve to graduate early and with honors.

And then came the college nutrition course debate. This bill would’ve forced every public university student, yes, even engineering majors who subsist entirely on vending machine Skittles, to take a required course in nutrition before they could get their degree. Required. Mandatory. A “you-will-not-graduate-until-you-write-a-paper-on-the-mediterranean-diet” situation.

Democrats didn’t like that. “This is government overreach!” they shouted, and they weren’t wrong. Gene Wu (D-HD137) pointed out that the bill says, “Must complete a course,” not “maybe skim a brochure.” You could be majoring in quantum physics, but Texas wants to make sure you can identify a complex carb.

And when asked if the state would fund this extra class, the answer was, of course, not. Who needs funding when you have vibes?

But my favorite part was the endless, circular debate over gym class exemptions. If your kid does ballet or hockey, they’re out. If they’re in a marching band? Maybe. If they’re a poor kid who runs around in a park unsupervised? Absolutely not. Sorry. If they didn’t pay a private sports league $400 to wear a jersey and scream in a church gym, they clearly haven’t earned the right to dodge dodgeball.

Vikki Goodwin proposed an amendment to examine pesticide exposure in food. Nope. Tabled.

Lulu Flores (D-HD51) asked the committee to study food deserts. Tabled.

Jolanda Jones (D-HD147) proposed giving food desert communities a voice through public hearings. Republicans tabled it.

Pat Curry (R-HD56) tried to delay labeling enforcement until we had an actual study. This was too reasonable, so it was tabled.

Christian Manuel (D-HD22) offered an amendment to keep social media diet grifters off the committee. You guessed it. Tabled faster than a bag of Takis in a kindergarten lunchroom.

Jolanda Jones returned with a delayed enforcement plan for retailers in food deserts. It was tabled. Enforcing a labeling law in areas with no access to healthy food is the peak of Texas Republican logic.

One amendment did pass, Gary VanDeaver’s (R-HD01), which clarified that if Trump or RFK Jr. releases federal food guidance, Texas will bow in deference to whatever new label is cooked up in DC. You know, the same Republicans who scream “federal overreach” any time the USDA says don’t eat glue are now fine with preemption, as long as it comes with a MAGA label.

The final vote? 105–28. The result? A “nutrition” bill that excludes nutritionists, dodges food equity, and creates enforcement mechanisms that hit poor communities first.

SB25 is a wellness-washed, lobby-approved press release masquerading as policy. It is coming soon to a convenience store near you. Bananas optional.

SB22: Make Texas censorship great again.

SB22 was sold as a plan to “Make the Texas Film Industry Great Again.” It gives hundreds of millions in public funds to a film industry that better say nice things about Texas, or else.

This bill creates a giant pot of money for movie studios ($500 million), but only if your film portrays Texas in a way that makes Greg Abbott feel good about himself. Want to show police brutality? Nope. A corrupt oil executive? Denied. A queer teen trying to escape their small-town hellscape? Congratulations, the State of Texas has blacklisted you for being “disrespectful.”

Todd Hunter (R-HD32) introduced the bill. “This isn’t Hollywood coming to Texas,” he declared. “This is Texas taking over Hollywood.” These are bold words for a man who spent ten minutes name-dropping Matthew McConaughey and Jesus. And yes, he told us The Chosen was filmed in Midlothian and pumped $88 million into the economy, because what says economic policy better than “Jesus boosted hotel occupancy rates?”

Hunter insisted the bill was all about “guardrails,” but those guardrails look a lot like a state-run moral purity test for filmmakers. The Governor’s office gets to deny funding for any movie that shows Texas in a “negative light,” or violates vague “standards of decency.” If your script includes cursing, queers, or criticism, you’re not getting a dime.

The Governor’s office will preview your script, pre-approve your plot, and audit your final cut. When you think of free expression, you obviously think of Greg Abbott with Final Cut Pro.

It gets better. Not only will Texas now judge your film like a Catholic school principal reading a banned book list, but we’re also carving out bonus grants for projects that promote “family values” or faith-based themes. Oh, and if you dare to call that a culture war subsidy, Republicans will accuse you of being anti-Christian and anti-jobs. Because Jesus famously said, “Blessed are the film commissions, for they shall inherit the rebate.”

Trey Martinez-Fischer (D-HD116) did his best to inject some sanity, adding amendments to support workforce development and reward productions that film at historic sites like the Alamo. But that’s assuming their content doesn’t “offend Texas.”

And yet somehow, Rep. Brian Harrison (R-HD10) managed to out-extreme the rest. He opposed the bill entirely, claiming the entertainment industry was too full of “Trump-hating,” “gender-transition-promoting,” “Christian-mocking” elites to be trusted with taxpayer money. Harrison’s logic was that giving film incentives to people who don’t like Republicans is woke communism, or something.

SB22 is taxpayer-funded propaganda, designed to bribe the film industry into making Texas look wholesome while the actual state spirals into book bans, censorship, and corruption. Call it “Filmwashing,” brought to you by the same folks who think Drag Queen Story Hour is a greater threat than AR-15s in classrooms.

So there you have it.

Yesterday, Texas Republicans managed to ban fake meat, pretend to fix childhood nutrition by assigning homework, and create a government-funded Christian content rating system for movies.

They’ll tell you it’s about freedom. Freedom to eat meat. Freedom to eat vegetables. Freedom to make movies, as long as those movies say Texas is the best, Jesus is hot, and nobody’s gay.

But it’s not freedom. It’s a funhouse mirror version of it, one where corporate donors eat first, children eat last, and the rest of us are force-fed culture war slop disguised as legislation.

And sure, we can laugh at the absurdity. We should laugh. Because if we stop laughing, we start screaming. And if we start screaming, we might accidentally interrupt the next floor speech about the psychological dangers of veganism.

There are only a few days left in this legislative session. Let’s savor them. Like Briscoe Cain savoring a bloody steak on the Capitol steps, chewing proudly while the rest of us try not to choke on the stench of publicly funded bullshit.

Because if this is what “Texas values” look like in 2025, censorship, corn syrup, and campaign checks, then maybe the next bill should mandate a required course in basic decency. But let’s not hold our breath. It wouldn’t get past committee.

• June 2: The 89th Legislative Session ends.

• June 3: The beginning of the 2026 election season.

• Click here to find out what Legislative districts you’re in.

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