Who Needs Democracy When You Have A Culture War
Texas Republicans spend the final days of session attacking books, the unhoused, and your wallet.
Yesterday, the Texas House met for over 16 hours, adjourning after 2:00 am, and then gaveling back in this morning at 10:00 am. With only six days left, it’s all about how much damage they can do to Texans before the clock winds down. As a lifelong Texan and self-proclaimed TX-Lege nerd, I can tell you a whole bunch. But you have to remember, while the Legislature is passing all kinds of unconstitutional bullshit, half of it won’t even stand up in court.
To give you an idea of how often their authoritarian laws get thrown out, let’s take a look back:
In 2021, a federal court invalidated a provision in SB1, the voter oppression bill, that restricted compensated canvassers from engaging in voter advocacy near mail-in ballots.
Last session, Republicans banned drag shows. A federal judge ruled this law unconstitutional.
The “Death Star Bill” from 2023 was thrown out, deemed unconstitutional. However, I think this one is still making its way through appeals courts.
Jared Patterson’s (R-HD106) book-burning bill was struck down in the 5th Circuit for being unconstitutional.
So, when you see some of the laws Republicans are passing this session, it’s easy to feel deflated and discouraged, but even if these laws pass, it’s vital to remember that the fight isn’t over. When Abbott signs them into law, that’s when groups like the ACLU and LULAC take them to court.
I bring this up because one of the bills that passed yesterday was the GOP’s latest book-burning iteration. SB13, also known as the “Book Ban 3.0” for those of us keeping count, passed the second reading in the House with an 87-57 vote.
SB13 gives parents “insight” into what their kids check out from the school library and builds an entire surveillance apparatus around it.
Under SB13, school districts are now required to provide parents with a complete log of every book their child checks out. Not only that, but parents can submit a blacklist of books their child isn’t allowed to access, even if those books are available to everyone else.
But it gets worse.
SB13 creates new, intentionally vague categories like “indecent content,” “profane content,” and “harmful material” (all undefined in any meaningful way), then bans any book that might fall into one of those buckets. And if a book links to a website, even with a QR code, that includes content some pearl-clutcher finds offensive? Banned.
Then there’s the “local school library advisory council,” which sounds harmless until you realize it’s a vehicle for censorship under the guise of “local values.” If 20% of parents sign a petition, the district must create one. That council can recommend removing books they find offensive, inappropriate, or don’t vibe with their worldview, and school boards are required to consider their recommendations.
Think that’s enough control? There’s more.
Every donated book must be reviewed by the school board and posted publicly for 30 days before a single student can even touch it. If someone challenges a book, students are barred from reading it while the challenge process is ongoing. And if the board removes a book from the catalog, teachers are required to remove it from their classroom shelves as well.
This is about conservative politicians giving right-wing parents the power to veto access to literature for everyone else’s kids. It’s about manufacturing a moral panic to justify mass censorship and chill education.
SB13 is one more cog in Texas Republicans’ authoritarian machinery, where books get banned, history gets whitewashed, and children are forced to grow up under a curriculum hand-picked by the most paranoid voices in the room.
But, fellow Leftists, we can use this law to beat Republicans at their own game.
If Texas Republicans are going to open the door to banning books based on “local values,” then Leftists and progressive communities absolutely have the right to define our values too, and play the same game in our districts.
Here’s a list of books and materials that leftist communities could challenge using the same language and tactics Republicans wrote into SB13:
The Bible includes graphic violence, sexual content, and promotes patriarchy, slavery, and child sacrifice.
Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged promotes corporate greed, cruelty toward the poor, and glorifies sociopathy as economic virtue.
Rush Limbaugh’s Rush Revere series is propaganda thinly disguised as children’s historical fiction.
Any of Ben Shapiro’s books are all masked hate speech, disinformation, homophobia, and racial grievance politics under the guise of “debate.”
Mark Levin, Charlie Kirk, Matt Walsh, etc. All antisemitic dog whistles, transphobia, anti-public education propaganda, and climate change denial.
Books by Project Veritas or Turning Point USA-affiliated authors espouse disinformation, glorify entrapment and bad-faith journalism, and encourage harassment of educators.
Pro-Confederate or Lost Cause Books, because, well, you know.
Books that promote Christian Nationalism.
Considering that the MAJORITY of Texas’ population lives in blue counties, we could make this law backfire in the Republicans’ face. 😈 If they want book bans based on “local values,” let’s remind them that not every community shares theirs, and we’re watching.
Save the list, when Abbott signs it into law, then get to work. 😁
Between this and all the new Wiccan and Satanist private schools that will be popping up to take advantage of the voucher scheme, Republicans will soon be regretting all of their legislative choices.
Petty? Not as petty as Republicans.
Yesterday, they passed a bill to force cities and counties to enforce Texas’ vagrancy laws.
In 2021, Republicans passed the first vagrancy laws in America in over 100 years. I wrote about this law at the time, but we didn’t hear much about it afterward. Turns out, that’s because cities haven’t been enforcing it. So, yesterday, the GOP passed a new bill to force cities to implement it.
SB241 is Greg Abbott’s retaliation against cities that refuse to treat houselessness as a crime. It punishes local governments for showing an ounce of compassion by forcing them to aggressively police and report on their unhoused population. And if cities don’t comply fast enough? The state withholds its sales tax money.
Since cities have ignored Texas’ vagrancy laws, the state is escalating by requires cities and counties to investigate any complaint from the public about an “illegal encampment,” and they only get 90 days to “resolve” the complaint, or else the Attorney General can slap them with a “violating local entity” label.
What happens if you’re a “violating” city? The Attorney General can send in DPS to forcibly clear encampments, bill the town for the cost, and withhold their sales tax revenue until they pay up.
This bill weaponizes bureaucracy to punish cities for refusing to jail or displace people who have nowhere to go. It even blocks cities from designating land for temporary camps unless the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs signs off first.
As Gina Hinojosa (D-HD49) pointed out during the debate, a massive number of people living on the streets in Austin were shipped there by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. They’re released from state prisons to halfway houses, run by private prison contractors like CoreCivic, and then left with no job, no support, and no way home. And now, Republicans are blaming cities for the very crisis they created.
The state of Texas is manufacturing homelessness and then punishing cities for not cleaning it up fast enough.
But the day was far from over.
Now, your taxpayer dollars will go to the NRA (National Rifle Association).
After attacking books and the unhoused, the Texas House moved on to its next priority, cutting a check to the NRA. SB1718 makes the NRA eligible for state funding through Texas’ Major Events Reimbursement Program, a pot of public money intended to attract high-profile events that stimulate local economies, such as the Super Bowl or the Formula 1 Grand Prix.
Now? Your taxpayer dollars can go to underwrite the annual convention of the organization most responsible for the gun violence crisis in America. The organization that’s fought tooth and nail against red flag laws, background checks, and safe storage requirements. The same NRA that helped gut sensible gun reforms in Texas, paving the way for permitless carry and making it easier for domestic abusers and extremists to walk around armed to the teeth.
The NRA has killed more Texans than any other organization in modern history.
And now we’re paying them to party.
The state of Texas told Uvalde families, “You’re on your own,” while it said to the NRA, “Welcome to the trough.” Texas Republicans aren’t even hiding the cruelty anymore. They’re legislating it into the budget.
Plus, they’re moving to legalize sawed-off shotguns.
It should be noted that this is the same weapon that was used in the Santa Fe High School massacre in 2018, which killed ten people and injured ten others.
The debate over it wasn’t long, as it was already after midnight when it hit the floor. However, there are two points about this debate I want to make.
Richard Hayes (R-HD57) speaks just like Droopy Dog.
Wes Virdell (R-HD53) is a run-of-the-mill simpleton.
The exchange above between Virdell and John Bryant (D-HD114) had me rolling my eyes so hard they nearly got stuck.
If you’ve ever had a debate or discussion with a Conservative about why AR-15s should not be in the hands of every nutjob with a fantasy of overthrowing the government, you know one of the first things they always ask is, “What does A. R. stand for?”
They’re trying to bait you into saying, “automatic/assault rifle,” but the answer is, “ArmaLite Rifle.” And the AR-15 is a semi-automatic rifle, not an automatic rifle. They do this because if you get the answer wrong, then they can say, “You don’t even know what the gun is, so you can’t speak on it, having no place in our society.”
It’s the #1 gotcha from gun-nuts, and it’s played out.
Virdell asked Bryant a line of questions about “the difference between this caliber and this velocity.” Dumb fucking questions. John Bryant was having none of it and said, “I’m not like you and lie in bed at night dreaming of being a hero with a gun.”
It was a good retort. But for men like Virdell, who masturbate to the Second Amendment, he’ll always think, because he spends all of his free time studying gun velocities and calibers, that somehow that means that mentally ill people should be given weapons to commit murder. I don’t get the correlation, but it’s just who they are.
In the final stretch of the session, Republicans in the Texas Legislature have made their priorities abundantly clear.
They are not here to govern. They are here to punish. To punish the poor, the educated, the queer, the brown, the different, the grieving, the inconvenient. Every policy is rooted in cruelty. Every bill is an act of ideological warfare.
But don’t let despair win. That’s what they want.
They want you too exhausted to fight. Too numb to care. Too overwhelmed to organize. But remember that their power depends on your silence.
Laws can be challenged. Politicians can be voted out. Narratives can be flipped. We’ve seen their bills unravel in court. We’ve seen grassroots coalitions rise from the margins and halt them in their tracks. And we’ll do it again.
So save your rage. Hone it. Channel it. Because while Republicans are out here handing money to the NRA and banning drag queens from reading to kids, we’re out here building coalitions, flipping school boards, electing DAs, registering voters, and calling their bullshit every step of the way.
They’ve declared war on the future of Texas.
But they’ve also underestimated the rest of us.
And that, my friend, is their biggest mistake.
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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horrible people doing a terrible job...meet the Texas Taliban
We would like to see a picture of your eyes. We need the practice.