Tag Archives: Bryan Hughes

The Texas Tribune reports: With unanimous Republican support, the Texas Senate appears poised to pass a priority bill requiring Texans to prove their citizenship before they could vote in state, local, and presidential elections. Senate Bill 16, which would apply to new registrants as well as existing registered voters who did not provide proof of citizenship when they registered. That …

Reuters reports: A federal judge in Texas ruled on Tuesday that the state’s new law limiting public drag performances was an unconstitutional restriction on speech and he permanently forbid enforcement of it. “Not all people will like or condone certain performances,” U.S. District Judge David Hittner wrote. “This is no different than a person’s opinion on certain comedy or genres …

The Texas Tribune reports: U.S. District Judge David Hittner temporarily blocked a new state law Thursday from going into effect that would have criminalized sexually-oriented performances in front of children or effectively banned some public drag shows. LGBTQ+ groups sued the Texas attorney general’s office, hoping to stop authorities from enforcing Senate Bill 12, which was signed by Gov. Greg …

Click2Houston reports: Denied. For the owner of a local lesbian bar, that’s the word that keeps playing over and over in her head. This, after she said an insurance underwriter denied coverage to her business, in part, because it hosts drag shows. Julie Mabry, owner of Pearl Bar, has insurance but decided to switch agents and shop around for a …

The Texas Tribune reports: The Texas Senate on Wednesday approved two bills aimed at restricting drag performances that children attend or see. One of them, Senate Bill 1601, would defund public libraries where drag queens are allowed to read to children. The other, Senate Bill 12, bars kids from drag shows if the performances are overly lewd and lascivious. SB …

The Texas Tribune reports: House Bills 643, 708 and 1266 and Senate Bill 476 seek to reclassify bars or businesses that host drag shows as “sexually oriented businesses,” a category that includes adult movie theaters and sex shops. Such designations would force bars to operate under a different set of regulations that come with higher taxes and fees. That could …

The Texas Tribune reports: A new law requiring Texas schools to display donated “In God We Trust” posters is the latest move by Republican lawmakers to bring Christianity into taxpayer-funded institutions. The “In God We Trust” law was authored by state Sen. Bryan Hughes, the East Texas Republican who crafted Texas’ Senate Bill 8, which restricted abortion to the first …

The Texas Tribune reports: Three months after House Democrats first broke quorum to stymie a previous iteration of the legislation, Republicans in the House and Senate Tuesday signed off on the final version of Senate Bill 1 to further tighten the state’s voting rules and rein in local efforts to widen voting access. Abbott, a Republican, is expected to sign …

The New York Times reports: After an extraordinary all-night hearing, a Republican-backed bill to overhaul the state’s voting system cleared a key House committee in the Texas Legislature on Sunday morning, advancing the measure on an accelerated path toward a vote in the full 150-member chamber. The vote by the House committee, which was conducted at about 7:30 a.m. after …

The Texas Tribune reports: Texas lawmakers have filed at least three bills targeting how racism, current events and the country’s founding principles are taught in K-12 schools — including a senate bill that would strip out upcoming requirements that students learn white supremacy is “morally wrong” and study particular writings by women and people of color. SB 3, filed by …

The Texas Tribune reports: In the course of several hours Saturday and early Sunday, Senate Republicans hurtled to move forward on a sweeping voting bill negotiated behind closed doors where it doubled in length and grew to include voting law changes that weren’t previously considered. Over Democrats’ objections, they suspended the chamber’s own rules to narrow the window lawmakers had …

The Texas Tribune reports: Senate Republicans cleared the way Thursday for new, sweeping restrictions to voting in Texas that take particular aim at forbidding local efforts meant to widen access. In an overnight vote after more than seven hours of debate, the Texas Senate signed off on Senate Bill 7, which would limit extended early voting hours, prohibit drive-thru voting …