One room at the Texas Capitol officially protected from the Jezebel spirit

And the second-highest priority that both parties want to see from the lege is "don't know"

These early days of the lege session are like the first few days of middle school. The kids are showing off their new clothes. Everyone is eyeing the new students. Rules are read out, curriculum is passed out. Cliques refresh. Today, Speaker Burrows announced that all House members need to bring their Surface Pros with them tomorrow.

The House and Senate met today for 30 minutes each, then adjourned after both resolving to take some much-needed time off. Long weekends for everyone!

Everyone is distracted and figuring things out, so not many bills are being filed. The only one that stood out to me was filed yesterday by Charles Schwertner (R-Dick Picville) SB778: relating to the establishment and administration of the Texas Strategic Bitcoin Reserve; making an appropriation.

The reserve is established to allow: (1) this state to own and hold bitcoin as a financial asset; and (2) persons, including residents of this state, to donate bitcoin to the state for deposit in the reserve to promote the shared ownership of and community investment in this state's financial future.

Republicans will do anything to make emissions worse for the sake of a few bucks.

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A UT/Texas Politics Poll was released today showing what Texans would like to see from the legislature this session and the results are a bummer! When asked what the lege’s top priority should be this session, you can see that Republicans have one significant priority: border security. Most of these Republicans will be from areas of Texas nowhere near the border because they’ve been frightened by the rhetoric of the right. Not a huge surprise. But the fact that it comes at the cost of paying attention to issues that actually affect them — education, the grid, HEALTHCARE — is just sad to me.

And what can you say about the Democrats having no clear idea what the priorities should be. I’m a Texas Democrat, and I know that we have to work with what we’ve got, so we should be rallying around saving public education and expanding healthcare access/decreasing healthcare costs, which are issues on which we can find a lot of common ground with rural Texans.

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From afar, you don’t know everything that happened the previous day until you read the news later. For instance, Christian nationalist pastors and church members showed up yesterday to rally for the cause of ending the separation of church and state. Great report here from Rob Downen of the Texas Tribune.

“There is no separation between church and state,” Republican Party of Texas Chair Abraham George said at a small rally with clergy and GOP lawmakers. “We don’t want the government in our churches, but we should be in the government.”

Rick Scarborough has spent decades working to do exactly that. A former Southern Baptist pastor in Pearland, he has become a leader in a movement that seeks to mobilize pastors and undermine the Johnson Amendment, which he says is toothless but has been used by “cowardly” pastors who don’t want to engage in politics. The result, he said, has been an ineffectual Texas Legislature that has often cowered to the LGBTQ+ community and their heretical, progressive Christian allies. (Texas lawmakers have passed dozens of anti-LGBTQ+ bills in recent years, overriding opposition from a large majority of Democrats).

One of his movement’s ultimate goals, he said Tuesday, is to draw a lawsuit that they can eventually take to the U.S. Supreme Court, which they believe will ultimately overturn the prohibition and unleash a new wave of conservative, Christian activism.

“The Johnson Amendment is nothing but a fig leaf to cover the fear that pastors already have,” he said in an interview after praying over GOP lawmakers on the Capitol lawn. “Most pastors are so fearful of their reputation that they won't stand, and they don't know how much God will defend them if they get out there and stand up and speak fearlessly.”

Downen also posted this video to social media of these folks praying outside the capitol yesterday. The red shirts (a little on the nose, don’t you think?) say in large white letters BAN Democrat Chairs!

And this one, where they laid hands on the walls of a hearing room:

Anywho! Elsewhere: Briscoe Cain wants to do away with the Texas lottery. Greg Abbott took a shot at Houston judges (who follow the Texas Constitution as far as bail is concerned, so he’s yelling just to yell) days after the Harris County Sheriff’s Office reported declines in most violent crimes in 2024, improving on decreases in 2023. And there’s some “hell freezing over” joke to be made of a deep freeze and the possibility of snow in Houston during Trump’s inauguration week.