Texas Needs a Parental Rights Amendment

A Parental Rights Amendment is the best way to ensure parental rights are protected for future generations. Right now, the rights of Texas parents rest almost entirely in the hands of unelected federal judges, who come and go regularly and could change their minds on parental rights at any time.

Passing a Parental Rights Amendment to the Texas Constitution is critical to the protection of parental rights in Texas for two reasons.

1. First, passing a Parental Rights Amendment to the Texas Constitution would significantly shrink the power of the federal government over questions of parental rights. This is because those rights would rest in the Texas Constitution, giving more authority to elected Texas judges, rather than being only in federal constitutional case law.
2. Second, it would ensure the protection of these rights into the future because while case law can change quickly with the replacement of a single judge, an amendment to the Texas Constitution would be extremely difficult to repeal. Rights in the Texas constitution can only be lost if two-thirds of Texas legislators repeal it and a majority of Texas voters ratify the change.

How we pass an amendment to the Texas State Constitution

FFP’s team is prioritizing the passage of a constitutional amendment (SJR 34, HJR 112) that would specifically protect the right of parents to make decisions regarding the care, custody, control, education, upbringing, moral and religious training, and medical care of their child. We are working with legislators, coalition partners, and legal experts to get this amendment passed.

To add an amendment to the Texas constitution, the proposed amendment has to pass the Texas House and Texas Senate each by a two-thirds vote. The proposed amendment will then be placed on the ballot and must be ratified by a majority of Texas voters.