By Tim Lambert
With so much going on in the legislature to do with parental rights, I have dubbed this Texas Legislative Session the Parental Rights Session.
I call it that because many bills that are being filed and heard are related to the fundamental, God-given right of parents to raise their children as they see fit.
Another evidence of that is the fact that several Texas Constitutional Amendments have been filed and are moving in both the Texas House and Senate.
The process for amending the Texas Constitution requires the support of ⅔ of both the Texas House and Senate in order to be placed on the ballot, and a majority of the voters’ support to become effective.
It is an extremely rigorous process.
For that reason, it has never appeared feasible to pass an amendment to protect parental rights and homeschooling… until this session.
There is a renewed interest and support for the rights of parents.
This is largely the result of the pandemic shutdown of schools. The shutdowns caused parents to observe and have first-hand experience with what their children were actually being taught in public schools.
Now, many of the measures to protect the rights of parents have been filed and are making their way through the legislative process. This includes three different amendment proposals.
Why do we support these measures?
Currently, the constitutional rights of parents rest in federal case law. A few bad appointments of federal judges could result in those rights being rolled back or lost.
Adding this language to our constitution makes it much more difficult to attack these rights and significant protection for families and homeschoolers.
Let’s look at three of these amendments and why we support them:
SJR 70 by Senator Hughes and HJR 85 by Representative Burrows will ensconce in the Constitution the fundamental right of parents to raise their children. SJR 70 already passed the TX Senate by a vote of 28-3.
SJR 29 by Senator Paxton would enshrine the right of parents to educate their children into the Bill of Rights in the Texas Constitution. SJR 29 already passed the TX Senate by a vote of 21-10.
SJR 72 by Senator King and HJR 37 by Representative Vasut would amend the Texas Constitution to prohibit any agency of the local or state government from regulating private and homeschools.
Because the Family Freedom Project supports the fundamental, God-given right of parents to raise their children, we strongly support all of these measures!
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Thank you for standing with us in that critical mission.