Senate Committee OKs Ten Commandments Bill

The Senate Education Committee on Tuesday recommended a bill that would require the Ten Commandments to be displayed in public classrooms in Texas, a first victory for lawmakers who tried in vain to codify a similar change last session.

Senate Bill 10, sponsored by Sen. Phil King, R-Weatherford and all 19 of his Republican colleagues in the chamber, would mandate that all public elementary and secondary schools display “a durable poster or framed copy” of the Ten Commandments “in a conspicuous place” in the classroom.

The version of the Ten Commandments is spelled out in the bill itself, coming not from any official translation of the Bible but from pamphlets that the Fraternal Order of Eagles distributed in the 1950s and 1960s.

It’s the same version that’s inscribed on the six-foot-tall granite monument of the Ten Commandments on the state Capitol grounds, which the Eagles donated to the state in 1961. The language is mostly identical to the King James translation.

Posters installed in classrooms under SB 10 would need to be at least 16 by 20 inches, and the text of the commandments would need to be printed “in a size and typeface that is legible to a person with average vision from anywhere in the classroom in which the poster or framed copy is displayed.”

A nearly identical bill by King passed out of the Senate and out of a House committee last session, but never got a second or third reading in the lower chamber.

The final vote was 9-1-1. Both of the committee’s Democrats, Sens. José Menéndez of San Antonio and Royce West of Dallas, declined to vote for the bill, with Menéndez voting nay and West voting present not voting.

From here, it will head to the full Senate for a second reading.

This is a developing story. It will be updated with more information.