SB10

Versions and all 21 amendments

The introduced, Senate committee, engrossed and House committee texts have the same operative display rules. The final law adds the attorney-general defense and state-liability provision. The Senate accepted the House amendment May 28, 2025; there was no conference report. All five posted versions; official history; amendment index and dispositions.

All five Senate amendments failed. Menéndez F1 would have expressly allowed districts to require donation drop-off at their central office. Eckhardt F2 would have substituted a different, fuller Ten Commandments text. Eckhardt’s F3, F4 and F5 would have added, respectively, the Five Pillars of Islam, seven named Hindu tenets, and the Noble Eightfold Path. None changed the final prescribed display.

The House tabled Goodwin amendment 1, which would have made a display policy optional by local board vote, and Turner amendment 9, which would have allowed a district exemption by board vote. Wu’s proposed additions of Hindu Yamas and Niyamas, amendment 2, the Five Pillars of Islam, amendment 3, and the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism, amendment 4 were stopped by sustained procedural points of order, not adopted.

The House tabled Dutton amendment 5 requiring translations in the state’s five most common languages; Rosenthal amendment 6 adding Catholic and Jewish versions; Rosenthal amendment 7 adding one of those versions upon a classroom-parent majority request; and Vincent Perez amendment 10 requiring labeled Protestant, Catholic and Jewish versions with state-board rules. Those alternative-language and multi-version requirements are not in the final law.

Jessica González amendment 8, requiring an annual parent/student notice about the display, its wording, parental rights and contacts, was withdrawn. Goodwin amendment 11 proposed the same notice and was tabled. The House also tabled Jessica González’s amendment 12 requiring consent from every assigned student’s parent or guardian, and amendment 13 creating a teacher-feedback portal and legislative report. No such consent, notice or feedback system was enacted by SB10.

Flores amendment 14, requiring written-only text and braille in schools for the blind, and Collier and others’ amendment 15, deleting “nor his manservant, nor his maidservant,” were both tabled. The only adopted floor amendment was Hinojosa’s third-reading amendment 1: the attorney-general defense and state payment responsibility that became subsection (g). The final prescribed wording retains the phrases amendment 15 would have removed. Final law.

Compare the published text versions in the official text index. A change is not attributed to a specific amendment here without a verified record.

Who gains, who bears costs, and what is unknown

People who want the specified Ten Commandments text displayed in schools gain a statewide display requirement and a route to provide compliant donations. Schools must handle qualifying donations and classroom displays; they may choose to spend district funds on purchases. Students and families with different religious views encounter a state-prescribed religious text in their classrooms without an opt-out written into SB10. The constitutional significance of that exposure was disputed in Nathan: the majority rejected the claims, while dissenters stressed religious conscience, parental rights and the special context of compulsory schooling. These are competing legal judgments, not evidence that the displays improve learning or behavior. Final law; April 21, 2026 Fifth Circuit opinion, pages 2–8 and 63–65.

The final-posted May 26 fiscal note anticipates no significant state fiscal impact and assumes costs can be absorbed within existing resources. It says local fiscal implications cannot be determined. That is not a guarantee of zero expense. The final statute makes district purchasing optional, but the added defense provision can expose the state to litigation expenses, judgments and settlements; neither the note nor the law supplies a dollar estimate for that liability. Final law, subsection (g).

The introduced, engrossed, House-passed and final-posted fiscal notes all use the same broad state-cost assumption and leave local posting costs undetermined. The House-passed/final note adds the attorney general as a source agency after the defense amendment. No claim is made here about actual litigation spending, poster purchases, student outcomes or every later court order. The full statute, all five text versions, every amendment text and disposition, and all four fiscal postings were checked; the dated court update rests on the judicial opinion and Supreme Court docket, not news headlines.