Are Texas Politicians Serving the Public Good?

A Leftist Prayer and Subsidies for Hollywood Highlight Some Failures of the Texas Legislature this Week

The Westminster Assembly, circa 1643

Romans 13 is very clear about the authority and roles of elected officials in our democratic republic, both at the national level and in the states.

There is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. … [The civil magistrate] is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer.”

Additionally, the Westminster Confession of Faith sums up the biblical perspective on rulers:

God, the supreme Lord and king of all the world, hath ordained civil magistrates to be under Him over the people, for His own glory and the public good.

Two things took place in the Texas Legislature this week where I believe our elected officials failed in their duties as God’s servants to glorify Him and serve the public good.

The Texas House of Representatives

The first was the invocation, the opening prayer, in the Texas House of Representatives on Wednesday. You can watch it in the video below.

As we watch the video of the Baptist pastor offering the invocation, we should take note of who introduced her. We should take note of who sponsored her. We should take note of where she is standing and who she is praying on behalf of. Then, of course, we should take note of what she prayed.

There is a lot of complexity to her prayer. On the one hand, her prayer is in many ways worthy of some of the best prayers and speeches in the Bible. She calls on God our Creator, Sustainer, and Guide (Saviour would have been good too) to send his Spirit into the Texas House so that the lawmakers “might see your face and the faces of the most vulnerable (more on this in a minute) Texans they represent” and to “give [the representatives] courage to do what is good, and just, and merciful in your sight regardless of the political costs.” She even thanked God for the faithful service of the members and asked Him to forgive those whose service was unfaithful, noting “they know not what they do.”

In many ways her prayer is bold, not unlike when Christ cleansed the temple courtyard. But unlike Christ, who acted to defend His Father’s house from being turned into a “den of robbers” based on what had been written in Scripture (Matthew 21:12-13), this pastor used Scriptural language to defend some unbiblical beliefs.

She went on to ask God “to forgive [the members] for putting party over people and for lining their pockets and campaigns with bribes for billionaires … for caring more about reelection than about those they are elected to serve.” Of course, on its face this is a good prayer. Members should not do this, and we should pray they are forgiven if they do. But one can’t help thinking that her prayer is aimed directly at Republicans, especially conservatives, rather than the Democrats who probably have more billionaires on their side (think George Soros) and are equally concerned about reelection. This turns out this is the case.

She then prays that the members would support the poor and our children, the most vulnerable among us, regardless of their “race, socioeconomic status, gender identity, disabilities, citizenship by funding and supporting our neighborhood public schools with the abundant resources at their disposal.”

Her prayer was carefully crafted in that the vast majority of it used Biblical language in a way that would please conservative evangelicals who believe our government officials have strayed from there ways like lost sheep. But her unscriptural agenda of supporting transgender ideology, taking wealth from Texans to support godless government schools, etc. becomes clear—though still somewhat cloaked—in this last part of her prayer.

At least one member of the Texas House tried to defend the Texas House and its leadership for allowing this to happen. “All the blame lies on this woman for using the ‘prayer’ of the day for foolish political posturing in a way that blatantly defies the God of Holy Scripture and makes a mockery of the Christian faith.”

Yet, we might also consider who invited her. Both the individual and the institution. If heard something like this in church, I'd believe both the pastor and the session were responsible. Based on the quotes above from the Bible and the Westminster Confession, I believe the individual Texas House member who invited her and the Texas House as a whole (leadership and members) are responsible for failing in their God-ordained duty to protect the public good by letting this happen.

For Texas political observers, I suggest this is another example of how the “allies” of Texas Speaker of the House Dustin Burrows do not have his back. Many members embarrassed him last week by not showing up for work and have done so again this week by putting forth this pastor who they knew would cause trouble for him.

The Texas Senate

The Texas Senate Finance Committee held a hearing on Senate Bill 22 which would provide $1.5 billion in subsidies for filmmakers over the next six years. You can watch a clip below of Matthew McConaughey’s testimony in favor of the bill. He is joined by Woody Harrelson and Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (behind him).

Jeramy Kitchen, with Texas Policy Action, does a great job of explaining the problems with this bill:

SB 22 creates a $500 million off-budget slush fund to bankroll the Texas film & multimedia industry—managed by the Governor’s Office, with zero legislative appropriation needed to spend it. That’s $1.5 BILLION over the next 6 years. With. No. Guardrails. This isn't just corporate welfare. It's politically conditioned welfare. To get funding, your film or game must portray Texas in a "positive light" & meet undefined “general standards of decency.” Otherwise? Denied. In practice, SB 22 gives bureaucrats unchecked power to decide what Texans can and can’t say—based on whether it flatters state politicians. This bill isn’t just bad policy—it’s a taxpayer-funded disaster wrapped in censorship & cronyism.

Lt. Gov. Patrick has been far and away the most visible and vocal proponent of this legislation. When asked about criticism of the subsidies, he said:

The people who are against the film incentives are, for the most part, pretty much against any type of cooperation between the government and the private sector. They don’t really understand that we do it all the time.

Actually, we critics understand very well that subsidies, also known as corporate cronyism, are a feature, not a bug, of Texas government and a big part of the reason we are opposed to it. As we have seen with pharmaceuticals, the defense industry, renewables, etc., this “cooperation” costs Texans and Americans hundreds of billions of dollars every year. Corporations—many with multibillion market caps—no longer have to compete for customers and profits by convincing consumers their products are worth purchasing; they simply hire lobbyists and/or cozy up with powerful politicians and take their profits from taxpayers. The consumers and taxpayers are the same folks, by the way, and are forced to pay for that which they do not want to purchase.

Deuteronomy 17:16-17 tells our rulers that they “must not acquire many horses for himself or cause the people to return to Egypt in order to acquire many horses, since the Lord has said to you, ‘You shall never return that way again.’ And he shall not acquire many wives for himself, lest his heart turn away, nor shall he acquire for himself excessive silver and gold.”

Texas government currently has a $24 billion budget surplus. They have at least that much in new revenue coming in over the next two years. And they have about $27 billion in Texas’ “Rainy Day Fund.” That is $75 billion is excess funds over what they need to fund Texas government, a lot of silver and gold.

In the subsidies for Hollywood, we see why God admonishes them not to collect this wealth. It is because they spend our hard-earned silver and gold on anything they want to benefit themselves. There are also the $5 billion in subsidies for natural gas generators, likely a few billion dollars for nuclear generators, about $7 billion this year for renewable generators, $2.5 billion for water contractors, etc. The list goes on. The politicians first cause major problems in these industries by intervening in them, then spend billions of dollars of our taxpayer money in failed attempts to fix them.

Like the case of the prayer in the Texas House of Representatives, the Texas Senate’s support this week for film subsidies is an example of our elected officials’ failure to work for the public good.