Texas Impact's Weekly Witness

The Texas Legislature is now entering the final third when bills make it to the floor for a vote or begin to die. Last week, Bee Moorhead joined the program to talk about the House passing the Voucher bill, and it seemed like immediately after, we began to see a TON of bad bills start to move... and a few good ones.    One of the issue areas that was particularly in focus this week has been the re...

We jumped right in this week because most of the Texas Impact staff stayed up late Wednesday night to watch SB 2, the Texas Senate's school voucher bill, be brought before the House. There were some great and no-so-great conversations between legislators about the impact of a bill that appropriates a billion dollars that could go to public schools to privately run entities, and many amendments tha...

Joining Weekly Witness this week is Guthrie Graves-Fitzsimmons, Vice President of Programs & Strategy at Interfaith Alliance, a network of people of diverse faiths and beliefs from across the country working together to build a resilient democracy and fulfill America's promise of religious freedom and civil rights for all.   Guthrie will talk with us about Senate Bill 10, the 10 Commandments Bill,...

This week, we turn our eyes to DC for a fight that will impact this legislative session and sessions to come as Congress is considering hundreds of billions of dollars of cuts to Medicaid. These cuts would be devastating—not just to the Texans who rely on that coverage, but to our entire health care system. We welcome Peter Clark, Communications Director with Texans Care for Children, to talk to u...

This week we are recording from the Capitol on a day when many of Texas Impact's priority bills are being heard or voted on. So, we sat down  with a few friends and colleagues who are testifying in the Senate Committee on Business and Commerce on SB 819, a regulatory bill that is anti-energy in a time where renewables are increasingly ensuring that Texas has enough energy to meet our growing deman...

The Texas Impact team just worked with some incredible faith partners on the Family Matters: Faith Days at the Texas Capitol event. About 300 Texans of Faith gathered at the Texas Capitol and across the street at First United Methodist Church of Austin for three days of education, advocacy and activism. We had legislative visits to Capitol offices, singing in the rotunda, great panel discussions,...

Y'all, it is getting wild over at the Texas Capitol, and Texans of faith are in the midst of all of it with thousands of phone calls going in every week, members of Texas Impact's issue teams staying up until all hours of the night giving testimony, and the Texas Impact staff busting their tails working on behalf of our membership.   If you have been paying attention to the Legislature at all—or h...

Among the many justice issues concerning people of faith in 2025, immigration is near the top of the list across the country and across faith traditions.  This week we are bringing you three guests to lay a foundation for immigration advocacy—at the federal level and in Texas.  First up, we talk with Bobby Painter and Kristin Etter of the  Texas Immigration Law Council , who bring us up to speed o...

This week, we are joined by several of the speakers and participants in the Preventing Gun Violence Advocacy Day. F irst we talk with Jasir Rahman, a student at Rice University and Texas Youth Advocacy Coordinator with Team ENOUGH. Later in the episode we hear from Nicole Golden, Director of Texas Gun Sense, and Rev. Stephen Sanders from Oak Hill United Methodist Church shortly after the rally for...

This week we are excited to bring you content from Texas Impact's Public School Defenders' Lobby Day.  We are joined by State Representative Gina Hinojosa, House District 49, while walking back to the Capitol after she addressed the Public School defenders to discuss voucher plans and how Texans of faith can push back against SB 2 and other voucher bills.   Later in the program we are joined by Te...

This week we have an exciting episode for you as we are recording live from the Capitol office of Senator Sarah Eckhardt.  Last week, the Senate passed SB 2, a school voucher bill that would give a $10,000 voucher to students to attend private schools. What is not shocking is that the Senate passed SB 2 so quickly while legislators are usually still in the relationship-building part of the session...

This week we are going back to back with United Methodist Bishops as we welcome Bishop Ruben Saenz from the Horizon Texas Annual Conference—formerly the North, Central and Northwest Texas Conferences.  We thought this was a timely conversation as Bishop Saenz and other United Methodist Bishops in the South Central Jurisdiction wrote a pastoral letter addressing how we treat our immigrant neighbors...

This week we are bringing you content from the United Women in Faith Legislative Event. This is typically Texas Impact's biggest event of the year—and this year the UWF had record participation with 350 registrants from United Women in Faith and various other faith groups participating over the three day event with hundreds making Capitol visits to their Legislators. In this episode we share Bisho...

This week, we are excited to welcome Texas Impact's Climate Action Fellow, Rev. Dr. Becca Edwards, to talk about the President's recent executive action, once again, removing the US from the Paris Climate Agreement.   There has been a lot happening in the last two weeks. The opening of the Texas legislative session, MLK Day, a presidential inauguration, a  snow day or two and all of the news that...

Since 1973, Texas Impact has hosted a service or celebration of public witness on the south steps of the Texas Capitol in conjunction with the opening of the Texas Legislature. This year, the Texas Legislature convened Tuesday, January 14, and so the Texas Impact crew, along with Texas faith leaders and elected representatives, gathered on the steps for a Celebration of Public Witness before the L...

We hope you all had a meaningful and relaxing holiday season and a great start to the new year; it is about to get busy and your advocacy will be critical in the next few months.  We know a lot of attention will be paid to what is happening in Washington with the new administration, but the Texas Legislature convenes next Tuesday, January 14 and will be meeting for 140 days. They have a lot on the...

Last week, Diana Forester and her colleague Alec Mendoza joined us to talk about health policy in Texas. It is such a big topic, and so much of it is driven by federal policy, that we are joined again this week by Diana to continue the conversation about how actions by Congress could impact health in Texas–and how you can help protect Texans' access to healthcare in the coming weeks. This will be...

We know the holidays are just around the corner and on behalf of the entire Texas Impact team, we hope you have a meaningful holiday season and that you are able to connect with family and loved ones and find some joy and peace. But the Texas Legislature comes to town January 14, so we hope you spend some time over the next few weeks mentally preparing for what's to come. So, soak up all of the jo...

This week we turn our attention to the other side of the globe as we welcome Texas Impact's Climate Action Fellow, Rev. Dr. Becca Edwards to the program. Becca recently returned from the 29th UNFCCC Conference of the Parties (COP), the global climate negotiations held this year in Baku, Azerbaijan. She will talk to us about the priorities being discussed on the world climate stage and what people...

Well... we had an election… and we know folks have lots of feelings, and we are going to talk about feelings today. But, in addition to that, we are going to talk about how the election impacts Texas, and we are going to talk about what Texans of faith can do. All of that with Texas Impact's Executive Director Bee Moorhead. This isn't a time to hide, because our communities, our neighbors, our dem...

Election day is almost upon us!  You have heard us talk for years about Texas' low voter turnout and how that impacts public policy. If you are listening to this before election day, you have a chance to do something about that. Many of us are consuming lots of news running up to the election, and many are feeling anxious about what will happen. We need to emotionally and spiritually prepare ourse...

We are about a week away from election day, and joining us for today's conversation is Rev. Richie Butler, Senior Pastor at the historic St. Luke Community United Methodist Church in Dallas, Texas. We are going to talk about their civic engagement work and the importance of voting, but also about their work in bringing people together for conversations that focus on the importance of coming togeth...

By the time you hear this, early voting will either have already started or will be kicking off soon. It is getting real. So, it seems like the perfect week to hear some stories from some congregations who have been doing some incredible civic engagement work this election season. Last week you heard from Texas Impact's Houston Faith Votes Project Manager, Rebecca McIlwain, and this week we will h...

We are less than two weeks away from early voting kicking off in Texas, so what better time to welcome back to the program Rebecca McIlwain, Texas Impact's Houston Faith Votes Project Manager. The Houston Faith Votes team and their cohort of congregations in the Houston area are engaging their congregations and communities in civic engagement work, so I am excited to talk to Rebecca about their wo...

This week we are excited to introduce Robert Rivera, who wears many hats. Among them, he is Vice President of the Synod Council of the Gulf Coast Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. He is also part of the Houston Faith Votes leadership team, and part of the Houston Faith Votes cohort of congregations working on civic engagement as part of his lifetime of service to the church and...