Rating the Texas Senate in the 89th
SINIFI Scorecards!
I’m going to repeat the intro from the House post, so feel free to scroll if you’ve read it.
Words are just words. Votes are what matter.
Someone can tell you “I believe” or “I support” all they want, but what shows you the reality is what they vote for when given the chance. That’s what the SINIFI scorecards are all about, cutting through the word salad and getting to the real outcomes, the things that impact Texans.
White Christian Nationalism, the fusing of political ideology with a version of faith, believes that the United States was always and still is a Christian nation, where the Christian faith should be privileged above all others, and our laws should reflect that. The strength of belief in that idea is the number one predictor that someone would also:
Want to inject religion into public schools
Want to implement private school vouchers
Carry racist beliefs and treat diversity as a negative
Be xenophobic, anti-immigrant, and anti-muslim
Be in favor of capital punishment and cracking down on “troublemakers”
Want less restrictions on guns
Be anti-LGBTQ / homophobic
Be anti-vaccine / anti-science
Want to ban abortion
Sexism and Patriarchy turned to 11
Authoritarian and all about imposing these beliefs on ALL
White Christian nationalism is the root of the rot impacting our country. We see the outcomes they push for as weeds we mobilize to fight against. Unless we understand it’s all coming from a common root, it will continue to spring up, all over our lawn, our communities, and our country.
I looked at 12 bills that in some cases are very obviously connected to Christian nationalism, and a few that you have to understand intent to get below the surface. All of these bills were passed by both the Texas House and the Senate. The bills are:
SB3 (Vetoed by the Gov, but special session is coming)
Hopefully you can see connections to what I laid out above in my descriptions. I’ve linked to all of the bills so that you can read them in full if you’d like to.
Before we jump into the ratings themselves, I want to say they are not intended to measure what is in someone’s head or heart, but simply what their actions / votes show us. The grades are simply the number of times you voted against bills influenced by Christian nationalism divided by the number of chances you had.
For example, if I was there for 12 votes and I voted against the CN bills 9 times, that would be 75%, or a “C” score. That simple.
On each card, you will find the representatives name, district, party, rating, how they voted on each of the 12 measured bills, and a text descriptor, based on the work of Andrew Whitehead and Sam Perry, authors of Taking America Back for God, a scientific dive into the beliefs and outcomes of Christian nationalism. They are:
Rejector - Applied to “A” grades for these scorecards
Resistor - B grades
Accommodator - C, D, and high F grades
Ambassador - Any grade below 50% score
Ok, enough lead in. Let’s get to 31 scores, set alphabetically, one for each member of the Texas Senate.
Here is the House if you want to read them too
Carol Alvarado - SD 6 - Democrat - A
Paul Bettencourt - SD 7 - Republican - F
Brian Birdwell - SD 22 - Republican - F
César Blanco - SD 29 - Democrat - F
Donna Campbell - SD 25 - Republican - F
Molly Cook - SD 14 - Democrat - A (GOLD STAR)
Brandon Creighton - SD 4 - Republican - F
Sarah Eckhardt - SD 14 - Democrat - A (GOLD STAR)
Pete Flores - SD 24 - Republican - F
Roland Gutierrez - SD 19 - Democrat - A
Brent Hagenbuch - SD 30 - Republican - F
Bob Hall - SD 2 - Republican - F
Kelly Hancock - SD 9 - Republican - F
Adam Hinojosa - SD 27 - Republican - F
Chuy Hinojosa - SD 20 - Democrat - F
Joan Huffman - SD 17 - Republican - F
Bryan Hughes - SD 1 - Republican - F
Nathan Johnson - SD 16 - Democrat - A
Phil King - SD 10 - Republican - F
Lois Kolkhorst - SD 18 - Republican - F
José Menéndez - SD 26 - Democrat - A
Mayes Middleton - SD 11 - Republican - F
Borris Miles - SD 13 - Democrat - B
Robert Nichols - SD 3 - Republican - F
Tan Parker - SD 12 - Republican - F
Angela Paxton - SD 8 - Republican - F
Charles Perry - SD 28 - Republican - F
Charles Schwertner - SD 5 - Republican - F
Kevin Sparks - SD 31 - Republican - F
Royce West - SD 23 - Democrat - D
Judith Zaffirini - SD 21 - Democrat - F
AMAZING! It was a shorter list than the House, but still, you made it to the bottom! As a reward, here is the breakdown of how the Texas Senate scores came out:
Gold stars were given to those who made 10 or more votes and voted against Christian nationalism each time. 2 Democrats hit the mark.
Goose eggs were given to those who made 10 or more votes and voted FOR Christian nationalism each time. 19 of the 20 Republicans hit the mark.
So, please don’t let anyone tell you there are “moderate” Republicans in the legislature (or frankly in the party). And comparing the Senate to the House, things are even more extreme. They are willing to push Christian nationalism upon every single Texan. That’s not moderate. That’s a Christian nationalism ambassador.
Most Democrats get it. But we have work to do, and looking at those who didn’t score well here, that’s a potential place to start. That’s why we have elections, why we have primaries. Let’s start finding the right candidates who can win in March and then we can push to victory in November 2026.
It’s time to turn this state around.
See it. Name it. Fight it.