ADVOCACY

“We educate, equip and encourage Christians and churches to be good stewards of their voice and political influence on behalf of and alongside their most marginalized, neglected, and often overlooked neighbors.”
— Stephen Reeves

LEGISLATIVE PRIORITIES 2025

The Texas Legislature meets in the spring of odd numbered years. Currently, we are in the 89th legislative session. Fellowship Southwest focuses its state-level advocacy work in Texas, as the place where a majority of its audience and staff live. Texas is also a hub for legislative efforts that find their way into other states.

A note from Stephen Reeves, executive director:

Fellowship Southwest believes that following Christ’s call to love our neighbors means practicing compassion and pursuing justice. We educate, equip and encourage Christians and churches to not only meet immediate needs, but also be good stewards of their voice and political influence on behalf of and alongside their most marginalized, neglected, and often overlooked neighbors. By building bridges across denominational, racial, and political divides we can have an outsized impact on Texas and our region. We most often work in coalition with others who share our policy goals and add their expertise to our efforts.

    • Support policies that improve the treatment of migrants, immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers in Texas to better align with Fellowship Southwest’s commitment to dignity, compassion, and justice for all individuals.

    • Oppose continued funding of Operation Lone Star and other efforts to further militarize the border that lead to inhumane treatment, injuries, and racial profiling.

    • Support the establishment of a new Regional Human Identification (ID) Center to ensure that all unidentified deaths in border and border adjacent counties receive comprehensive identification services in compliance with the Texas Criminal Code of Procedures and Texas Health and Safety Codes.

    • Oppose policies that turn state and local peace officers into immigration enforcement personnel. Such proposals erode trust of law enforcement within immigrant communities and undermine public safety.

    Key Partners & Coalitions: Texas Immigration Law Council, TRUST Coalition

    • Fellowship Southwest supports public schools and advocates for increased investment in the system that serves over 90% of Texas students. We oppose privatization efforts including vouchers and education savings grants. Not only do these schemes undermine and weaken the public system, but our commitment to religious liberty demands that public funds go to public institutions. Tax payer dollars should not go to indoctrinate students in secular religious settings.

    • Oppose all efforts to restrict access to public education based on immigration status, including for undocumented students and the children of undocumented parents, or the denial of in-state tuition at public colleges and universities based on immigration status. 

    Key Partners & Coalitions: Coalition for Public Schools, Pastors for Texas Children

    • Advocate for the abolition of the death penalty in Texas. The history of capital punishment in our state is evidence to the racial bias and disparities in our criminal legal system. Among the many reason we call for an end to the death penalty is the racial injustice perpetuated by the practice.

    • Advocate for reform of predatory lending practices in Texas. Payday and auto title lending has a disproportionate impact on communities of color. These debt-trap loans ensnare desperate borrowers in a trap making a bad situation worse. We will work for reform, oppose new and creative usurious loans and oppose any efforts to weaken local ordinances passed by 50 cities and towns in Texas.

    Key Partners & Coalitions - Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, Texas Fair Lending Alliance

    • Support efforts to feed hungry kids in the summer by providing access to Federally funded Summer EBT cards for those on free and reduced lunch.

    • Improve SNAP access by adopting streamlined 6 month periodic reporting that will reduce the application review backlog, save the state money, and make sure folks have continued access to this important nutritional supplement. 

    • Support “Food is Medicine” approached to health care by authorizing the Texas Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC) to pursue Medicaid financing for medically appropriate, cost effective, and evidence-based solutions to address non-medical drivers of health. A streamlined Medicaid reimbursement model that integrates food bank services into our healthcare system would enable doctors to prescribe healthy food and improve health outcomes for Texans.

    Key Partners & Coalitions: Texas Food Policy Roundtable, Baylor Collaborative on Hunger & Poverty, Feeding Texas, No Kid Hungry, Bread for the World