Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced on Monday he has filed suit against the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs challenging its requirements that funds disbursed in its Homelessness Programs and its Bootstrap Loan Program not be used for sectarian or explicitly religious activities such as worship, religious instruction or proselytization. The complaint (full text) in Paxton v. Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs, (TX Dist. Ct., filed 11/24/2025), alleged in part:
The Bootstrap Loan Program’s and Homelessness Program’s restrictions on sectarian use of program funds ... are unconstitutional because they condition participation in a government benefit on theological choices about worship, instruction, or proselytization, and they impermissibly compel governmental oversight into theological decisions....
To be sure, the Sectarian Exclusions are wholly unnecessary to avoid Establishment Clause concerns.... In other words, the programs would not run afoul of either the U.S. Constitution or Texas Constitution if the rules were silent on the issues upon which they speak or if the rules simply didn’t exist....
... [T]he Sectarian Exclusions are unconstitutional, invalid, and unenforceable under the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and Article 1, Sections 6-7 of the Texas Constitution and, therefore, the Rule interferes with and impairs or threatens to interfere with and impair Texas citizens’ rights or privileges under the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and Article 1, Sections 6-7 of the Texas Constitution....
