This hearing has taken place
The Senate Committee on State Affairs met as noticed at 9:00 AM on Monday, September 14, 2026, in Room E1.012, chaired by Senator Bryan Hughes. Protecting Texas Families, the family court charge, was taken up second of the three charges on the notice and drew most of the day’s public testimony. The committee recessed that evening and returned on September 15 for a separate set of charges.
Watch the recording: open the Senate’s Audio/Video Archives and find State Affairs, September 14, 2026. Every timestamp on this page is a position in that recording, so you can check any quotation for yourself.
What was said on the family court charge is set out in the next section.
Witness list and minutes: now posted on Texas Legislature Online — the minutes and the witness list. The minutes record the meeting called to order at 9:07 AM, Senator Angela Paxton in the chair from 1:37 to 2:08 PM, and the committee recessed at 6:28 PM; Senator Paul Bettencourt is recorded absent. They record the charges laid out and the testimony taken, and no votes or findings. Names below have been checked against the witness list.
If you did not get to testify, the committee is now writing a report with recommendations to the Legislature. That report, not the hearing, is what is still open — see what happens next.
The rest of this page is the guide we published before the hearing, kept as written for reference. Its instructions on travelling, registering and submitting testimony applied to the September 14 hearing only.
Last updated: September 27, 2026.
What happened on the family court charge
The committee took its three charges in order and heard all public testimony at the end of the day, so the family court material is split across the recording:
- 1:44:51
- Chair opens the Protecting Texas Families charge.
- 1:46:51
- First invited panel: Justice Emily Miskel, Andrew Brown, Judge Karl Hays.
- 3:26:44
- Second invited panel: Jeff Anderson, Russell Withers, Dr Matthew Harbison.
- 4:00:43
- Committee moves to the third charge, Protecting Minors Online.
- 6:19:40
- Public testimony opens on all charges. Family court witnesses run to the end of the day.
- 9:42:24
- Public testimony closed. The committee recessed at 9:51:48 until 9:00 AM on September 15.
Opening the charge, the chair set its limits before any witness spoke: “This is not about making it easier to get a divorce, about making it easier to break up families. That is not our goal” (1:45:03). The problem he named was what happens once a family is already in the system — the charge is “about making sure that when families and when children in particular, enter in that system… that system isn’t making it worse for them” (1:45:56) — along with “a lot of variation in how these cases are handled from one county to the next” (1:46:19).
Invited testimony
- Justice Emily Miskel, Dallas Court of Appeals, formerly seven years a district judge in a Collin County family court, put one question under the whole charge: “Are our family courts, courts, or are they treatment services?” (1:49:28). A judge’s job, she argued, is “to try lawsuits and sign judgments”, not to guarantee healthy outcomes, and treating it as the latter creates “a one way ratchet” of evaluations, therapists and experts, because “more is always safer than less” (1:50:19). She asked the Legislature to clarify that best interest is the standard a judge applies to contested evidence, and “not a loophole for getting rid of the Constitution and the rules that govern our system” (2:19:18).
- Andrew Brown, vice president of policy at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, argued upstream: reduce the need for family court at all. He cited the 2022 TANF efficiency audit finding that only 2% of Texas’s TANF spending went to encouraging two-parent family formation, and recommended reviving the state’s neglected Healthy Marriage program and expanding premarital education (1:52:45–1:57:48).
- Judge Karl Hays, associate district judge over the family court of Hays County and co-chair of the legislative committee of the Texas Family Law Foundation, told the committee that reform itself is not the question: “I don’t think the question is that reform is reform needed? I think the question is what reforms are going to work” — and pressed for “a series of targeted evidence based bills” (1:59:01).
- Jeff Anderson, a family law attorney of 32 years appearing for Court Reform Action for Families in Texas, gave the day’s clearest picture of delay: a divorce in which the child at the centre of it “was just over a month old” when the case began and “was starting kindergarten” when it was finally tried (3:28:41).
- Russell Withers, general counsel and director of policy at the Texas Conservative Coalition Research Institute, handed members a white paper on family courts (3:32:25).
- Dr Matthew Harbison, a Houston physician appearing for himself as the father of five, described filing in May 2022, temporary orders that August and a certified decree in December 2024, through four failed mediations (3:38:04), and asked that a child’s consistent reluctance be examined “quickly… efficiently, and… neutrally” (3:41:30).
Senator Judith Zaffirini asked each invited witness to write one or two recommendations for the committee’s report to the Legislature (2:18:35). That request is the most concrete opening the hearing produced.
Public testimony
Public testimony ran for more than three hours and was dominated by parents appearing for themselves. The recurring asks were a presumption of equal parenting time, limits on repeat evaluations and third-party experts, and accountability for judges and attorneys. Two structural complaints came up repeatedly: temporary orders that stay in force for years without a hearing on the merits, and costs that outrun the dispute.
Service of process reached the committee twice
This site exists because a judgment can be entered against a parent who was never actually notified. On the evidence of the recording, that defect was put to the committee twice in nine hours — both times by a member of the public, both times late in the day:
In May of 2020, I was not served in a timely manner, and the final order ended with me having joint managing conservatorship. — Adriana Hernandez, Hays County (9:22:12)
We currently sit under an unserved default temporary order that has been in effect for over two years without a merits hearing, removing all contact from me despite never being found to be unfit or even alleged to be unfit. — Kaitlan Ross (9:31:34)
No invited witness addressed service of process, citation or default judgments, and Rule 239a was not named once anywhere in the day’s captions. The charge’s own words — unpredictable timelines, unnecessary delays — were argued almost entirely on evaluations, experts and possession. The gap in the certificate of last known address, which is how a case can be decided without the respondent ever learning it exists, is still not on the committee’s record in any developed form. That is the single most useful thing a written submission could fix.
What happens next
The committee’s output is an interim report with recommendations to the 90th Legislature, which convenes in January 2027. No bill was filed at this hearing and none could be: an interim hearing gathers the record the report is written from.
Closing the day, Senator Bob Hall made a statement rather than ask a question (9:47:53):
I don’t think I have sat through a more depressing hearing since I have been here than what I’ve heard today… If we don’t do something this session to fix this problem, then shame on us.
The record is still open in the only way that matters: the report has not been written. If you could not testify, a written recommendation to the committee now lands in the same place the invited witnesses’ recommendations will. Ask the Senate Committee Coordinator at 512/463-0070 how to submit it, and copy your own state senator.
Where this summary comes from. Every quotation and timestamp above was taken from the Senate’s own published captions for the September 14 recording (video 22783), read in full. Timestamps are positions in that recording, not clock times.
What is verified, and what is not. The captions are machine-generated and spell names phonetically. On September 27, 2026 we checked every name in this section against the official witness list and corrected three spellings the captions had wrong (logged here). The list spells Dr Harbison’s surname “Harbiaon”; we have kept the spelling he gave in his own introduction on the recording. Affiliations are as the witnesses introduced themselves — the list records most of them as appearing for themselves — and attributions at panel changes can still be wrong.
News coverage. As of September 27, 2026 we have not found a news report covering the family court portion of this hearing. The coverage we did find of the September 14 meeting addressed the separate online-gaming charge. If you know of one, tell us and we will add it.
Hearing details
- Committee
- Senate Committee on State Affairs
- Date and time
- 9:00 AM, Monday, September 14, 2026
- Place
- E1.012 (Hearing Room), Texas State Capitol Extension, 1100 Congress Avenue, Austin
- Chair
- Senator Bryan Hughes
- Testimony
- Public and invited testimony. Limited to 2 minutes per witness.
- Official notice
- Notice of Public Hearing (HTML) · PDF
- Recording
- The hearing is archived: watch the September 14 recording, or browse the Senate audio and video archive.
What the committee is examining
The notice lists three interim charges. Family courts are the second of the three. Quoted from the official notice:
1. Protecting Minors Online
Study online gaming platforms that target minor children. Determine which gaming platforms advertise to minors, whether the advertisements are appropriate, and whether the platforms have sufficient age verification and youth protections. Make recommendations to prevent minors from accessing violent and sexual content in games. Additionally, make recommendations to prohibit communications between minors and adult strangers on gaming platforms.
2. Protecting Texas Families — the family court charge
Study the unnecessary burden placed on Texas children and families who suffer from inefficient or inconsistent divorce and child custody proceedings. Identify inefficiencies in these proceedings that result in unpredictable timelines, unnecessary delays, repetitive child evaluations, or other needless complications. Make recommendations to ensure Texas families have access to fair and consistent procedures in family courts and truly prioritize the best interests of children.
This is the charge most relevant to service of process and default judgments. The words the committee is working from are inefficient, inconsistent, unpredictable timelines, unnecessary delays and needless complications. Testimony that connects a specific procedural defect to one of those words is speaking the committee's own language.
3. Monitoring
Monitor the implementation of legislation addressed by the Senate Committee on State Affairs passed by the 89th Legislature, as well as relevant agencies and programs under the committee's jurisdiction.
The notice names Senate Bill 3070 (89th Legislature), on the abolishment of the Texas Lottery Commission. Not related to family courts.
How to get a recommendation to the committee now
Public testimony closed on September 14. The interim report has not been written, and that is what is still open.
At 2:18:35 in the recording, Senator Zaffirini asked each invited witness to send the committee one or two written recommendations. Nothing limits that invitation to the people who were in the room. A written recommendation sent now lands in the same place theirs will — in front of the staff drafting the committee’s interim report to the 90th Legislature, which convenes in January 2027.
Two things the hearing notice never supplied, and they still matter:
- No email address and no mailing address. Ask the Senate Committee Coordinator at 512/463-0070 how to submit a written recommendation for the interim report. Do not assume email is accepted.
- No deadline. The notice described written testimony as something handed to the clerk at the hearing. For the report there is no published cut-off, which means the only safe assumption is that earlier is better.
Copy your own state senator. A recommendation that arrives from a constituent as well as from the committee’s inbox is harder to set aside.
What makes a recommendation effective
- Be specific. A named rule, a named form, a named step in a process. Committees hear a great deal of general frustration and very little of what precisely went wrong.
- Cite the rule or statute if you can. Texas Rule of Civil Procedure 239a, for example, requires a certificate of last known address and imposes no duty to verify it. That is a sentence a committee can act on.
- Name one concrete fix. One. A committee remembers a single clear ask far better than a list.
- Put the ask first. Staff read a great many submissions. The recommendation should be legible in the first two sentences, not at the end of a narrative.
- Connect it to the charge. The committee is studying inefficiency, inconsistency and unnecessary delay. Frame the problem in those terms.
What you send is public. Texas Senate hearings are broadcast and archived, and material submitted to a committee becomes a permanent public record that anyone can find later.
If you have a pending case, read this first
What you send a committee is permanently public. An opposing party, their counsel, or a judge can find it later. Anything you write about the facts of a live matter is on the record, outside your case, without the protections a courtroom gives you.
Write about the procedure rather than your own facts. The text of a rule is not contestable. Allegations in a pending case are, until a court rules on them. You can describe what a rule permits, and what it fails to require, without narrating a matter that is still being litigated.
If you are unsure, speak to your attorney before you submit. This page is legal information, not legal advice, and nobody here knows the posture of your case.
Common questions about this hearing
Can I still testify at this hearing?
No. The hearing was held on September 14, 2026 and public testimony closed that evening. What is still open is the committee’s interim report to the 90th Legislature, which has not been written. A written recommendation sent to the committee now reaches the same place the invited witnesses’ recommendations will.
How do I get a recommendation to the committee now?
Ask the Senate Committee Coordinator at 512/463-0070 how to submit a written recommendation for the interim report, and copy your own state senator. The hearing notice gave no email address and no submission deadline, so confirm the method rather than assuming email is accepted.
What is the committee examining about family courts?
The interim charge is Protecting Texas Families. It directs the committee to study the unnecessary burden placed on Texas children and families who suffer from inefficient or inconsistent divorce and child custody proceedings, and to identify inefficiencies that result in unpredictable timelines, unnecessary delays, repetitive child evaluations, or other needless complications.
When was the family court charge heard?
The committee took the lottery charge first. The family court charge opened at 1:44:51 in the recording, with invited panels at 1:46:51 and 3:26:44 and public testimony from 6:19:40 to 9:42:24. Those are positions in the archived video, not clock times.
Is what I send the committee public?
Yes. Texas Senate committee hearings are broadcast and archived, and material submitted to a committee becomes a permanent public record that anyone can find later, including an opposing party.
Should I send a recommendation if I have a pending custody case?
Consider writing about the procedural problem rather than the facts of your own matter. A rule’s text is not contestable; allegations in a pending case are. Anything you send a committee is permanently public and an opposing party can read it. If you are unsure how it may affect your case, speak to your attorney first.
What makes a recommendation to a legislative committee effective?
Be specific, cite the rule or statute if you can, and name one concrete fix. Senator Zaffirini asked each invited witness for one or two written recommendations, which is the shape the committee asked for. A committee remembers one clear ask better than a full account of a case.
Related
- Legislation — the reform this site proposes, and why address verification is the gap.
- Texas Rule 239a — the certificate of last known address, and why it requires no verification.
- Find your Texas legislator — copy your own senator on anything you send the committee.