New Texas Laws on Proxy Firms, Protests Tested in Federal Courts

The Texas legislature passed more than 1,200 bills in 2025, then stepped aside while the judicial branch determined the legality of some.

Several politically charged challenges that moved quickly through the trial court are now being reviewed by an appeals court, a far slower process that could take some time to play out.

Challenges to legislation are “uniformly hard cases,” said Lee Yeakel, a former district court judge in the US District Court for the Western District of Texas, because both parties are generally well represented by counsel and the public is emotionally invested.

“You get a case like that ...