Texas Marriage Commission Votes Oct. 13 on Its Family-Law Recommendations for the Legislature

A seven-member state commission told to find the Texas laws that discourage people from marrying and raising children votes Oct. 13 on the report it owes the Legislature by Nov. 1, along with a second document its agenda calls a bonus report on reforming family law. Registration to speak closed at 5 p.m. Oct. 9, though the agenda says anyone may still sign up at the meeting room door.

The Texas Commission on Marriage and Family was created by a 2025 law that gave it one assignment and a short life. It must evaluate state laws, rules and policies and name the ones that “discourage Texans from marrying and raising children,” judge whether state-funded premarital education and parenting programs work, and recommend changes, including ways to “reduce the incidence of divorce and family dissolution.” The report goes to the governor, the lieutenant governor, the speaker and every member of the Legislature. The same law abolishes the commission on Dec. 31, 2026.

Neither document going to a vote is public. The commission posts agendas and nothing else — no minutes, no drafts, no staff memos — so the meeting will be the first look at what the seven appointees are asking lawmakers to do. The state health agency supplies the room and helps compile the report, and files the commission’s page among its advisory committees, though the law makes the agency only a support service.

The roster overlaps with the push for the law that created it. Chair Carl Caton of New Braunfels, who founded the San Antonio Marriage Initiative, and Andrew Brown, policy vice president at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, both testified for the bill at the House subcommittee hearing in April 2025; that hearing’s witness list records nobody registered against it. Four House members from both parties wrote the bill. It passed the House 107-32, and the Senate divided 25-6 on whether to take it up at all before passing it 31-0 on third reading. The Texas Family Law Foundation registered neither for nor against.

What the family-law document actually proposes is the thing to watch, because nothing in the public record describes it. Whatever the commission adopts is advice, not law, and the Legislature’s next regular session begins in January 2027. Two more meetings sit on the commission’s calendar, Nov. 10 and Dec. 15, before it goes out of existence.

Meeting at a glance

Commission members

• Carl Caton — chair; New Braunfels; founder, San Antonio Marriage Initiative.
• Michael Hiller — Lakeway; attorney and mediator, Hiller and Associates.
• Robert Pearle — Aledo; senior pastor, Birchman Baptist Church.
• Cosette Bowles — founder and chief executive, Anthem Strong Families.
• Matthew Waller — director of community impact, One Accord for Kids.
• Andrew Brown — policy vice president, Texas Public Policy Foundation.
• Cynthia Graham — attorney.

Names and titles are from the health agency’s commission page, checked October 9. Cities for Caton, Hiller and Pearle come from the governor’s appointment release of November 4, 2025, which also names Caton chair. No appointment release from the lieutenant governor or the speaker could be found for the other four members, and the agency prints no cities for them; which of those two authorities named which member is therefore not established here. The commission posts no minutes, so the roster could not be cross-checked against a recent attendance record.