Chip Roy Just Exposed His GOP Opponent’s Bill That Would Have Forced Texas Towns to Approve Sharia Cities

Greg Abbott posted two words in February 2025 that every Texas conservative remembers: "Sharia cities."

While Abbott was launching five separate investigations into EPIC City, the man now calling himself "MAGA Mayes" was filing legislation that would have forced Texas towns to approve it.

Chip Roy just made sure every Republican voter heading into the May 26 runoff knows exactly what Mayes Middleton was doing behind the scenes.

The Bill Middleton Hoped You Wouldn't Notice

David Mayes Middleton filed Senate Bill 854 in January 2025, framing it as a housing affordability fix.

The bill would have required Texas municipalities to rubber-stamp multifamily and mixed-use housing projects built on land owned by religious institutions – with no zoning changes, no special variances, and no meaningful local input allowed.

Under SB 854, approving these projects would have been what the bill called a "purely ministerial" duty for local governments.

Translation: Texas cities would have been legally obligated to say yes.

The original statement of intent specifically named "mosques" alongside churches and synagogues as groups empowered by the legislation – the exact same period Abbott was warning that Sharia law "is not allowed in Texas" and that EPIC City "seems to imply" a no-go zone.

The timing is not a coincidence.

Middleton Changed the Words. Not the Law.

When public backlash against EPIC City went statewide, Middleton quietly revised his statement of intent – scrubbing the word "mosque" from the language.

The actual mechanics of the bill didn't change.

Every provision that would have forced Texas towns to greenlight projects like EPIC City remained intact.

Municipalities would still have faced lawsuits for blocking qualifying developments. The "ministerial duty" language stayed. The zoning override stayed. Removing "mosque" from the cover page was window dressing – the kind of move you make when you're hoping voters don't read past the headline.

Chip Roy read past the headline.

Roy told The Federalist the bill "would fuel the Islamification of Texas in the false name of religious liberty," and said it proved Texas "shouldn't elect an inexperienced politician playing lawyer – like David Mayes Middleton II – as the Chief Legal Officer of the State."

What Middleton Is Actually Running On

Middleton spent nearly $14 million – almost entirely his own money – to brand himself "MAGA Mayes" across Texas airwaves.

His central attack on Roy is that Roy was insufficiently loyal to President Trump.

But while Middleton was running MAGA ads, his bill was running interference for the same development project that Abbott and Ken Paxton spent the better part of 2025 trying to stop.

EPIC City – a proposed 402-acre community outside Dallas that its developers marketed as the "epicenter of Islam in America" – drew five state investigations and a securities fraud lawsuit from Paxton before developers ultimately pledged to abide by federal fair housing laws.

Abbott called it a potential Sharia no-go zone. Paxton hauled its developers into court.

Middleton's bill, had it passed, would have made it dramatically harder for any Texas municipality to stop a project exactly like it.

Chip Roy Is Calling the Question

The May 26 runoff is shaping up as a bare-knuckle fight over who actually stands with Texas conservatives – and who just plays one on TV.

Roy spent three terms in Congress building a record that matches his rhetoric: border enforcement, spending fights, and the kind of principled stands that cost him friends in leadership and earned him credibility with the conservative base.

Middleton has a checkbook and a slogan.

Roy's campaign is now making the case that the slogan is the whole show – that a man who filed legislation forcing Texas cities to approve projects like EPIC City shouldn't be trusted with the enforcement powers of the attorney general's office.

Mayes Middleton just lost the one thing his $14 million couldn't buy – the right to call himself a MAGA conservative in front of Texas Republicans who were paying attention.

---

Sources:

• Brianna Lyman, "Texas AG Candidate Tried To Force Towns To Greenlight Development Of Muslim 'Sharia Cities'," The Federalist, April 8, 2026.
• Eleanor Klibanoff, "Middleton, Roy head to runoff in GOP attorney general race," The Texas Tribune, March 3, 2026.
• Eleanor Klibanoff, "Middleton self-funding poses big hurdle for Roy in AG runoff," The Texas Tribune, March 12, 2026.
• "Governor Abbott Supports HUD Launching Fair Housing Investigation Into EPIC," Office of the Texas Governor, February 13, 2026.
• "SB 854 Statement of Intent," Texas Legislature Online, 89th Regular Session, 2025.