Dolly Parton may be gone, but her spirit of self-expression is still making waves — this time in a Texas federal court.
U.S. District Judge David Hittner on Tuesday cited the late artist in his decision to strike down Senate Bill 12, a 2023 law that sought to restrict drag shows. His decision, which blocks the Texas attorney general from enforcing the law, noted that the prohibition was “an unconstitutional restriction on speech.”
Just as many people “chastised Dolly Parton as a voluptuous sex symbol because of her big hair, flamboyant clothes and breast exposure … there are erotic elements in countless popular performances that could be subject to both civil and criminal penalties under S.B. 12,” Hittner wrote in his decision.
And because the law doesn’t specify who determines whether a performance “appeals to the prurient interest” or that the work be considered as a whole, a single sexual or erotic moment in a performance could result in penalties, he wrote. Those penalties include civil fines of up to $10,000 for businesses and a misdemeanor charge that carries up to a year in jail for participating individuals.
Parton was referenced several times in court records associated with the case. One of the plaintiffs, Brigitte Bandit, a drag queen and longtime activist, frequently performs as the Grammy-winning artist.
In an Instagram post on Tuesday, Bandit wrote that Parton had been a “huge influence” on her life and her drag performances. She even brought a children’s book about Parton to testify at the Texas Capitol, which eventually got back to the country music star, who then gifted Bandit a signed rhinestone-covered guitar.
“Dolly has shaped much of my life as a drag artist,” Bandit wrote on Instagram, calling her a “queen who has changed the world with her love, artistry, and GLAM! my diva forever.”
After the 2016 mass shooting at Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla., Parton called herself a “patron saint” of the gay community in an interview with Billboard.
“All those drag queens, sometimes I see some of them look more like me than I do,” said the star, who famously lost a Dolly Parton lookalike contest.
Tuesday’s ruling wasn’t the first time the law, widely touted as a “drag ban,” has been deemed unconstitutional by the courts.
Hittner initially struck down the law in September 2023, just a few months after the Texas Legislature passed it. In November 2025, a three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals vacated the lower court’s injunction and returned the case to district court with instructions on how to reconsider it.
In the end, the high court’s directions did not change Hittner’s determination that the law violates the 1st and 14th amendments.
Hittner wrapped up his decision with a suggestion for those who oppose or are offended by the performances: “[T]he solution is relatively simple … just don’t go.”
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court is weighing President Trump’s claim that his new White House ballroom is urgently needed to protect him, his staff and guests from attacks by drones, terrorists and snipers.
On Friday, with a lower-court order about to go into effect halting construction on the controversial project, Chief Justice John G. Roberts decided that the court needed more time. He issued a temporary order pausing the case and allowing construction to continue while the justices decide on a pending legal challenge.
Last week, Trump’s lawyers described the East Wing ballroom as an “integrated military complex” that is “vitally required by national security.” They argued that a judge’s order blocking further construction threatened the safety of the president and must be overturned. They also said the project is nearly two-thirds completed.
At issue is whether the president acting on his own may build a huge new ballroom complex that is expected to dwarf the historic Executive Mansion.
It is a confrontation over the boundaries of executive power at a moment when Trump has repeatedly tested the ability of courts, Congress and independent institutions to constrain his agenda.
Trump bulldozed the historic East Wing before the courts had resolved whether the administration had the authority to proceed, leaving opponents to argue the project could become effectively irreversible before judicial review was complete.
The National Trust for Historic Preservation sued in December and argued that the president had overstepped his authority.
The U.S. court of appeals affirmed his order by a 2-1 vote on Aug. 7 but put the decision on hold until Friday. Roberts’ order did not explain the reason for the delay, or how soon the court might rule.
In a fast-track appeal to the Supreme Court, Trump administration lawyers sought to refocus the case as one about national security and the president’s safety.
“Given the current unprecedented levels of danger … every day the President does not have access to the vital security features of the military complex presents unacceptable risk,” Solicitor Gen. D. John Sauer said Wednesday in his final brief to the court.
Construction continues on the White House East Wing ballroom on Aug. 20.
(Andrew Harnik / Getty Images)
The Constitution and federal law say new buildings may not be erected on public property in the District of Columbia “without the express authority of Congress.”
But acting on his own, Trump ordered the East Wing of the White House torn down in October and work began on a new and much larger building to replace it.
He said the new ballroom could provide safe and secure seating for 1,000 dinner guests. He did not ask Congress to weigh in or approve the massive project.
In defense, Trump administration lawyers pointed to an annual appropriation from Congress that funds “the care, maintenance, repair, alteration, refurnishing” and other such improvements at the White House.
They also said private donations would pay most of the $400-million cost of the new ballroom. One estimate placed the cost of the ballroom and the bunker at $600 million, with taxpayers covering half, the Washington Post reported.
The president, his family and White House employees would have secure underground space, Sauer said, while a “totally secure ballroom space” would provide a new level of protection for guests and foreign dignitaries.
President Trump speaks to the media as the construction of a new helipad on the South Lawn of the White House continues on Aug. 19.
(Alex Wong / Getty Images)
His solicitor general also argued it was too late to stop the project.
“A 250-person crew is working 20 hours a day, seven days a week to keep the project ahead of schedule and under budget,” he wrote on Aug. 13. “Today, the project is 65% complete in its entirety, and moving quickly toward total completion.”
Trump’s signature construction project has fueled accusations from his political opponents that he is abusing his power to build a lavish space for entertaining guests as ordinary Americans struggle with affordability.
In April, Republicans in Congress sought to put federal money behind the project, despite Trump’s earlier insistence that private donors would pay for the ballroom.
The effort never became law, faced with bipartisan opposition to a bill that would tie them to the unpopular project, leaving the administration to proceed with a privately financed effort whose legal authority was already being challenged in court.
The Society for the Rule of Law and a group of former White House lawyers warned the court against accepting Trump’s broad claims of power.
“Under the executive’s view, the President could bulldoze the entire White House and replace it with a new building of his own design, including a skyscraper. No other President has asserted such transformative power,” they wrote in a friend-of-the-court brief.
“The invocation of national security is not a magic incantation that suspends the rule of law,” they added.
The biggest hurdle facing the challengers may be the issue of standing.
The court’s conservatives are often skeptical of lawsuits if it is not clear the plaintiffs have or will suffer a distinct injury that goes beyond their opposition to a government policy.
In this case, the National Trust said its historians and preservationists will be disturbed to walk by the White House grounds if there is a massive new structure that is not in keeping with the historic Executive Mansion.
Construction continues on the East Wing ballroom at the White House on Aug. 10, 2026, in Washington, D.C.
(Andrew Harnik / Getty Images)
“The subjective displeasure of an offended observer does not amount to a concrete injury,” Sauer said.
The D.C. Circuit judges were also split on the threshold issue of standing.
Judges Patricia Millett, an Obama appointee, and Bradley Garcia, a Biden appointee, ruled the suit may proceed because the plaintiffs suffered injuries to their “aesthetic, cultural and historical interests.”
Judge Neomi Rao, a Trump appointee, dissented and said the preservationists walking by the White House would not suffer the kind of concrete injury that gives them standing.
Aug. 21 (UPI) — Defense lawyers representing Massachusetts mother Lindsay Clancy, on trial for the murders of her three children, rested their case Friday after testimony from a doctor who claimed she is innocent due to mental illness.
Attorney Kevin Reddington told the presiding judge in Plymouth, Mass., Superior Court that the defense had concluded its case following the testimony of Dr. Phillip Resnick, a forensic psychiatrist with expertise in postpartum disorders.
He told jurors Clancy was “frankly psychotic” on Jan. 24, 2023, when she killed her children.
A series of defense witnesses this week sought to show Clancy, 36, is not guilty of murdering her children — 5-year-old Cora, 3-year-old Dawson and 8-month-old Callan — at their Duxbury, Mass., home.
Clancy cut herself and jumped from a second-story window in a failed suicide attempt following the slayings, after which she became paralyzed from the waist down.
While not denying she killed the children by strangulation, they contend she is not criminally responsible because she was suffering from bipolar disorder and postpartum psychosis.
She faces a possible sentence of mandatory life imprisonment without the chance of parole.
When questioned by Reddington, Resnick stated in his video testimony that based on his diagnosis Clancy suffered from a “postpartum psychosis” following the birth of Callum, noting that she heard voices commanding her kill her children and herself.
This, he said, triggered a “delusion of influence” in which a victim feels their body is overtaken by an “external force,” and thus Clancy should not be held criminally responsible for her actions, the Boston Globe reported.
“She felt that she had to obey the instructions,” he said. “It was a matter where she was just following the command, rather than being able to make any decision to do this or not.”
After the defense rested, prosecutors called several rebuttal witnesses including Dr. Avram Mack, a psychiatrist, who agreed with prosecutors that Clancy was able to understand that her actions were wrong when she killed her children, thus making her guilty of murder under state law.
He testified that Clancy had interacted normally with other people in the hours before the killings.
“There was the ability to act normally,” he said, adding that Clancy had said “Go to God” while committing the slayings, which he took to mean she knew her children were innocent as they died.
