Dan Patrick came to North Texas last year about this time to shake his finger at trans people who simply wanted to use the appropriate public restrooms at Fort Worth ISD.
To no one’s real surprise, Senate Bill 6 — aka Dan Patrick’s hateful bathroom bill — passed out of the Senate’s Republican-controlled State Affairs Committee on a 7-1 vote, despite the fact that testimony against the bill — which began about 8 a.m. yesterday (Tuesday, March 7) and finally ended just before 5 a.m. today (Wednesday, March 8) — was overwhelmingly against the measure.
Senate Bill 6 would require transgender people to use bathrooms in public schools and colleges and government buildings that correspond to their “biological sex” as listed on their birth certificate. It also would prohibit local jurisdictions, like cities and counties, from adopting anti-discrimination ordinances permitting transgender people from using public bathrooms that match their gender identity.
The lone “no” vote came from Sen Judith Zaffirini of Laredo, one of the committee’s two Democrats, according to the Houston Chronicle. The second Democrat, Sen. Eddie Lucio of Brownsville, voted in favor of SB 6, as he said Monday that he would.
The Houston Chronicle notes that it was Lucio’s support that gave Patrick the 19 votes he needed to bring it to the floor of the Senate for a vote, something that could happen as early as this week.
The Chronicle also noted that Republican Sen. Paul Bettencourt of Houston borrowed a page from Donald Trump’s playbook, calling a report — touted by the Texas Association of Business and indicating that passage of SB 6 would hurt the state’s economy — “fake news.” Despite clear evidence to the contrary, Texas Republicans have ignored warnings regarding the negative economic impact of passing SB 6, just as they — and North Carolina Republicans — continue to ignore the clear evidence of HB 2’s negative impact in North Carolina.
