More abortion restrictions among nine items signed by governor
JAMES RUSSELL | Contributing Writer
james.journo@gmail.com
The Texas Legislature ended its special session on Tuesday, August 15, one day ahead of schedule, after passing only nine of the 20 legislative priorities Gov. Greg Abbott put on the agenda when announcing the session.
Among the bills that failed was the so-called “bathroom bill,” which would have prohibited transgender men and women from using appropriate public restroom facilities and, in some versions, would have rolled back local nondiscrimination ordinances.
The bathroom bill by Sen. Lois Kolkhorst, R-Brenham, and Rep. Ron Simmons, R-Carrollton, passed in the Senate but did not even get a hearing in the House (the same bill during regular session passed easily in the Senate but never came to a vote in the House). Its defeat came after a year-long campaign against the legislation by corporations, the business community and activist groups. House Speaker Joe Straus has consistently opposed the bill since it was first filed during the regular session.
Numerous business groups celebrated the bill’s demise after the special session was declared sine die, the formal term for the end of a session.
“VisitDallas and the convention and visitors bureaus across Texas are proud of our efforts to defeat the bathroom legislation in Texas. We will always fight to protect the Texas brand and to keep the Texas economy thriving,” said VisitDallas President and CEO Phillip Jones in a statement. “Our broad-based Texas Welcomes All and Keep Texas Open for Business coalition campaign to defeat the discriminatory and unnecessary bathroom bill is consistent with our fundamental belief that a stronger Texas is grounded in policies and laws that foster an open, welcoming and business-friendly state for businesses, their employees and their families.”
Kathy Miller, president of Texas Freedom Network, said, “The failure of a ridiculous bathroom bill shows that business, faith leaders and everyday Texans can come together to stop politicians obsessed with singling out and discriminating against vulnerable people simply because of who they are.”
But other harmful bills, including those limiting access to reproductive health, still passed.
“The reality is our state’s elected leaders for the past eight months have treated the civil liberties of LGBT people, women and immigrants as negotiable at best and irrelevant at worst. We now have even more unnecessary anti-abortion laws that limit the ability of women to make their own decisions about whether and when to have children,” Miller said.
Among those bills were bills banning private insurance from covering abortions, enhanced reporting requirements by doctors when an accident occurs during an abortion and requiring doctors to obtain explicit patient or caregiver consent before issuing do-not-resuscitate orders.
Rep. César Blanco, D-El Paso, called those bills part of a “radical” agenda.
“Most Texans can breathe a sigh of relief, now that Gov. Abbott’s radical special session has come to an end,” Blanco said, echoing the comments of other Democrats. “Instead of focusing on meaningful policies that matter to working families, our economy, or communities, Gov. Abbott decided to pander to the extreme-right at the expense of everyday taxpayers.”
After sine die, Abbott threatened to call legislators back for a second special session to take up another one of his priorities: property tax reform. A last-minute deal to cap property tax hikes without elections fell apart between the House and Senate.
The bill previously died in the regular session in the face of resistance from counties and other municipalities.
If he does not call them back for taking up property taxes, Abbott may have to call another special session anyway. That’s in part because of a unanimous court decision this week that two of Texas’ congressional districts are unconstitutional. If the court does not draw the maps, the legislature will need to reconvene to redraw them.
Legislators will know as soon as Friday, Aug. 19, if they will return for another session.
This article appeared in the Dallas Voice print edition August 18, 2017.