TEXAS: GOP House Speaker Blocks Bathroom Bill

The Austin Statesman reports:

Flexing his parliamentary muscle and flashing his antipathy to efforts to regulate the use of bathrooms by transgender people, House Speaker Joe Straus prevented amendments on the matter from reaching the House floor on Tuesday.

In a showdown with his most socially conservative members, Speaker Joe Straus ended debate on a bill about the fate of the Texas Railroad Commission, which regulates oil and gas operations, by announcing there were no further amendments to consider.

But at least two amendments had been filed before the debate seeking to fold the contentious transgender bathroom issue into the relatively tame oil and gas bill. Straus said he had determined the proposed amendments “were not germane” to the bill.

The bill is still alive and the haters will surely press on.

The owner of Houston’s NFL team is also against the bill:



Texans owner Bob McNair is against the state’s “bathroom bill” that could cost cities in the Lone Star State hundreds of millions from lost sporting events and conventions if it passes. Houston hosted the Super Bowl, Final Four and Copa America soccer tournament the last two years. The state would be in danger of losing major events if the bill passes.

I don’t think it’ll pass,” McNair said this week. “I don’t think we need it. There’s opposition in the House. I think there are other things more important going on in the world.” The NBA and NFL have made their philosophies known, and both involve non-discrimination of any kind. “And we believe that,” McNair said at the NFL meetings.