The Texas Tribune reports:
On the opening day of the special session of the Texas Legislature on Tuesday, over the cries of Senate Democrats, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick took a step to fast-track two bills reauthorizing the Texas Medical Board and four other state agencies jeopardized by inaction during the regular session.
The Senate must first pass those bills before moving on to other items eligible for consideration, including the legislation championed by Patrick regulating bathroom use for transgender people.
After overruling objections from Democrats, the Republican lieutenant governor referred the bills to committee, which promptly — and unanimously — approved them. The full Senate must still vote on the bills, which is expected to happen Wednesday.
The Texas House killed the anti-trans measure in the regular session and GOP House Speaker Joe Strauss continues to maintain that it will fail again in the special session.
.@HRC Allies standing together in Texas against anti-Transgender discrimination #OneTX #TXLege #YallMeansAll #NoPottyPolice pic.twitter.com/S71OKeVzmR
— Meghan Stabler (@MeghanStabler) July 18, 2017
The Texas House speaker is at odds with his party over a bill regulating transgender people’s access to bathrooms https://t.co/zmtM7kZj0z
— The New York Times (@nytimes) July 18, 2017
IBM and AT&T are among more than a dozen large companies opposing the Texas anti-transgender "bathroom bill". https://t.co/m1EbgNRpNB
— Axios (@axios) July 18, 2017
A #Texas transgender woman's photo has gone viral — Our @JohnSalazar spoke w/ Ashley Smith about how it unfolded: https://t.co/OAfBdBBKTl pic.twitter.com/56vsm00gnh
— Spectrum News Austin (@SpecNewsATX) July 18, 2017