AUSTIN, Texas (AP) _ A top House Republican delayed a hearing on controversial legislation Wednesday that would limit transgender students’ use of school bathrooms and locker rooms, saying the author needed to its soften language.
The bill’s author, Pasadena Republican Rep. Gilbert Pena, said the legislation would be “toned down” _ but didn’t offer many specifics _ after the chairman of the powerful House State Affairs Committee removed it from the panel’s agenda because the language was too harsh.
“It needed a whole lot of work,” Rep. Byron Cook, the committee chairman, told The Associated Press in an interview. He declined to elaborate, but said: “These sorts of bills need to be extremely well thought-out.”
As it currently reads, Pena’s bill would require school districts to adopt a policy to ensure only people of the same “biological sex” may be in the same bathroom or locker room at any given time. It also specifies that students could sue their school district and recover as much as $2,000 in damages if they encounter a peer of the opposite sex in the bathroom or locker room.
Pena suggested he may lower the allowed money damages, but didn’t elaborate. He also declined to talk about his motivation behind the bill.
The legislation is among four so-called bathroom bills introduced in the Legislature this year that would specify which facilities transgender students use and punish erroneous users. None of the other three bills _ which would criminally charge transgender students who use the wrong public bathroom, shower or locker room _ has been scheduled for a hearing. All four have been assigned to Cook’s committee.
Pena said he expects the proposal to be rescheduled for a hearing next week.
___
SENATE PASSES PLAN TO DECRIMINALIZE TRUANCY
The Texas Senate has voted to make skipping school no longer a criminal offense for students, following lengthy, sometimes testy debate.
Houston Democratic Sen. John Whitmire’s proposal passed 26-5 Wednesday and now heads to the House. It makes truancy a misdemeanor punishable by graduated fines for parents starting at $100.
Current law says students with three unexcused absences in four weeks, or 10 unexcused absences in six months, can face fines up to $500.
Whitmire argued that was too harsh, and got emotional when some Republicans suggested that many law enforcement officials in their home counties support the current system. He further responded that too many officials were “getting enriched” by steep current fines.
The Texas Association of Business and state Supreme Court chief justice Nathan Hecht support Whitmire’s plan.
___
SEANTE OKS FASTER `PARENT TRIGGER’ FOR STRUGGLING SCHOOLS
The Texas Senate has approved a proposal allowing a majority of parents in a school district to petition for closing struggling public schools in three years _ rather than the current five.
Texas was one of the first states to pass a “parent trigger” law when it was approved in 2011. That allows parents to collect signatures that can force changes in administrators, or even close schools, after five years of poor state ratings.
But Friendswood Republican Sen. Larry Taylor wants that process to start faster. The chairman of the Senate Education Committee, he says parent trigger campaigns energize communities and force improvements at schools even without having to close them.
Taylor’s plan passed 25-6 Wednesday and heads to the House. He introduced a similar measure that stalled in 2013.
___
SENATE VOTES TO PARTIALLY CONSOLIDATE HEALTH AGENCIES
The Texas Senate has voted to partially consolidate the state’s health and human services bureaucracy _ but stopped short of creating a single, super entity as proposed amid a no-bid contract scandal.
Senators unanimously approved merging three agencies beginning next year _ the Health and Human Services Commission, the Department of Aging and Disability Services and the Department of Assistive and Rehabilitative Services.
But consolidation of the Department of State Health Services and the Department of Family and Protective Services will only be studied by a committee of lawmakers and citizens.
Creating one super agency was proposed following a multimillion dollar, no-bid contract state health officials signed with an Austin tech firm in 2012.
Meanwhile, a Democratic amendment expanding Medicaid in Texas under the White House-backed health care law failed.
___
HOUSE COMMITTEE HEARING ON BLOCKING IDENTITY OF DEATH ROW DRUG SUPPLIERS
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) _ Alleged threats against execution drug suppliers have Texas lawmakers trying to conceal the identity of those manufacturers from both the public and death row inmates.
A Texas House committee Wednesday signaled support of keeping the names of lethal injection drug makers under wraps just hours before the state was set to hold its sixth execution this year.
Texas is currently barred from publicly disclosing suppliers amid court challenges. That came after state investigators concluded there had been a credible threat of violence against an execution drug maker.
Some Republicans now want new Gov. Greg Abbott to permanently shield suppliers under the law.
Attorneys for death row inmates say they have a right to know who is making the drugs used to execute their clients.
The bill still awaits a vote.
___
HOUSE VOTES TO BAN SHARK FIN SALES; PLAN STALLED IN SENATE IN 2013
The Texas House has voted to criminalize the sale of shark fins amid no shortage of “Jaws” jokes.
Shark fins are used in Chinese soup eaten commonly in some parts of Texas. Lawmakers voted Wednesday to make possessing fins punishable by fines and 180 days maximum in jail.
A final, technical vote sends the measure to the Senate.
Federal law prohibits shark finning, or severing fins and discarding shark carcasses.
Lawmakers circled a floor microphone, made lawyer jokes and played the theme from the 1975 thriller “Jaws,” before approving Brownsville Democratic Rep. Eddie Lucio III’s bill.
Lucio said sharks are “extremely important to the ecosystem and the fisheries.”
Nine other states already ban shark fin sales. The House passed a similar bill in 2013, but it stalled in the Senate.
___
ON DECK
The House reconvenes at 10 a.m. Thursday, and the Senate returns an hour later.
___
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“The House is better _ has more dignity and integrity _ than what we’re showing right now with respect to these children. These are adopted children, members, and they happened, in their adoption, to not pick the right parents.” _ Dallas Democratic Rep. Rafael Anchia, urging his colleagues to pass his bill that would list both same-sex parents on an adopted child’s updated birth
certificate. It is currently stuck in committee and looks unlikely to reach the House floor.