Texas Bathroom Bill Dies Again, Raising Republican Acrimony
“Defeating this discriminatory and dangerous legislation in Texas is a huge victory that will have an impact far beyond the Lone Star State ,” Kasey Suffredini, the acting chief executive of Freedom for All Americans, a national gay rights and transgender rights group , said in a statement. In the special session, conservative lawmakers passed a version of the bill in the Texas Senate, where Mr. Patrick presides, but the moderate Republicans who lead the Texas House never referred it to a House committee , so it was effectively dead on arrival in the chamber. Another version, written by a House lawmaker , was never given a hearing. The bills would effectively have required transgender people to use bathrooms, locker rooms or showers corresponding with the sex listed on their birth certificates, not their gender identity, in government buildings and schools. The procedural moves in the House that killed the bathroom bill were led in large part by the House speaker, Joe Straus of Sa...