Texting ban expires in Senate
Legislation banning texting while driving in Texas is dead. Again.
House Bill 80’s chance for passage expired at midnight Wednesday, the deadline for the Senate to pass House bills.
“We tried everything and worked until the last minute,” state Sen. Judith Zaffirini, D-Laredo, said early Thursday morning, minutes after that deadline passed, on her Facebook page. “It is amazing that only 18 senators (11 Democrats, seven Republicans) supported this life-saving legislation. Elections have consequences.”
HB 80, authored and passed in the House by former Speaker Tom Craddick, R-Midland, would have prohibited drivers across the state from sending or reading “text-based communications” with a handheld device while driving a car. It was Craddick’s third attempt, and Senate sponsor Zaffirini’s fourth, to pass such legislation.
“By not enacting HB 80, we have not done our job as lawmakers to protect the life and safety of all Texans,” Craddick said.
A similar ban made it through both the House and Senate in 2011, but was vetoed by then-Gov. Rick Perry, who said in his veto message that the bill would “micro-manage” adult behavior.
Fourty-six states and about 40 Texas cities have passed texting-while-driving bans of various stripes, and even in Texas drivers under 18 are prohibited from using hand-held devices to text or talk while driving. In Austin, an ordinance prohibits not only texting while driving, but holding a mobile phone to talk while driving.
The bill passed the House 104-39 on March 26, and Zaffirini said the bill had the support of a majority of the 31-member Senate. But under Senate rules, legislation cannot come up for consideration without a vote of 60 percent of the body — 19 when all members are present.
Zaffirini said she had the support of 18 senators, including all 11 Democrats and seven Republicans: Kevin Eltife of Tyler, Craig Estes of Wichita Falls, Joan Huffman of Houston, Jane Nelson of Flower Mount, Robert Nichols of Jacksonville, Charles Perry of Lubbock and Kel Seliger of Amarillo.
Eleven of the 13 senators opposing the bill are in their first or second legislative session. Opponents cited concerns about the ban’s infringement on personal liberty, the difficulty of enforcing it and the possibility that it might cause accidents by causing people to hold their phones in their laps and use them while driving.
Supporters countered that while some people might try to get around the law in that manner, a much greater number would cut back on using their phones while driving or eliminate the practice entirely.