Speaker: House won’t budge further on transgender law,

Speaker says Senate can take or leave version now passed.

Speaker Joe Straus said the House will budge no further on transgender bathroom legislation and that the Senate can take the measure the House passed Sunday, which Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick did not feel went far enough, or leave it.

“The House approved language last Sunday night that required schools to make private accommodations for students who want them,” Straus said Friday at a brief news conference after the House adjourned for the day. “It gave local educators room to handle these issues.”

“For many of us, and especially for me, this was a compromise,” Straus said. “As far as I’m concerned, it will go no further.

“It is the right thing to protect our economy from billions of dollars in losses and, more importantly, to protect the safety of some very vulnerable Texans.”

The House approved an amendment to a school safety bill that would require public and open-enrollment charter schools to provide transgender students with a single-occupancy restroom, but there is debate on whether it bars transgender students from using the bathroom of their gender identity.

Patrick, who had threatened to try to force a special session if transgender bathroom prohibitions were not passed, quickly criticized the House effort, calling it ambiguous and ineffective.

Patrick called a nighttime news conference to reply to Straus’ announcement, which came after press time.

On Wednesday, the Senate voted to seek a conference committee to work out compromise language on the amendment the House added to Senate Bill 2078.

Straus said the House would not appoint conferees to meet with the Senate on SB 2078, forcing Patrick to accept the House version as is.

Straus’ firm and seemingly final stand sets up a showdown with Patrick that Gov. Greg Abbott ultimately will have the last word on, because only he can call a special session to deal with the issue if it is not resolved by the end of the 140-day session on Monday.

At a bill signing Friday, Abbott said he was hopeful of a resolution of this issue, and also on property tax reform, on Saturday, though he mistakenly said a conference committee already was set for both issues. On Thursday, the governor said, “the main thing I want to see is the House and Senate coming together” on the bathroom legislation.

“This is going to require compromise efforts by both sides, but we must see especially students in schools having privacy, safety and security maintained, but also we would want to do all we can to help women have privacy, safety and security to the fullest extent possible,” Abbott said.

Straus said he does not believe a special session is needed if the Legislature approves must-pass legislation, including the budget, which is expected to be approved by both houses on Saturday.

Patrick has argued that letting transgender people use bathrooms, locker rooms and changing rooms that conform to their gender identity is a violation of “common sense, common decency and public safety.”

Business groups joined civil rights and LGBT rights organizations in condemning the effort, saying it would put an already vulnerable population at risk of further bullying and abuse while jeopardizing the state’s economy with boycotts.