Time is running out for Texas bathroom bill
Barrage of corporate advertising and activism is threatening to sink controversial legislation.
AUSTIN, Texas — With little more than a week left in Texas’ 30-day special legislative session, a barrage of corporate advertising and activism is threatening to sink legislation restricting transgender bathroom use that has been a flash point in the state’s culture wars.
Social conservatives and the state’s powerful lieutenant governor, Dan Patrick, have backed the effort.
Gay rights groups, business groups and the House speaker, Joe Straus, one of the few powerful moderate voices in the Texas Legislature, have opposed it.
The effort is now focused on the House version, but state ep. Jonathan Stickland, one of the bill’s 46 co-authors and a member of the tea party-backed Freedom Caucus, said he was pessimistic about its chances of being allowed to advance to a vote.
“I think the Straus team has already decided that they are not going to let it out,” said Stickland, who, like other members of the staunchly conservative caucus, persistently defies the speaker’s leadership.
The Senate bill would require transgender people to use bathrooms in schools and local government buildings corresponding to the gender listed on their birth certificates or state-issued identification cards.
The House bill would prevent school districts and county or local governments from adopting or enforcing nondiscrimination ordinances that would allow transgender people to use bathrooms of their choice.
Although law enforcement, religious groups and transgender advocates have all been part of the opposing coalition, big business has been a dominant force throughout the debate.
“Corporate America is stepping forward, speaking loudly about the fact that this will have a chilling effect on business opportunity in this state,” said state Rep. Byron Cook, a Republican and the chairman of the House State Affairs Committee, who has thus far refused to call a hearing on the bill.
Corporations active in Texas that have opposed the measure include IBM, Amazon, Apple, Dell, Microsoft, Intel, Capital One, Ben & Jerry’s, Facebook, American Airlines, Southwest Airlines and United Airlines.
Business executives repeatedly cite North Carolina as Exhibit A in opposing the bill, pointing to millions of dollars in economic losses through boycotts and the cancellations of sports events and concerts after a similar bill passed there in 2016.