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AUSTIN — Rep. Harold Dutton, D-Houston, refused to give in to threats from Senate Republicans and adjourned his committee meeting late Monday night without bringing two “red meat” priority bills up for a vote.
Dutton, the chair of the House Public Education Committee, was under immense pressure to pass along bills targeting the culture-war issues of transgender student athletes and “critical race theory.”
All summer, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, the Senate’s presiding officer, has signaled he considers the transgender sports and civics education bills, Senate Bills 2 and 3, respectively, the most important topics in the legislative special sessions other than an “election integrity” bill that is already nearly finished.
On Monday, House Appropriations Committee Chairman Greg Bonnen, R-Friendswood, abruptly postponed his chamber’s consideration of a wide-ranging spending bill needed to give retired teachers a one-time payment and restore the Legislature’s funding, known as Article X, which Gov. Greg Abbott vetoed in June.
Several people with knowledge of the discussions said Bonnen’s halt of House Bill 5′s progress reflected behind-the-scenes tensions that flared Monday between House leaders and Patrick, who is said to be demanding that more of his and the Senate’s priority bills be passed.
Dutton said the Senate has been allowed to disrespect the House — and it’s gotten worse.
“Today, what I’m told, is that if we don’t pass these two bills, the CRT bill and the transgender bill, the Senate is not going to consider trying to fix the funding in Article X,” Dutton said. “So, I want to see if he has his big boy pants on.
“This meeting is adjourned.”
Dutton did not immediately return requets for comment.
Late Monday, Dutton had been expected to finally allow votes on SB 2 and SB 3,. Last week, Dutton held hearings on the two measures. But he didn’t allow votes.
Allen Blakemore, Patrick’s chief political consultant, when asked if the lieutenant governor’s unhappiness over slow House action on SB 2 and SB 3 could jeopardize passage of the spending bill, replied, “I’d direct that question to Dr. Bonnen.”
Bonnen was on the House floor and could not be reached for comment.
As passed by the Senate on Aug. 11, SB 2, the Fair Sports for Women and Girls Act, would require public-school athletes in Texas to compete in sports that align with the sex designated on their original birth certificate rather than with their gender identity.
“It is not fair to allow boys to compete in girls’ sports,” Patrick said in a written statement at the time.
Patrick, a former TV sports reporter, said that allowing transgender girls to compete with girls “denies women and girl athletes the right to compete on a level playing field and be the best in their sport. It also pushes them out of athletic scholarships.”
But at a July Senate hearing, Dr. Celia Neavel, speaking for the Texas Pediatric Society, opposed the legislation as harmful to transgender youth’s mental health.
“Forcing transgender children to play on teams according to their sex assignment at birth rather than the gender they affirm undermines their ability to feel a belonging in the community,” she said. More than half of transgender children have had suicidal thoughts and one-third have attempted suicide, Neavel testified.
Other SB 2 opponents have questioned the need for legislation.
Currently, the University Interscholastic League determines a student’s gender based on a birth certificate and recognizes changes made to the document should a transgender student be able to update the certificate to reflect gender identity.
SB 2 by Lubbock GOP Sen. Charles Perry would require UIL athletes to compete in sports associated with their biological sex as determined at or near birth. Only changes on birth certificates made “to correct a clerical error in the student ‘s biological sex” would be permitted.
However, the bill allows female athletes to compete in male sports if a corresponding female sport is “not offered or available.”
On critical race theory – an academic framework that probes the way policies and laws uphold systemic racism – the Legislature is taking a second bite at the apple.
In the regular session, lawmakers passed and Abbott signed a bill on the topic in a new civics education law.
The law’s language, pulled from similar conservative efforts in other states, was designed – in part – to stop critical race theory from being taught in public schools. While educators and advocacy groups have insisted that critical race theory is not being used in K-12 instruction, conservatives have disagreed, often conflating diversity, equity and inclusion efforts as justification.
SB 3 and HB 28, both pending before Dutton’s committee, would streamline the new law, removing a required list of historical documents focused on women, people of color and the struggle for racial and gender equality. In the regular session, those items were added as House amendments by Democratic lawmakers, becoming part of the final legislation only after late-minute parliamentary procedures nearly killed the bill.
In addition, the pending legislation – opposed by most of the state’s educational advocacy groups and professional associations – would create a new civics training program for educators, and limit the ability of students to gain course credit for volunteering for groups that lobby at the federal, state and local level.
The House bill would also require larger districts to post all of their teaching materials on the internet, broken down by subject and grade level.
On Aug. 11, when the Senate passed SB 3, Patrick said, “Parents want their students to learn how to think critically, not be indoctrinated by the ridiculous leftist narrative that America and our Constitution are rooted in racism.”