Tuesday, July 20, 2021

From the Texas Tribune: Texas Senate advances bills limiting education about race, access to abortion-inducing medications. The House is still sidelined.

For 2306, etc...

- Click here for the article

Even though Texas Democrats have effectively sidelined the state House in hopes of blocking a voting restrictions bill, the Senate is nearing the end of its work on Republican priorities for the special legislative session. On Friday, Senators passed a bill that would strip requirements that students learn white supremacy is “morally wrong,” and another that would ban medically induced abortions after about seven weeks into a pregnancy.

Unless enough Democrats return to Texas to again allow the House to pass legislation, the Senate’s passage of bills won’t do much to help the measures become law. But since the special session began last week, the upper chamber has quickly passed twelve bills, including the GOP priority election restrictions bill that spurred House Democrats’ departures.

The Senate has also already passed bills that would make it harder for incarcerated people to get out of jail without cash and restrict student athletes to sports teams that correspond with their sex assigned at birth.

Two pieces of legislation Gov. Greg Abbott put on the special session agenda remain for the Senate, including a bill to reinstate funding to the Texas legislative branch and one that would teach students about preventing child abuse, family and dating violence.