Texas Lege update from Glen Maxey

About 2 a.m. this morning, posted to his FB page.

Whoa, I'm bone tired.

LGBT people are finally, FINALLY free from all types of mischief and evilness. The Senate gets to debate the Cecil Bell amendment by Sen. Lucio put on a friggin' Garnet Coleman bill tomorrow. It's all for show. Garnet Coleman is one of the strongest allies of the LGBTQ community. They could amend all the anti-gay stuff they want on it and he'll strip it off in conference or just outright kill the bill before allowing it to pass with that crap on it. This is for record votes to say they did "something" about teh gays to their nutso base.

And lots of high stakes trading to make sure that other stuff didn't get amended onto bills today (labor dues, TWIA, etc.) and making sure an Ethics Bill of some sort passed. We didn't want that to die and give Abbott a reason to call a special session.

Campus carry got watered down... no clue what happens in conference. And the delaying tactics kept us from reaching the abortion insurance ban.

Four good Elections bills passed today. Three on Consent in the House, three in the Senate, all will be done by noon Wednesday.

And Lastly: Pigs have flown and landed. HB 1096, the bad voter registration bill, is NOT on the Calendar for tomorrow and is therefore DEAD. I am one proud lobbyist on that one. With its demise, no major voter suppression bills passed (well, except for Interstate Crosscheck which is only bad if implemented badly, and we have to stay on top of it to make sure it's not), and over forty good ones survived.

Just a few technical concurrences, and we're done. Thank the goddess and well, some bipartisanship for once.

I've been rough on Maxey in the past, but he has fought the good fight throughout this session.  He was also the counsel behind the Texas House Democrats' moving over to 'aye' on the pastor protection bill.  My hat is doffed and I am deeply bowing in his general direction (toward Austin).