AUSTIN (WBAP/KLIF News) — The Texas House is still waiting on its version of the bathroom bill to be put up to a vote.
The House held an open session last Wednesday where citizens could sign up to speak either in favor of against the bill, which is seen as a less restrictive version than the Senate’s.
The House version would prohibit cities and school districts from passing certain anti-discriminatory ordinances. The Senate’s would outright deny people from using a bathroom of the opposite gender they were born as in a school or government building.
“For now, we’re saying if you have an ordinance out there or if a school has a policy, then you cannot enforce those,” said representative Ron Simmons of Carrollton, who authored the House version of the bill. “So it would go back to what things have been in Texas for 150 years.”
Simmons also says the House alternative will have more support from businesses, saying it allows them to keep their bathroom polices in place.
“Private businesses generally don’t have ordinances or policies within their company that allow the opposite sex in the same locker or shower rooms,” he said. “So I think everything would stay pretty much the same.”
Simmons says he believes the new bill has enough votes to clear the House. From there, the Senate would receive it, after having their version of the bill passed over in the House last month.
