The 89th session of the Texas legislature is underway, and thousands of bills were filed before the deadline earlier this month. But only a few will actually reach the governor’s desk.
Currently, over 100 of these bills directly target LGBTQ+ rights. These include almost every aspect of life as a queer, or especially a transgender person, in our state — from health care to just generally being ‘out’ in public.
But the Texas legislature only meets for a handful of months every other year. During that limited window, lawmakers contend with a wish list of bills from the governor, lieutenant governor, and the speaker of the house. This agenda gets first priority, and can eat up a lot of time. Out of the 10,000s of bills that are introduced each year, only a tiny fraction pass. While the governor can, and does abuse his authority to call an “emergency” session from time to time, doing so costs the state hundreds of thousands of dollars.
It’s valid to feel afraid — the Republican Party is open about its desire to erase LGBTQIA+ people from public life in the U.S. However, only a small portion of the bad bills will even reach committee this year, much less have a chance of becoming a law. I think it’s important to know which bills are most likely to move, because it shows us where we should focus our efforts to fight back. If we stop bad bills this session, it might be harder to pass worse ones next.
