So claims a surrogate, who may have been floating a trial balloon.
An incoming state senator suggested Thursday that Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick will focus on schools, not businesses or sporting venues, as he crafts an already controversial proposal to prohibit transgender Texans from using bathrooms that match their gender identity.
The remarks by state Senator-elect Dawn Buckingham, R-Austin, come as Patrick faces new pressure to abandon the push for a so-called “bathroom bill,” which critics say could hurt Texas’ economy by making the state appear intolerant. The legislation, which he is calling the Women’s Privacy and Business Protection Act, has not yet been released, but the lieutenant governor has named it one of his top 10 priorities for the upcoming session.
“His focus is really the schools, and he’s gonna — my understanding is the businesses, the sporting venues, will not be affected by this law,” Buckingham said during a conversation with Texas Tribune CEO Evan Smith, citing conversations with Patrick. “His focus is really the bathrooms in the schools.”
Asked if she was saying businesses and sporting venues will be exempt under the bill, Buckingham replied, “Well, we’ll see what the language looks like, but it’s my understanding that that’s the intent — to realize that there are some complicating factors there and our priorities are really the schools.”
[…]
Business leaders are closely watching the legislation as it takes shape, worried it could lead to the kind of uproar that tainted North Carolina’s image when it passed a similar bill. On Wednesday, the Texas Association of Business released a study that warned such legislation could cost the Lone Star State between $964 million and $8.5 billion and more than 100,000 jobs.
In the statement, Patrick’s office dismissed the report as “misinformation and fear-mongering regarding a bill they haven’t even seen.”
Well, they have seen what happened in North Carolina, for which Dan Patrick’s only response has been to huff indignantly and proclaim how offended he is that anyone could take offense at his potty bill, and there’s zero reason to trust that Dan Patrick is motivated by anything other than his own interests. Plus, the idea of Dan Patrick accusing anyone of fear-mongering is laughable. Maybe this is a sign that Patrick is feeling some pressure from his usual allies. Maybe Senator-elect Buckingham couldn’t quite bring herself to speak against the interests of businesses and thus went a bit off script. Whatever the case, this isn’t any better than before, and in fact would put the entire stigma of being transgender and needing to pee on the most vulnerable members of the transgender community. The bathroom bill is a bad idea, full stop. It needs to go away.
Without the hard core social conservatives the Republican party is dead. How do the Democrats handle that issue is a question that should be answered.
Divide and conquer the Republicans are masters at that, when will Democrats learn to use it?
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