Category Archives: Second Amendment

Employee Curt Hubbard unloads a shipment of ammunition at Full Armor Firearms in Houston in June. Mark Felix/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

Employee Curt Hubbard unloads a shipment of ammunition at Full Armor Firearms in Houston in June.

Texans can now carry a handgun in public without a permit or the background check and training the state previously required.

Gun rights advocates lauded the new state law called "constitutional carry" by supporters for removing what they considered an unfair burden on gun owners.

But the law, which took effect Wednesday, has its critics. Gun safety groups oppose permitless carry. And many law enforcement officials, including Dallas Police Chief Eddie Garcia and Doug Griffith, the president of the Houston Police Officers' Union, have said it would make the jobs of police officers more dangerous.

Still, the state's Republican-majority legislature passed the law earlier this year, and Republican Gov. Greg Abbott signed it over the summer.

"Politicians from the federal level to the local level have threatened to take guns from law-abiding citizens but we will not let that happen in Texas," Abbott said in a June statement when he signed the permitless carry bill and six other gun laws.

"Texas will always be the leader in defending the Second Amendment, which is why we built a barrier around gun rights this session," he added.

The legislative session was the first since several mass shootings in Texas, including one at an El Paso Walmart in which a racially motivated gunman killed 23 people.

Now, the Lone Star State joins a slew of others that have loosened or removed permitting requirements this year. Those states include Iowa, Montana, Wyoming, Utah and Tennessee.

The new law allows anyone 21 years of age or older to carry a handgun, unless they have a violent conviction or are otherwise barred by law. But a background check that might flag such a disqualification is no longer necessary to carry a handgun.

Most residents were previously required to obtain a license to carry a handgun, according to The Texas Tribune. The process included fingerprinting, four to six hours of training, a written exam and a shooting proficiency test.

Texans were already allowed to carry rifles in public without a license.

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No Permit Or Training Required To Carry Handgun Under New Texas Law - NPR

Mayor Turners Statement on Texas Permitless Carry Law

September 1, 2021 -- Please attribute the followingstatement to Mayor Sylvester Turner.

"House Bill 1927 is now law in Texas, allowing anyone who legally owns a gun to carry it in public without a permit or the training previously required for a permit.

As Mayor of Houston, I am very concerned that the State of Texas loosened gun laws, especially during a time of increased gun violence. Many Texans prize their Second Amendment rights, but the Second Amendment does not provide for the right of reckless endangerment.

According to Everytown for Gun Safety, handgun homicide rates increase 11% and violent crime increases 13-15% in states that weaken their permitting process. Under this bill, even a law-abiding citizen can become a danger. Someone who has literally no firearms training and has never even fired a gun could legally carry a gun. They could become a danger to themselves and others due to mishandling a deadly weapon.

Not only are underserved and poor communities disproportionately impacted by an unrelenting spate of homicides and gun crimes, but law enforcement officials are less safe.

With increasing gun crimes on the rise nationwide, adding more unregulated firearms in the population will not increase public safety. Law enforcement is clear on that.

This flawed new law will have a harmful impact inside our neighborhoods and on our streets. Unregulated guns aggravate our public safety problems.

My administration seeks to increase public safety and build trust among Houstonians. That work will continue despite the harmful effects of HB 1927.

Houstons Youth Violence Plan, spearheaded by the Houston Health Department, aims to address the root causes of violence and promote opportunities for prevention through evidence-based crime prevention solutions.

I join the many Houstonians who are not happy with the elimination of gun permitting and the associated basic firearm safety training.

See the rest here:
Press Releases - City of Houston

Photo credit: Gage Skidmore courtesy Flickr

As reports of COVID-19 cases increase, and various politicians demand more lockdowns and mandates, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has announced plans to cure an epidemic of crime?

Speaking with CNN last week, CDC director Rochelle Walensky said, Something has to be done about [illegal shootings]. Now is the timeits pedal to the metal time.

We havent spent the time, energy and frankly the resources to understand this problem because its been so divided, she said, as CNN pointed to biased numbers from the Gun Violence Archive.

Armed with a renewed focusand millions in federal funding to study so-called gun violencetheyre already pumping cash into what they say are violence-prevention projects.

CNN also recycled the myth that the NRA convinced Congress to cut all of the CDCs funding for gun research. In actuality, the CDC was only barred from spending money to advocate or promote gun control. (Of course, if you say you cant study criminal shootings without advocating for gun control, arent you implicitly validating gun owners concerns of an underlying political agenda?)

Im not here about gun control, Walensky said. Im here about preventing gun violence and gun death. In other words, she wants people to compromise away their right to keep and bear arms by empowering her agency to write public policy.

Premise-as-the-conclusion, agenda-driven research is often funded with the express purpose of fueling anti-Second Amendment articles from the mainstream media that they then hope will impact public opinion. In sum, its all political theatre.

Prior to recent rises in crime related to civil unrest and economic shutdowns, violent crime was basically in adecades-longdecline, as shown by the FBIsUniform Crime Reportsand the Department of JusticesCrime Victimization Survey. (The former measures formal reports, the latter surveys victims to account for incomplete records.)

The CDC was actually caught burying data on defensive gun use in the past. Also, officials, such as U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, Xavier Becerra, and the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Anthony Fauci, have all used this type of rhetoric to push gun control in the past.

Walensky has also faced bipartisan criticism in recent months for the CDCs lack of transparency, changing goalposts, and contradictory messaging on COVID-19 policyall of which has been used as excuses by some politicians to impact gun sales. Walensky recently said shes struggling to communicate with the public on the issue. Maybe thats why separate polls show public trust in the CDC has declined since the start of the pandemic.

Meanwhile, gun owners are particularly justified in thinking that the head of a government agency created to control and prevent disease should be focused on combatting COVID-19 during this ongoing pandemic, not looking for excuses to infringe upon a constitutional right.

Link:
Amid a Pandemic, Biden's CDC Director Goes After the Second Amendment - America's 1st Freedom

A county judge has ruled against St. Louis City and St, Louis County in their argument against the new state law known as the Second Amendment Preservation Act.

The law is to stop local law enforcement from helping federal investigators if guns are seized in an operation: St. Louis argued that this cripples any joint crime-fighting efforts- especially against violent crime. Cole County Judge Daniel Green, in a two-page ruling, said that if there is a remedy for a complaint, then he cannot block the law, that the constitutional issues raised in this matter should be litigated, by each plaintiff in each separate case.

Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt released the following statement following the Cole County Circuit Courts denial of Jackson County, St. Louis County, St. Louis City, and the Department of Justices request for an injunction blocking Missouris Second Amendment Preservation Act.

The ruling was an important victory for the Missouri Attorney Generals Office over the Biden Department of Justice, and for the Second Amendment rights of all Missourians, said Attorney General Schmitt. Since the Second Amendment Preservation Act was passed, I promised to fiercely defend the law and Missourians Second Amendment rights thats exactly what we did in this case and will continue to do moving forward.

The judgment from the court can be found here.

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Audio: St. Louis City and county lose in effort to block Second Amendment Preservation Act. - kttn

It allows Texans 21 and older to openly carry handguns without a license or training.

AUSTIN, Texas On Wednesday, Sept. 1, 666 new Texas laws passed during the 87th Texas Legislature went into effect statewide, including House Bill 1927, also known as the permitless carry law.

It allows Texans 21 and older to openly carry handguns without a license or training if they are not legally prevented from doing so by state or federal law.

The bill was signed into lawafter a compromise was reached between lawmakers in the Texas House and Senate, which included getting rid of a provision that would have prevented officers from questioning people solely based on their possession of a handgun.

Proponents lobbied the Legislature for what they call constitutional carry, arguing Texas should join at least 20 other states with similar laws. It faced opposition from gun control advocates who were disappointed the Legislature made it easier to carry guns following the 2019 mass shootings in El Paso and Midland-Odessa.

A University of Texas/Texas Tribune poll in April showed a majority of Texas voters were opposed to permitless carry.

Austin interim Police Chief Joseph Chacon spoke out against the lawthat month, saying, "This is not about the Second Amendment; this is not about peoples rights to lawfully carry a firearm."

Chacon said training for handgun carriers is crucial for public safety.

"Its reasonable and important to ask that someone carrying a firearm in public know how to safely handle and store a gun and have a basic awareness of the laws related to weapons and the use of deadly force," Chacon said. "Stripping away those safeguards will make our streets less safe, and they will make law enforcements jobs harder."

From 2015 to 2020, he said the City of Austin has seen a 124% increase in gun-related crimes, including shootings, murders, aggravated assault and robberies.

"Weakening regulations and effectively eliminating training requirements is not the direction we should be going right now," Chacon said.

Some in the restaurant industry feel the same. General manager for Old Thousand Brett Bettin said their no-firearm policy currently in place will not change.

"I'm a huge fan of personal responsibility and I'm a fan of personal liberty and the Second Amendment," Bettin said. "There's a certain place where you're just creating a situation which makes it easier for people to hurt each other."

Previously, Texans were required to have a license to carry, and to obtain a license, you had to take a training class, pass a written exam and shooting test and submit fingerprints. That changes now that the new law is in effect.

More:
Texas 'permitless carry' law is in effect. Here's what that means - KVUE.com

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Texans woke up Wednesday in a state where its legal to carry a gun if you are neither licensed nor trained and where enforcement of anti-abortion laws has been crowdsourced to citizen bounty hunters who can get up to $10,000 for turning in anyone they catch helping someone obtain an abortion.

Under the guise of election integrity, the Texas Legislature has also backed outlawing some of the voting practices that made voting easier in Harris County and other parts of Texas in 2020 during the pandemic. Gov. Greg Abbott is hot to sign that legislation, having called two special sessions to get it to his desk, while participating in a kind of national race with other Republican governors to show their constituents that theyre changing the voting rules after Americans fired Donald Trump last year.

The gun bill passed during the regular legislative session took effect on the first day of this month, a victory for Second Amendment advocates who thought the states gun laws, though more liberal than many states, were still too restrictive.

The states new ban on abortions after six weeks of pregnancy also became law this week, though opponents of that legislation have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to suspend it while litigation is underway. In the current special session, lawmakers chased that with another bill that would make it illegal to dispense abortion-inducing medications after seven weeks of pregnancy; the current limit is 10 weeks. For elected officials whove been working on anti-abortion laws for a long time, 2021 was a breakthrough year.

Those regular session Republican victories were just the beginning.

That elections bill on the governors desk would end 24-hour early voting, disallow sending vote-by-mail applications to voters who havent asked for them, tighten voter ID requirements for voting by mail, offer protections for volunteer poll watchers and prohibit drive-thru voting.

Opponents argued that people of color were disproportionately helped by some of those conveniences and would be disproportionately hurt by the new law.

Abbott and other advocates contend the new law will make it harder to commit fraud; that has become a political imperative in the GOP, though cases of fraud are rare, and no modern cases of fraud at a scale that would change election outcomes in Texas have been documented.

Although Trump lost the presidency, he won in Texas, and Republicans overcame big spending and big talk from Democrats last year, maintaining their strong grip on the steering wheel of state government. They hold solid majorities in the Texas House and Senate and in the states congressional delegation. Republicans also hold each of the 29 statewide elected offices, from the courts to the U.S. Senate.

Texas remains a Republican state, and the lawmaking results of the last few weeks, along with those from the regular legislative session earlier this year, are evidence that the party in power is granting the wishes of its most conservative voters.

Its also a measure of the weakness of the opposition. Democrats dont have the numbers to defeat Republicans in legislative fights. Blame the last election or the ones before that; the Republican advantage has been in place for more than two decades.

Democrats also dont pose a threat, which is just as important. Republican officeholders worried about their futures arent looking for trouble from the left; theyre watching the conservative voters in their own party. No Democrat has raised a hand to challenge the governor in next years election, but hell face opposition from former state Sen. Don Huffines of Dallas, who bills himself as an actual Republican, and Allen West, a former Florida congressman who was most recently chair of the Republican Party of Texas.

Abbott is relatively popular with Republican voters, and he had $55 million in his campaign account at mid-year; Huffines and West arent likely to unseat him. On the other hand, theyre the only opponents he has right now, and the states lawmaking so far in 2021 mollifies the conservatives even as it angers liberals.

With no candidate leading the liberal charge, Abbott and other officeholders arent seeing a threat from the left. It shows in the laws theyve passed so far this year, and the laws theyre still working on today.

Join us Sept. 20-25 at the 2021 Texas Tribune Festival. Tickets are on sale now for this multi-day celebration of big, bold ideas about politics, public policy and the days news, curated by The Texas Tribunes award-winning journalists. Learn more.

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Analysis: GOP caters to right with dozens of new conservative laws - The Texas Tribune

Texas law enforcement opposed passage of House Bill 1927, the new law in Texas that allows people to start carrying a handgun in public without a permit. The law goes into effect Wednesday, Sept. 1.

Theres a new phrase in the lexicon to describe the latest gun right. Its called permitless carry, wording that conveniently omits the word gun or firearm. Pro-gun groups call it Constitutional Carry.

What is patriotic about more people carrying guns into public places?

It seems odd at first glance that Republican leaders who aggressively pushed for the further loosening of the states gun laws would act despite the near-universal opposition of police chiefs, sheriffs, and others who spoke out against the legislation and tend to be politically conservative.

On the other hand, anytime politicians can claim to be defending the Second Amendment issue, no matter how cynical that play may be, they are animating hard-right Republican primary voters.

Responsible law enforcement leaders, sadly, are no match for Republican primary voters when it comes to how elected officials set their priorities. Self-interest, unfortunately, trumps the public interest.

You could say that I signed into law today some laws that protect gun rights, Abbott was quoted as saying as he signed the bill into law in June. But today, I signed documents that instilled freedom in the Lone Star State.

I do not feel freer as Sept. 1 approaches, Governor. I feel dread. We already see the effect of gunplay in this state in road rage incidents, late night/early morning shootouts at bars by alcohol-fueled patrons, and the terrible outcomes when mentally disturbed individuals can get their hands on guns. What happens when protestors line up against one another, and tempers flare?

Law enforcement here and nationwide also has traditionally opposed the sale and legal possession of assault weapons, but that has had no effect on the many red-state legislatures, even after repeat incidents of mass shootings at schools, stores, churches, and other gathering places.

When it comes down to it, its just a sense of disappointment that the bill ultimately was passed, Kevin Lawrence, executive director of the Texas Municipal Police Association, told the Texas Tribune.

There was some pretense on the eve of the 2021 legislative session among Republican state leaders to promise tightened gun laws and improved background checks, with the peoples memories still fresh of mass shootings in El Paso and Midland-Odessa. Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick both offered rhetorical assurances.

Instead, the states ruling party supported multiple bills that make it even easier to legally brandish a gun in public. Anyone 21 years or older who doesnt have a felony or domestic violence record will be free to carry a gun. A training course on gun safety is not required. Just get your gun and start packing.

How many Texans will pack a gun, come Sept. 1, in their vehicles, their carry bags and purses, or on their bodies? Why do we need guns to live our daily lives? What purpose will drive people to carry a handgun as if it were, like a smartphone or wallet, part of being dressed and ready to go?

The new law is the most concerning of multiple pro-gun laws passed this session, but it is not the only one. Seven pro-gun-rights bills were signed by Abbott. House Bill 957 paves the way for the manufacture and sale of Made in Texas suppressors, a law intended to serve as a workaround for federal laws restricting ownership of silencers. Why would any law-abiding citizen need a silencer on his or her firearm?

House Bill 2622 is posited as a Second Amendment law, one freeing Texas personnel and resources from (enforcement of) federal gun-related laws enacted after January 19, 2021, that are not in Texas law.If an entity or agency violates the provision and tries to help enforce future federal gun laws, that entity will be denied state funding.

I am unfamiliar with state laws that negate federal laws. Not surprisingly, so are federal law enforcement authorities who have warned would-be users they can be prosecuted if caught in possession of a firearm silencer.

This is Texas on its current path of extreme politics playing to a small but influential percentage of voters in this highly gerrymandered state where the views of a majority of citizens can be ignored by officeholders.

What to do? Teach your children: Be careful and walk away from confrontation.

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New gun laws in Texas will surely lead to more gun violence - San Antonio Report

LUBBOCK, Texas The Texas Firearm Act went into effect Wednesday, which allows legal firearm owners to carry a holstered handgun in certain public spaces without obtaining a license to carry.

The Second Amendment gives us the right to constitutional carry, manager of Lone Star Shooting Sports Tom Larson said. Theres a lot of people out there who are not interested in taking a government course and who want to carry because they have the right to carry.

The Lubbock Police Department encouraged gun owners to still receive their license and proper training and said it is up to the individual to learn the specifics of the law.

You just need to be responsible. If youre going to own a firearm, then read the laws, read the restrictions, Lt. Leath McClure of the Lubbock Police Department said. Its not just a free pass to go buy a gun, and you are free to carry it. Thats your responsibility to know when and where, and most businesses will have signs posted on the door.

Private businesses retain the right to prohibit possession of firearms on their property, regardless of whether the owner has a license to carry. Other areas prohibit firearm possession, even licensed carrying, including schools, higher education campuses, sporting events, hospitals and government buildings. Areas that prohibit possession are required to alert the public with conspicuous signage at their entrance.

We do see a need for some kind of training, Larson said. Whether thats formal training that you come into the range and take, or you get online and educate yourself there on what the new laws are and where you can carry. You have a duty to know how to use that firearm properly.

Firearm owners previously needed to obtain a state License To Carry to possess a handgun in public but did not need to get a license to keep a firearm in their home or vehicle.

Under the new law, carrying a firearm while entering a property that prohibits doing so is a Class C misdemeanor punishable with a fine of up to $200. Those interested in obtaining their license to carry may apply online through the Texas Department of Public Safety for a $40 fee.

Not knowing the law is not an excuse, Lt. McClure said. So if you feel like you are responsible to go out and buy a firearm, then its your responsibility to know when and where you can carry it.

Excerpt from:
LPD stresses responsibility as permitless carry of firearms becomes law - KLBK | KAMC | EverythingLubbock.com

In July, the Black Attorneys of Legal Aid and nine public defenders offices in New York state filed an amicus brief with the US Supreme Court. Its hardly remarkable for criminal defense attorneys to file such a brief advocating for a given rule, and when they do, it usually attracts little attention. But this wasnt just any criminal procedure case. New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen is a Second Amendment challenge seeking to strike down a state gun licensing scheme. And the attorneys are taking the same side as a host of libertarian and conservative organizations including twenty-four Republican senators led by Ted Cruz.

As expected, the brief attracted criticism from progressive commentators. While critics may be right that conservative justices will use the brief as cover against attacks from the Left, this criticism potentially obscures a key point: the brief shines much-needed light on the ways in which US gun control has contributed to mass incarceration and the hyper-policing of marginalized communities, particularly low-income black men. Approaches like New Yorks licensing scheme help strengthen institutions of policing and criminal punishment.

The attorneys responsible for the brief spend their days advocating on behalf of some of the most powerless and maligned people in society: poor people charged with crimes. Their argument is a simple one, even if it doesnt fit neatly into our polarized politics on gun control: laws that criminalize gun possession invite discriminatory enforcement.

A gun control regime that grants constitutional protection to the right sort of gun owners but criminalizes the wrong sort invites a host of predictable injustices across lines of race and class.

Gun violence is a major problem in the United States, and calls for lawmakers to do something in response to lives lost are certainly understandable. Unfortunately, doing something tends to involve passing more criminal statutes, imposing longer prison sentences, or further empowering police officers. In many jurisdictions, police and sheriffs hold almost unfettered discretion in determining who can obtain a license to own or possess a handgun. Licensing requirements frequently rely on criminal records, which in turn reflect race- and class-based disparities in enforcement.

The tragedy of this common model of criminal gun control is that it disproportionately harms the same individuals and communities that are disproportionately harmed by gun violence. In this respect, criminal legal solutions to gun violence have created problems similar to those created by criminal legal solutions championed by progressives in other areas, from intimate partner violence to violence against marginalized groups.

When confronted with a pressing social problem, progressives have argued for greater state involvement and greater regulation. Unfortunately, the regulatory response too often has come via criminal law.

Academics and advocates have decried the problems of overcriminalization and governing through crime. Recent accounts have emphasized the ways in which neoliberalism has gone hand in hand with harsh criminal solutions to social problems. As the welfare state has shrunk, the carceral state has come to take its place. In the words of Ruth Wilson Gilmore, criminalization and cages have come to function as catchall solutions to social problems.

Gun violence is a heartbreaking illustration. In his Pulitzer Prizewinning book Locking Up Our Own, James Forman Jr recounts how black activists in Washington, DC, sought to respond to problems of gun violence and drug addiction in their neighborhoods. They sought a range of social services as well as law enforcement resources. Social services never came or were severely lacking.

Instead, over the latter half of the twentieth century, DC became the site of aggressive policing and extremely harsh penalties for people convicted of gun crimes. And, as Forman explains, the defendants facing those charges were predominantly poor and black.

Sadly, as the stories in the amicus brief drive home, DC is not an outlier. New York Citys much-maligned (and unconstitutional) stop-and-frisk program essentially gave police officers free rein to hassle, stop, and search people they suspected of possessing guns unlawfully. The distributive consequences of the program were not surprising. Stops and frisks were heavily concentrated in black and Latino neighborhoods, adding to the impression of a segregated city where the nonwhite and non-wealthy were unwelcome.

Recent years have seen much-needed attention paid not only to the disparate impact of gun violence on low-income communities of color but also to the similarly disparate impact of criminal enforcement regimes.

Earlier this year, activism from criminal justice reformers, abolitionists, and racial justice advocates stalled proposed Pennsylvania legislation that would impose mandatory minimum penalties for gun-related crimes. DC attorney general Karl Racine, a former public defender, took a strong stand against federal enforcement of felon in possession laws because enforcing the laws would disproportionately harm African Americans in the District, who are more likely than any other demographic to have a prior felony conviction.

An expansive reading of the Second Amendment will not end mass incarceration. And the Supreme Court and judicial review will not solve deep structural problems of inequality and societal punitiveness.

Nevertheless, the amicus brief raises a critically important issue: reckoning with gun violence and designing solutions requires taking seriously how those solutions will be implemented.

In US political culture, gun rights have become the province of the political right and generally conjure up images of white, conservative NRA members. But that doesnt mean that harsh penalties or restrictive gun control regimes will be enforced against these imagined gun owners. If history is any guide, the result will be just the opposite.

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More Criminalization Isn't the Answer to Gun Violence - Jacobin magazine

With six days left in the summer's second special legislative session, the Texas House and Senate were at odds overkey bills on Gov. Greg Abbotts agenda, including two priority measures restricting transgender student athletes and how race can be taught in classrooms.

At a late-night hearing of the House Public Education Committee on Monday, Chairman Harold Dutton, D-Houston, declined to hold a vote on either bill, preventing them from moving to the full House for consideration.

Dutton said the move signaled his refusal to cave to demands from Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who has indicated that he will not advance a bill to fund the legislative branch until the House takes action on these proposals.

What Im told is that if we dont pass two bills the (critical race theory) bill and the transgender bill the Senate is not going to consider trying to fix the funding in Article X, Dutton said at the end of the meeting. So, I want to see if he has his big boy pants on. This meeting is adjourned.

More: After his veto didn't lure Democrats back to work, Gov. Abbott extends funding for legislative branch

When Duttons gavel fell to close out the meeting, members of the committee laughed. Patrick's office did not return a request for comment

Before adjourning, Dutton described mounting tensions between both chambers during the session and said the Senate has adopted certain principles and practices that I dont think work well for this Legislature.

We have allowed them to do certain things, and they disrespect the House in certain fashions, Dutton said, adding that he and other members have tried to communicate directly with Senate leaders to address concerns that House bills were not moving through the legislative process.

If the Senate doesnt respect us, they ought to expect us, he said.

More: With quorum restored, Texas House resumes debate of GOP-backed elections bill

But by Tuesday afternoon, Dutton called a last-minute committee meeting to consider advancing both proposals.

Dutton opened the discussion by clarifying that he was not being pressured by House Speaker Dade Phelan to bring the measures up for a vote, but that he was doing it of his own volition, in an effort to heal.

Other Democratic members pushed back, asking for Senate Bill 3, which limits how race can be taught in schools, to be delayed for a day to give committee members time to debate amendments.

"If we engage in a game of ransom, where we put the livelihood of our staff and state employees and their benefits and their dependent children, then we are not honoring the institution," said Rep. Diego Bernal, D-San Antonio. "We are dishonoring the institution and lending ourselves to something that we all know we're better than."

The committee voted 7-5 along party lines, with Dutton voting no to advance the bill to the full House for consideration.

Dutton also brought Senate Bill 2, related to transgender student athletes, up for consideration and committee members debated two proposed amendments. One was added to delay implementation of the bill until theUniversity Interscholastic League could provide data and recommendations. Another was proposed to commission a more intensive study on the bill's implications.

But Dutton abruptly adjourned the meeting before allowing members time to vote on the second amendment or the bill as a whole.

"Members this is one of those things that I as chairman will take the heat for," he said. "This meeting is adjourned."

Legislative funding

Among the 17 items Abbott asked lawmakers to pass during the second special session is reinstating funding for the legislative branch.

Abbott vetoed funding for lawmakers' offices as well agencies that directly support the Legislaturefor the next two years after Democrats walked off the floor of the House at the end of the regular session, killing a GOP-backed elections bill. At the time, Abbott said there should be no pay for members who abandon their responsibilities.

Abbott called lawmakers back to Austin for a special session in July, adding the elections bill and reinstating funding for the legislative branch to the agenda. Also included were the bills to restrict participation of transgender student athletes and to limit how race can be taught in schools, among other proposals.

But days into the first special session, House Democrats left the state for Washingtonto break quorum again and prevent passage of the elections bill. Republicans say the bill will improve election integrity, but Democrats say it is a solution in search of a problem and will actually make it harder for people to vote.

More: From polls to ballots, here's what a new Texas voting bill would mean for you

The first special session ended without any of Abbotts agenda items passed, so he called for a second special session in early August, adding even more items to the agenda, including enhanced funding for border security efforts.

As funding for the legislative branch was set to expire by Sept. 1 before the conclusion of the second special session, scheduled to end on Sunday Abbott, Patrick and Phelan released a temporary funding plan proposed by the Legislative Budget Board to ensure that state employees affected by the veto would continue to be paid through the end of the session, with the expectation that lawmakers would act to restore the vetoed funding starting at the conclusion of the session.

But even though Democrats have returned to the House and bills are advancing through both chambers, including the GOP elections bill, which reached Abbott's desk on Tuesday, neither chamber has passed its version of the funding bill. Budget-writing committees in the House and Senate both have approved measures to restore the funding, but they have not been up for a vote in either chamber.

More: 'No pay for those who abandon their responsibilities': Abbott exacts revenge after Democrats walk

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Legislative session gets testy with 6 days to go: Democrat tells Dan Patrick to put on his 'big boy pants' - Austin American-Statesman