Anti-TSA Groping Bill Fails in Texas

Texans around the state, and other Americans who have followed the travails of passing an anti-TSA groping bill in Texas this year, were stunned and disheartened when the Lone Star State’s special session ended early Tuesday without passing the popular Travelers’ Dignity measure.

It was a wild ride on a bucking bronco for the bill. It first sailed through the Lone Star State’s regular House session (with unanimous approval), but the feds then threatened not to allow commercial flights in the state if the bill were to become law. The threat caused the state Senate to back away from the bill, which died without a vote in the Senate chamber. But after the regular legislative session, Texans deluged Governor Rick Perry’s office with emails and phone calls imploring the Governor to call up the anti-TSA groping bill in a special session of the Texas legislature that had been convened for other purposes. During this time, two Texas officials denounced the groping they were subjected to by the TSA, and their personal stories, circulated on YouTube, fueled the firestorm of grassroots support for the anti-TSA groping bill.

Responding to the pressure, Perry called up the bill for consideration by the special session – after which the bill was blocked by the Texas Speaker of the House before being approval by a House committee. The House went on to pass a weakened version of the bill, the Senate strengthened the weakened version (almost restoring it to the original), and the special session ended without a final version of the bill being cleared by the legislature. In the end, the legislation failed not because it was voted down, but because it could not be brought up a second time on the same day in the House to allow for a vote on the final version without a suspension of the rules. The suspension, which required 120 yeas in the 150-member House failed by a vote of 96-26, in part because some of the bill’s supporters had gone home.

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