AUSTIN, Texas ― Texas took a giant step closer to allowing concealed handguns in college classrooms late Tuesday, with House lawmakers giving their preliminary approval to a so-called “campus carry” measure, barely beating a midnight deadline.
The legislation, one of the two major gun rights bills of the session, had appeared destined to fail, with more than 100 amendments lined up in a Democratic effort to kill it.
But then Democrats abruptly dropped the amendments about 25 minutes before the deadline, and the chamber’s large Republican majority forced a vote, approving the measure 101-47.
“If Republicans wanted to celebrate Christmas in April, they have the votes,” said Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer, D-San Antonio, who added that running out the clock was never really an option.
Midnight was the deadline for the House to pass bills that originated in the Senate. A final House vote on the measure Wednesday would set up negotiations with the Senate. A compromise would have to be sent to Republican Gov. Greg Abbott by June 1 to be signed into law.
The vote came at almost the same time the Senate’s Republican majority dropped a measure in that chamber that would have protected child welfare agencies that block gays and same-sex couples from adopting children on religious grounds from lawsuits.
Back in the House, Republicans made two major concessions on the guns bill: Private schools, which the GOP has long sought to have exempted from campus carry, would be included, and campuses would be allowed to carve out “gun-free zones.” Such zones have yet to be defined and would have to be passed by each school’s board of regents.
