The Texas House on Monday approved a bill that would reduce the criminal penalty for possessing small amounts of marijuana.

The House voted 98-43 in favor of House Bill 63, which would make possession of less than one ounce of marijuana a class C misdemeanor, punishable with a fine of up to $500 and no jail time. Under existing laws, possession of less than an ounce of marijuana can lead to a jail sentence of up to 6 months. The bill by state Rep. Joe Moody, D-El Paso, initially called for entirely decriminalizing possession of small amounts of marijuana, but Moody amended it in a compromise with the Republican majority.

“Although this compromise isn’t as far as I would like to go, I’m not going to sacrifice the good for the perfect,” Moody said when introducing his amendment to the bill.

Republican Gov. Greg Abbott said in a gubernatorial debate last year he would consider signing a bill that decreased the penalty for marijuana possession to a class C misdemeanor. However, the legislation could stall in the Texas Senate, which is controlled by Republican Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who has indicated he won’t favor any loosening of marijuana laws — neither in criminal court nor for medicinal purposes.

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Patrick is “strongly opposed to weakening any laws against marijuana [and] remains wary of the various medicinal use proposals that could become a vehicle for expanding access to this drug,” he said in a statement to the Texas Tribune last month. Patrick’s staff did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Monday.

“The amendment was worth making for the same reason every change I’ve made to that bill for the past 6 years has been worth making: it advances the conversation to get the results that we want for people,” Moody said. “That result is not wasting taxpayer resources, law enforcement resources, prosecutor resources, on these low-level offenses and eliminating collateral consequences for what are mostly young offenders.”

The most vocal opposition during debate Monday came from Rep. Cecil Bell Jr., R-Magnolia, who called marijuana a gateway drug.

“I just want to be clear to this body, if you vote for this, you’re voting to legalize marijuana,” Bell said.

For subscribers: Police groups decry Texas push for marijuana decriminalization

Moody said he thinks his bill would have passed the House in its original form, but that “would have been the end of the conversation this session,” after the bill was sent to the Senate. “My goal isn’t just to have a conversation about it on the House floor, my goal is to pass this bill,” Moody said.

Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston and chairman of H.B. 63’s likely next stop, the Senate Criminal Justice Committee, said he is not sure how the Senate or his committee will handle the bill. Sen. José Rodríguez’s Senate companion to Moody’s bill has been yet to have a hearing in the Criminal Justice Committee as Whitmire waited to see how the House would proceed.

“It’s unknown at this stage, but it’s getting late,” with less than a month remaining in the legislative session, Whitmire said.

Despite the bill’s uncertain future in the Senate, H.B. 63 gathered bipartisan support in the House and marks the furthest any bill reducing penalties for marijuana possession has progressed in the Texas Legislature.

“I remember when I first filed this bill, I think back in 2003, I couldn’t even get a hearing and people around here basically asked me what I had been smoking,” said Rep. Harold Dutton Jr., D-Houston.