A Texas lawmaker is scrapping his proposal to limit the public's ability to film the police within a 25-foot radius.

Rep. Jason Villalba, a Dallas Republican, says the bill was too controversial. It was pending its first state committee hearing in the wake of two high-profile police incidents captured on camera by onlookers. One showed a South Carolina officer shooting a fleeing man in the back and another was of California officers beating a suspect.

Villalba told The Dallas Morning News that the opponents were all over the map and included “far-left civil libertarians to our far-right people who believe that we were somehow limiting First Amendment rights."

The measure carried a $2,000 fine and a maximum 180-day jail term. The radius was 100 feet for individuals carrying firearms, according to the Texas legislation.

The proposal did not apply to the "news media," which it defined as newspapers, magazines, and FCC-licensed television and radio stations. Online-only sites were not exempt.

The Texas Municipal Police Association and the Dallas Police Association initially proposed the legislation to Villalba. The latter lobbying group told the Morning News that the bill was necessary because the public was trying to "set up" officers to try to get them "to do something stupid" on camera.

California and Colorado lawmakers have gone to the other extreme, proposing measures protecting people who film officers from being retaliated against by police.

The California bill makes it clear that filming an officer does not automatically amount to interfering with the officer's duties. Colorado's proposal authorizes payments of up to $15,000 for members of the public who are intimidated by the police for filming them and provides payouts to people whose footage was illegally taken.

Villalba said that even if his measure had been the law in South Carolina, it would not have made it illegal for the 23-year-old bystander to have filmed North Charleston Police Department officer Michael Slager shooting a man in the back two weeks ago.

"If you look at that camera shot, he’s over 50 feet away behind a fence," Villalba said.