AUSTIN — The Texas House on Monday gave initial approval to a bill that would reduce penalties for possession of small amounts of marijuana.

Rep. Joe Moody, a Democrat from El Paso who authored the bill, said it was a bipartisan effort to remove collateral consequences under the current criminal justice system for those who face such charges. He acknowledged that the bill had been rewritten to remove opposition by major players in state politics, including Gov. Greg Abbott.

"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. "If this is what we can do, then this is what we must do."

Unlike Moody's original bill, the version that received initial approval from the House by a vote of 98-43 would not fully decriminalize the possession of small amounts of marijuana. Instead, it would lessen penalties for possession of 1 ounce or less, while making it easier to avoid a criminal record.

Essentially, marijuana possession would remain a crime but with less-severe consequences. The bill must still be approved one more time by the House before moving to the Senate, where its passage may be more politically difficult.

Under current law, getting caught with an ounce or less of marijuana is punishable by up to 180 days in jail and up to $2,000 in fines. Moody's amended bill would lessen that penalty to a Class C misdemeanor, punishable by a maximum fine of $500 and no jail time. Conviction on a Class C offense usually leaves a criminal record, but Moody's bill would make it easier to expunge these records and would bar police from arresting anyone caught with small amounts of pot.

If someone caught with a small amount of marijuana had not been arrested for that offense within the calendar year, a court would defer adjudication of guilt and place that person on probation.

An offender's record would not be automatically expunged, as Moody had earlier proposed, but it would require authorities to notify a person that his or her record could be expunged.

Moody's bill also aims to do away with the automatic six-month driver's license suspension that comes with any drug conviction. But that depends on the passage of another piece of legislation that is being offered by Rep. James White. If White's legislation is not passed, that part of Moody's bill would not go into effect.

Moody said some people were confused about what his bill does, and he emphasized that it does not deal with legalizing marijuana.

"This bill is not that," he said.

He said it was meant to address the $734 million a year the state spends on enforcing these laws and the 75,000 arrests made for marijuana possession that could be used to chase after more serious crimes.

Still, lawmakers like Rep. Cecil Bell, R-Magnolia, took issue with Moody's bill, saying if people with enough money could smoke all the marijuana they wanted to because worst-case they would simply pay a fine.

"If you vote for this, you’re voting to legalize marijuana," he said.

After the bill's passage, Moody said that the bill does not legalize marijuana and that Bell's claim was a "blatant falsehood."

"This isn’t about whether marijuana is good or bad; it’s about whether what we’re doing on enforcement is good policy," Moody said. "We all know it’s not. The time for reform is now."

Supporters applauded Moody's efforts, saying they met their goals despite not achieving full decriminalization.

"Rep. Joe Moody has worked with members on both sides of the aisle to find common ground on this important issue. In spite of the bill not delivering everything we wanted, it would do a lot of good by preserving valuable public safety resources and keeping a marijuana charge from derailing a person's life," Heather Fazio, director of Texans for Responsible Marijuana Policy, said in a statement

Nick Hudson of the ACLU of Texas said the bill's passage was a "major step forward in reforming our state's broken drug laws."

House Bill 63 "will ensure that thousands of Texans no longer have their lives destroyed by facing jail time for minor marijuana possession, and we are grateful to the members who have supported it," Hudson said in a statement.