After weeks sitting on the back burner in the Texas Senate, a bill to regulate paid ride companies such as Uber and Lyft at the state level returns to the spotlight Thursday.

The Senate State Affairs Committee, led by Sen. Joan Huffman, R-Houston, will discuss HB 100 Thursday, according to the committee’s revised schedule. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick assigned the bill to Huffman’s committee Tuesday, three weeks after the bill by State Rep. Chris Paddie, R-Marhsall, passed the state House.

The bill would place so-called transportation network companies that connect willing drivers and interested riders via smartphone app under state regulations and prohibit cites from having their own rules. Companies such as Uber and Lyft currently must follow municipal rules, which vary around Texas.

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That has led the companies to complain about a patchwork of confusing, sometimes conflicting rules. As a result, Lyft left Houston when rules went into effect in November 2014, and both companies exited Austin after voters there approved city rules the companies called too stringent.

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In both Austin and Houston, drivers must undergo fingerprint-based background checks, something the companies have opposed, favoring their own national database check that relies on Social Security numbers.

Opinions differ on which background check is the better method to weed out those unfit to drive sometimes vulnerable passengers. Houston officials repeatedly have said their method is superior and will not remove the requirement, though drivers can receive a provisional 30-day license before obtaining the fingerprint-based background check.

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After Austin approved similar regulations a year ago, following a bitter referendum vote that alienated local voters against the companies, Paddie and other state lawmakers vowed to rein in the city rules in favor of state regulations. Forty-one states control paid ride rules at the state level as opposed to letting cities handle matters.

To gain Texas-wide rules, Uber and Lyft have hired about 20 separate lobbying firms, according to filings with the Texas Ethics Commission. Combined, filings show the two companies have spent between $1.1 million and $2.2 million on lobbyists in 2017, as of Wednesday.

House lawmakers, however, did not leave Paddie's bill untouched, leading to some criticism, even from some supporters of the bill. An amendment by state Tony Tinderholt, R-Arlington, and Briscoe Cain, R-Deer Park, that defined "sex" as the characteristic of being a male or female, was added to the bill and approved by lawmakers, angering some who said it essentially legalized discrimination against transgender people.

The companies called the amendment “unnecessary” in statements, noting both Uber and Lyft have non-discrimination policies that would prohibit drivers from refusing service to someone on the basis of a host of things, such as race, national origin, sexual orientation and gender identity.

Senators have a number of options related to HB 100, including leaving it in committee and advancing other bills that take a different approach to regulation. They could also change the bill and send the revised version back to the House. HB 10o is being carried in the upper chamber by Sen. Charles Schwertner, R-Georgetown.

"As the Senate works to build consensus around HB 100, we continue to evaluate a number of changes that we hope will ultimately improve the bill and increase its chances of becoming law," Schwertner said in a statement.

The bill, however, must forge a quick path forward to change the status quo. The legislature is facing a May 29 deadline to deliver bills to Gov. Greg Abbott, and time is quickly fading for bills as lawmakers address a host of outstanding issues.

Paid ride regulations, which at least will have their hearing Thursday, are ahead of other issues, however. A bill to ban texting by drivers in Texas, passed by the House on March 20, was not given a committee assignment until Tuesday. As with HB 100, the bill to ban texting by Rep. Tom Craddick, R-Midland, will go through Huffman’s committee.

No hearing for the texting bill has been set.