Democrats stall progress of Republican bill through legislature until deadline passes, killing off current efforts to bypass any future supreme court

This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

A bill widely backed by Texas Republicans to stop gay marriage regardless of how the US supreme court rules this summer was blocked over Thursday night.



Time ran out at the stroke of midnight for the Texas House to pass legislation that would prohibit government employees from issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples. It never even reached a vote as outnumbered Democrats used stall tactics to keep the bill at the back of the line.

Nearly every House Republican sponsored the bill, while powerful Texas business groups and Dell Inc opposed it, with some pointing to backlash over recent Indiana and Arkansas laws that opponents consider discriminatory.

“This was a big opportunity, and it didn’t happen for them,” Democratic state representative Celia Israel said.

Israel, one of two openly gay members of the Texas House, described it as a difficult day awaiting the fate of the measure. In February a member of her staff married her lesbian partner in Austin after getting permission from a judge – the first gay couple in Texas to marry since a 2005 state constitutional ban on gay marriage.

Three weeks later Republican state representative Cecil Bell filed his bill to prohibit state and local officials from giving marriage licenses to gay couples.

Bell said early Friday he was not giving up but with only two weeks left before the legislature adjourns there is no easy path for another chance. More than 20 bills were still stacked in front of Bell’s when time expired.

“There was a bunch of folks who don’t think that state sovereignty is a high priority,” Bell said.

Dell this week became the most visible company to oppose the bill publicly. The Texas-based computer maker said it told Republican Governor Greg Abbott that the company considers diversity a “business imperative”.

Abbott said on Thursday night his focus was on tax cuts and the budget when asked if the House needed to act on the measure.

Outnumbered Democrats bled the clock to midnight. They stalled with lengthy debates over non-controversial issues and tied up the floor with a no-hope bill to raise the state minimum wage to $10.10 an hour, knowing that Republicans would have sacrifice other legislation to move up the anti-gay marriage measure.