Yesterday's Texas Senate Vote on Campus Carry

The Journal for yesterday's Texas Senate has been published, and you can read the proceedings that led up to SB1164 being passed to engrossment. Five amendments that would have gutted this bill were defeated, and one amendment that basically acknowledges current Texas law was adopted.

The votes for and against final engrossment were as follows:

CSSB 1164 as amended was passed to engrossment by the following vote: Yeas 20, Nays 10.

Yeas: Carona, Deuell, Eltife, Estes, Fraser, Harris, Hegar, Hinojosa, Huffman, Jackson, Lucio, Nelson, Nichols, Patrick, Seliger, Shapiro, Uresti, Wentworth, Whitmire, Williams.

Nays: Averitt, Davis, Duncan, Ellis, Gallegos, Shapleigh, Van de Putte, Watson,
West, Zaffirini.

Absent-excused: Ogden.

If your Senator is in the "Yeas" column, give them a call and thank them for their continued support of SB1164.

You may note that some TSRA A-rated Senators voted against SB1164. These Senators have major universities in their districts (Averitt - Baylor, Duncan - Texas Tech, Ogden - A&M, Watson - UT).

To achieve their "A" rating, I have to assume that they indicated that they would support Campus Carry Legislation when filling out the TSRA candidate survey during this last off session. I do not know this for a fact, but I do believe that support for this legislation was necessary to receive the "A" rating.

If you live, work, or go to school in one of the Senate Districts represented by the "Nay" voting Senators, please give them a call and let them know that you are one of their constituents, that you support SB1164, and that you expect them to do the same.

One last note. Senator Gallegos helped bring this bill to the Senate floor. His was one of the votes necessary to get SB1164 to the Senate floor for debate. He is against the bill and voted against it's final passage, but he did understand the importance of allowing an open debate and vote on campus carry by the Texas Senate. If you call Senator Gallegos, please be sure to thank him for helping get the bill to the floor.

The third reading and final vote should happen today (if all goes well). The session starts at 11:00. After being at work for a couple of hours, I decided that I needed to take the rest of the day off to watch the proceedings and see how they go.