NRA-Backed Employee/Parking Lot Legislation Passes Texas House!

Yesterday, the Texas House passed Senate Bill 321, NRA-backed employee protection/parking lot legislation sponsored by state Senator Glenn Hegar (R-Katy) and state Representative Tim Kleinschmidt (R-Lexington), by a 117-29 vote.  SB 321, substituted in House Bill 681 on the House floor since it had already passed the Senate, would prevent employers from enacting and enforcing policies to prohibit employees from storing firearms in their locked, private motor vehicles while parked at work.  To find out how your state Representative voted on this important measure, please click here.  If your state Representative voted for SB 321, please be sure to contact him or her and express your thanks for supporting SB 321.  Contact information for state House members can be found here.

This action marked the first time in four legislative sessions that this issue made it to the House floor for a vote.  Special thanks go to our hard-working bill sponsors, House Speaker Joe Straus and House Calendars Committee Chairman Todd Hunter for ensuring that the bill was set for consideration by the full House well in advance of impending legislative deadlines that begin next week. 

Also this week, state Senator Jeff Wentworth (R-San Antonio), successfully amended language allowing Concealed Handgun Licensees to protect themselves on the campuses of public colleges and universities on Senate Bill 5, a bill related to higher education.  With the help of pro-Second Amendment colleagues in the Senate, he won several procedural votes and beat back several amendments designed to gut his original amendment.  In the end, the anti-gun sponsor of SB 5, state Senator Judith Zaffirini (D-Laredo), was so offended by the addition of the Wentworth amendment that she pulled her bill from further consideration.  Click here to see how your state Senator voted on the Wentworth amendment. 

Please be sure to thank those Senators who stood with law-abiding Concealed Handgun Licensees' right to protect themselves on the campuses of taxpayer-funded institutions of higher education.  Contact information for state Senators can be found here.  

Note: Sen. Wentworth's campus carry bill, SB 354, remains on the Senate Intent Calendar as he works to garner the 21 votes necessary to suspend the regular order of business in the Senate and bring his bill up for consideration.