No Permit Carry Plan Would Be on Way
to Abbott with No Senate Amendments

Capitol Inside
May 3, 2021

The Texas Senate could make the final call on Tuesday on a so-called constitutional carry gun bill with a vote that would send it to Governor Greg Abbott's desk as long as no changes are made in the upper chamber.

The unlicensed carry proposal in House Bill 1927 was placed today on the intent calendar in the Senate where it appeared to have stalled for several weeks. The fight that the measure has triggered would be over if HB 1927 clears the Senate on Tuesday or sometime soon without any amendments.

The slightest alteration on the Senate floor would force teams of negotiators from both chambers to try to hammer out a compromise before the regular session expires on May 31. A delay would give police groups and chiefs and others who've fought the gun bill more time to try to kill it with the clock as a weapon.

Patrick contended last month that the gun bill's supporters didn't have a sufficient number of votes in the Senate to pass the measure in the regular session this year. Patrick gave the impression that at least one Senate Republican had turned against the bill that would eliminate the need for a state permit to carry a gun here. The general consensus was that Patrick had been the only Republican opposed to the bill in the upper chamber.

The lieutenant governor appeared to be capitulating to pressure from conservatives last month when he used some creative acrobatics to jump start the gun measure with its reassignment to a special new Senate committee that he created for the singular sake of hearing HB 1927.

The special Constitutional Issues Committee endorsed the gun rights plan on a party line vote of 5-2 late last week with the panel's only two Democrats voting no. The special committee's chairman - Republican State Senator Charles Schwertner of Georgetown - moved HB 1929 without delay as the measure's sponsor in the east wing.

But there appears to be no guarantee on the fate of the regular session's marquee gun bill in the Senate even though the setting of a date for debate is usually a sign that a measure has the 18 votes that are needed to pass.

Patrick on the other hand could be setting the measure up for a fall if he's right about the number of senators who are willing to vote to enact HB 1927. The bill could be all but dead if one or Republicans vote against the measure like the lieutenant governor had suggested as the probable scenario.