Texas Tribune. In an interview at The Texas Tribune Festival on Friday, Phelan said that 75 state representatives signed on as sponsors or authors of the House’s version of the bill during the last special session, leaving them only one vote shy of a majority.
Additionally, he said, one version of a bill has garnered close to 80 co-authors, giving opponents of transgender rights more than enough votes to impose a ban.In past years, Phelan publicly denounced legislation targeting LGBTQ Texans, and has generally shied away from bills that touch on contentious culture-war issues — a key message that allowed him to become Speaker by combining support from Democrats with his Republican supporters in order to outflank his more conservative.