State Reps Rope Themselves into Bill
on Sex Conduct Training for Lobbyists

Capitol Inside
May 10, 2021

Texas House Republicans and Democrats voted on Monday night to prohibit sexual harassment by elected officials like themselves with a tentative nod for a measure that also would require state lawmakers and statewide officials to take training to prevent such behavior every two years.

House Bill 4661 advanced to third reading on a voice vote without a whisper of debate or questions about a couple of last-second alterations that Democratic State Rep. Senfronia Thompson of Houston made as the author without elaborating on their substance.

None of the House's Republicans or Democrats appeared to be concerned or aware that the Thompson amendments dramatically expanded the measure by forcing state legislators and statewide officials to meet the same mandates on sexual harassment prevention training that had been limited to lobbyists before the revisions that were made to the bill without any requests for explanations.

HB 4661 had been tailored exclusively for lobbyists when it was hatched late last month amid a furor over a House staffer's claims on being drugged by a lobbyist for a prominent firm while drinking with a group of people at the Austin Club on April 1.

Thompson cited the allegations as inspiration for the measure in a pitch for the bill in the State Affairs Committee two days after she'd filed it two weeks ago. The committee backed HB 4661 with a unanimous vote on the same afternoon where the lobbyist who the House has targeted for cleared of any wrongdoing by police and prosecutors.

The Senate beat the House to the punch when it approved its own version of sexual harassment prevention courses for lobbyists amid its outrage over the staffer's tale that was easily discredited. With the legislation already on fast tracks before lawmakers learned that they'd been played by their own employees, the House apparently decided to keep the measure moving through the process to avoid questions on the legislation's unseemly origins.

Some representatives might not have known when they added the amendment to the bill that they would be making themselves some of the first state legislators in the country to require training on how to curb sexual harassment in the workplace for themselves. Some House members suggested that they'd been advised by GOP Speaker Dade Phelan's team that the sex harassment training mandates for elected leaders would only be voluntary.

The Thompson amendment says that state lawmakers and statewide leaders in the executive branch "shall" complete a sexual harassment course that's been approved by the Texas Ethics Commission within 60 days of general elections in November. Lobbyists would have 30 days after they register to undergo the same training.