During a debate Friday with Lupe Valdez, the Democratic candidate for governor, Texas Governor Greg Abbott said that legislation restricting bathroom access for transgender people is no longer a priority.

Abbott, who is seeking a second term, last year called a special legislative session that included the measure on its agenda.

Dozens of corporations from Amazon to Exxon Mobil came out against the measure, predicting economic disaster for Texas if it were to become law.

Lawmakers adjourned the special session without passing many of the signature items Abbott, a Republican, had endorsed, including the “bathroom bill.”

(Related: Texas lawmakers adjourn without passing transgender bathroom access bill.)

“It's not on my agenda,” Abbott said during Friday's debate, though he did not say whether he would veto such a measure if it landed on his desk.

During a 2016 appearance on Bloomberg, Abbott was asked whether his opposition was “about the legal overreach [of the Obama administration] or it is about the issue itself. Are you opposed to transgender people selecting which bathroom they use, or is it about the way the government has gone about doing it?” Abbott answered that it was about “both.”

Valdez, the openly lesbian former sheriff of Dallas County, said such laws stir discrimination against transgender people.

“There is a continual fear-mongering, and I don't believe in laws that start out in fear,” she said during the debate.

(Related: Dallas County Sheriff Lupe Valdez is gay and running for Texas governor.)