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.)