By Dan Frosch
DALLAS -- Just before the start of a special legislative session
in Texas last week, International Business Machines Corp.
dispatched two top executives to Austin, hoping to convince
lawmakers to oppose a bill that would restrict bathroom use for
transgender people.
The move by IBM, which recently ran full-page local newspaper
ads against the measure, exemplifies the intensifying battle in
Texas over the issue, which legislators have begun debating for the
second time this year.
It also signals the widening dispute over the direction of the
Lone Star State and the Texas GOP: Socially conservative
Republicans led by Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick have
sought to push Texas rightward. Moderate Republicans aligned with
big businesses are pushing back, worried that such an approach will
slow Texas's humming economy.
"We would have preferred if we didn't have to get involved in
this case, " said Diane Gherson, IBM's chief of human resources,
who traveled from the company's Armonk, N.Y. headquarters to Austin
last week. "We realized it was important to have face to face
dialogue with legislators to make sure they understood where we are
on the issue," she added, saying the legislation was against the
company's policy of diversity and inclusion.
This year in particular, an array of social issues like gender
identity, immigration and abortion have become flashpoints here,
both at the statehouse and in legal battles, as the state's top GOP
leaders have sought to burnish Texas's conservative identity. As
the special session continues this week, the bathroom bill is
taking center stage, putting on full display the chasm between the
moderate and conservative factions of the GOP.
"Texas is trying to balance a role in the global community and
economy equivalent to that of California and New York, with a
Republican Party whose social conservative wing has values that are
more in line with isolated rural states like Idaho and Wyoming,"
said Mark Jones, political-science fellow at Rice University's
Baker Institute for Public Policy.
Earlier this year, Texas passed one of the nations' toughest
immigration laws, which bans sanctuary policies and threatens
law-enforcement officials with jail time if they don't comply.
Major Texas cities, including Dallas, Houston and Austin, are
challenging the state in federal court to block the law from taking
effect in September.
But the bathroom bill, which seeks to regulate public restroom
use based on a person's biological sex at birth, has generated the
most controversy. The measure failed to pass during the recent
legislative session. But it was added to the special session agenda
by Gov. Abbott, who supports the proposal and like Mr. Patrick
calls it a safety issue.
Texas Republicans control both chambers of the legislature. A
new version of the legislation, which requires people in public
schools and government buildings to use the bathroom of the sex
listed on their birth certificate or other types of state
identification, cleared the state Senate on Tuesday. But its fate
in the more moderate House is unclear.
"This is has nothing to do with transgender people," said Lt.
Gov. Patrick, adding that the bill was designed to protect women
from sexual predators and that many businesses he had spoken with
understood its intent.
In recent weeks, Mr. Patrick has traded increasingly heated
barbs with House Speaker Joe Straus, a moderate Republican, over
the issue, accusing him of blocking an issue supported by most
Texas GOP lawmakers.
Mr. Straus, who has said the bathroom bill is unnecessary, has
urged businesses to be more outspoken in their opposition this time
around.
"I hope this is a wake-up call to the business community not to
take for granted that things won't get out of hand here," he said,
noting that the political atmosphere in Texas had become too
focused on "divisive social issues."
Some Texas businesspeople said they weren't bothered by the
legislation and welcomed the state's turn to the right.
Joseph Slovacek, a senior partner at a Houston civil-litigation
law firm, supports both the bathroom bill and the sanctuary policy
ban, and praised both Mr. Patrick and Mr. Abbott for staying true
to what he says are Texas' core values.
"This is common sense. I don't think city ordinances or school
district should try to tell the state of Texas who is a man, who is
a woman and who can go into which restrooms," said Mr. Slovacek, a
Republican who raised money for President Donald Trump's
campaign.
On Tuesday, Mr. Abbott touted several groups, including the
Southern Baptists of Texas Convention and the Texas Home School
Coalition that support the issue.
Meanwhile, opponents of the measure in the business community
are ramping up pressure on lawmakers to reject the bill.
IBM chief executive Ginni Rometty called Gov. Abbott last week
to voice her disagreement with the measure, the first time they
have spoken about the matter, the company said. IBM employs 10,000
people in Texas, and says, the legislation will affect its ability
to recruit top talent to Texas. The company said it will consider
investing elsewhere if the measure is approved.
The Texas Association of Business, an opponent of the bathroom
bill, recently announced an ad campaign against the measure. The
first ads, which began running this week on radio, feature a former
Republican state legislator and a Republican county judge.
"But bathroom bills are completely unnecessary and go against my
Christian values and conservative principles," said Denton County
Judge Mary Horn in one of the ads.
Earlier in May, top tech leaders including Ms. Rometty, Mark
Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook Inc., Tim Cook, CEO of Apple Inc., and
Meg Whitman, CEO Hewlett Packard Enterprise wrote to Mr. Abbott
expressing their opposition to "discriminatory legislation."
"The kinds of people that are the best in the world at creating
technology, at creating entertainment...these are people that do
not want to live in places that are seen as discriminatory," said
Randy Pitchford, the CEO of Gearbox Software, a popular videogame
company based in North Texas, who signed the letter.
The governor's office says fears about Texas' growth are
unfounded, noting that at least nine major corporations have
announced relocations to Texas over roughly the past year,
including Jamba Juice, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Hulu, drawn
by low taxes and fewer regulations.
Earlier this month, Mr. Abbott formally welcomed Toyota Motor
Corp.'s North American Headquarters to Plano, north of Dallas, from
its previous home in Southern California.
According to the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, Texas has seen
a 2.7 percent job growth this year, more than double the employment
growth from 2016.
Write to Dan Frosch at dan.frosch@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
July 27, 2017 09:14 ET (13:14 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2017 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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