Smoke-Free Texas: Slim to None

6/24/11

And Slim may have just left town...

With the Special Session winding to a close prospects aren’t looking good for smoke-free workplace legislation. For a realistic chance of getting the smoke-free bill passed into law, it needed to have been passed by either the House or Senate today. Both the House and Senate have adjourned without taking action on it.

There is an outside chance the Senate will consider this bill on Monday so we’ll see what happens then. But there were plenty of positives throughout the session, especially on the House side. The smoke-free bill was passed from committee 8-2, it had around 80 co-authors and was eventually passed by the House as an amendment.

I encourage you to check out the debate on the smoke-free amendment. House and Senate rules don’t allow us to post floor debate video from their archives, but you can watch it on your own. Just follow these instructions:

*You Must have Real Player to View*

1. Go to http://www.house.state.tx.us/video-audio/chamber/,

2. Find the date that says 5/20/2011 and click on the link that says 1:30pm-1:09am.

3. This video covers over 11 hours for floor action. The smoke-free debate begins at the 7:41:25 mark and ends at 8:47:26.

Enjoy!