Advertisement

newsPolitics

One Texas senator's bill could have unintended results for gay workers in Dallas, Fort Worth, Plano

GOP Sen. Brandon Creighton insists the bill doesn't target the LGBT community, but gay rights groups and city leaders say it could have unintended consequences for nondiscrimination ordinances in Dallas, Fort Worth, Plano and Austin.

AUSTIN — A bill to undo Texas cities' paid sick leave policies is being criticized for potentially imperiling, or at least undermining, local laws that protect gay and transgender workers.

Sen. Brandon Creighton, R-Conroe, filed Senate Bill 15 to prohibit municipalities from requiring private employers to offer paid sick leave and other benefits to workers. But a tweak made to the bill a few weeks ago has some worried it could threaten city ordinances that prohibit employers from discriminating against a worker based on sexual orientation or gender identity.

Creighton insists the bill doesn't target the LGBT community, an assurance echoed by some business leaders who support his effort. But gay rights groups and city leaders say it could have unintended consequences for nondiscrimination ordinances in Dallas, Fort Worth, Plano and Austin.

Advertisement

The fight over paid sick leave has suddenly become the latest flash point in the gay rights debate.

Political Points

Get the latest politics news from North Texas and beyond.

Or with:

"We just came out of a session two years ago when the bathroom bill was a major wedge issue," Texas AFL-CIO spokesman Ed Sills said Tuesday. "This certainly looks like it's walking in the same direction."

'Poison the well'

Creighton's bill would ban cities from adopting any ordinance, rule or requirement "regulating a private employer's terms of employment" in the areas of paid leave, vacation and days off, health and disability benefits, or "scheduling practices." It would also ax any other local laws that bar employers from taking a job applicant's criminal history into account.

Advertisement

When it was filed last month, the bill included an assurance it would not invalidate other city ordinances that ban discrimination in the workplace. But that clause was stripped when the legislation was debated in committee.

Creighton told The News he decided to remove the disclaimer because "the bill is not about discrimination." His intent is to target sick leave policies in cities like Austin and San Antonio and discourage more cities from putting such mandates on private businesses, he said, not to undo general employment ordinances in cities like Dallas, Fort Worth and Plano.

"We saw the Third Court of Appeals strike down the paid sick leave requirements for Austin as unconstitutional," Creighton said Tuesday. "The spirit of the bill is exactly that. It's not to do with nuanced arguments about who should be allowed certain benefits and who shouldn't."

Advertisement

He added that comparing his legislation to the bathroom bill, which would have restricted transgender restroom access, was a "reach." He does not believe it would negate local nondiscrimination ordinances for LGBT workers: "I'm very capable of adding bathroom bill language in as a substitute and I certainly did not."

A spokesman for Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who counts the bill among his 30 legislative priorities, echoed this sentiment.

"Senate Bill 15 is very specific. It doesn't change the law one way or another regarding [nondiscrimination ordinances]. Anyone who is desperately in search of an issue in order to engage in political theatre won't find it in this bill," Alejandro Garcia said in a written statement.

The National Federation of Independent Businesses, a group representing small businesses, considers axing local paid sick leave requirements a top priority. But NFIB Texas state director Annie Spilman now worries that effort will be derailed by this debate over gay rights.

"We hope we can get to a resolution that makes everybody happy," Spilman said Tuesday, saying she's more than happy to work with LGBT advocates to allay their concerns. "Nobody wants to talk about the bathroom bill this session."

But while Spilman is open to these discussions, she said the bill is being intentionally misinterpreted by opposition groups like the AFL-CIO that want to "poison the well" to kill the sick leave bill altogether.

"They knew they could use and manipulate the LGBT community in order to say, 'This is the bathroom bill,' " she said. "That would be a winning argument for them, and they wouldn't need to lift a finger to fight the bill."

Advertisement

City leaders are watching

Sills, the labor union spokesman, brushed off the criticism.

"As filed, the bill had protections for NDOs and that was changed by the committee," Sills said. "How are we supposed to interpret that?"

Jeff Coyle, government and affairs director for San Antonio, said Creighton's bill would affect the city's sick leave policy. But its employment nondiscrimination ordinance, which protects LGBT workers, would not because it applies only to city employees and not private businesses.

Advertisement

Representatives from the city of Dallas said they're still "studying the bill and its potential impact," as is the city of Plano, which added it "opposes any legislation that will erode local control."

Andy Tate, a spokesman for the city of Austin said the bill "would impair the City's ability to enforce its local employment discrimination ordinances with respect to issues involving workplace leave, scheduling, and benefits." But he did not offer a specific interpretation what the bill could mean for LGBT employee protections.

The city of Fort Worth provided the only comprehensive interpretation of the bill.

Advertisement

"Fort Worth takes pride in being open and inclusive," assistant city manager Fernando Costa told The News. "We want to be a welcoming community and want to be sure the state is doing nothing — directly or indirectly, intentionally or unintentionally — to weaken the legal basis for nondiscrimination ordinances."

Fort Worth doesn't have a local sick leave ordinance, Costa said, so Creighton's original bill would not have affected the city. But now, without the disclaimer ensuring the city's ban on LGBT workplace discrimination won't be affected, he raised concerns that gay rights opponents could use the bill to challenge these protections in court.

"When people raise legal challenges to local ordinances, or even to state laws, they will cite what's called legislative histories," Costa said. "Why did the committee find it necessary to delete the language about [non-discrimination ordinances]? If their intent is not to imperil [them], they could have left that clause intact."

Dale Carpenter, a civil rights expert at Southern Methodist University's Dedman School of Law, agreed. In a letter to legislators last week, the constitutional law professor said a court could decide in one stroke that axing sick leave rules would invalidate a city's employment mandates in their entirety.

Advertisement

"In short, while legislators may be concerned about burdensome and varying local regulations on Texas employers, there is a substantial if unintended risk that [Senate Bill 15] may undermine the enforceability of local nondiscrimination laws," Carpenter wrote.

House, Senate differences

The uncertainty has turned some against the bill.

State and national gay rights groups are now raising concerns, and the Texas Municipal League, an organization that represents hundreds of cities statewide and dozens in the D-FW area, was once neutral on the bill but now opposes it.

Advertisement

"We are against it because it arguably preempts the civil rights ordinances," executive director Bennett Sandlin said Tuesday.

But for some, the bill looks better now. The Texas Pastor Council, a far-right religious group that's fought against LGBT rights at the city and state level, seemed to revel in the fact that the bill might have consequences for this community.

"While the primary issue has been the onerous mandatory sick leave forced on businesses in San Antonio, the issue also overlaps that of the 'sexual orientation, gender identity' ordinances," Pastor Dave Welch said in a mass email. "It is interesting that the only group complaining about equal rights and protections for all Texans are those demanding special, unequal rights for their special interest group based on their sexual lifestyle and state of mind."

Advertisement

Creighton doesn't intend to add the disclaimer back in at this time. But Rep. Craig Goldman, the Fort Worth Republican who is carrying the House's companion bill, said he has no intention of stripping the clause reassuring cities their LGBT protections won't be axed.

Creighton's bill could be debated on the Senate floor as early as this week.