Harris County Democrats Censure Lawmaker for Breaking Ranks on Transgender Bill
Rep. Harold Dutton played a key role in pushing SB 29, a bill dealing with transgender athletics.
The Harris County Democratic Party has issued a formal rebuke of state Representative Harold Dutton for helping Republicans advance a transgender sports bill during the recently concluded legislative session.
The bill, SB 29, would have prohibited school sports teams from allowing a student to compete if that student was designated the opposite sex on the student’s official birth certificate.
As the chair of the public education committee, Dutton could have killed the bill, but instead he brought it up for a vote in his committee and voted in favor of it. (The Texas House has a tradition of assigning the minority party a handful of committee chairs).
That helped advance SB 29 to the House floor, though ultimately it never became law because the House missed a midnight end-of-session deadline to vote on it. Poor placement on the bill calendar and Democrat delay tactics contributed to its demise.
Despite the bill’s failure, Dutton’s critics felt that he had overstepped a line and had to be held accountable. “The Democratic tent may be big, but we need to call out legislators who betray values of equality and human rights,” the group Progress Texas said in a May news release.
Following that line of reasoning, a group of Harris County precinct chairs introduced a resolution during a virtual meeting of the party’s county executive committee Sunday. The resolution said that Dutton’s “callous acts… stand contrary to the mission and vision of the Texas Democratic Party.”
The resolution cited the Texas Democratic Party platform, which supports “the right of all people to participate in all aspects of life in a manner that is consistent with their gender identity or expression, irrespective of the gender they were assigned at birth, including the use of facilities; streamlined access to accurate legal documents regardless of surgical status; fully inclusive, employer-based healthcare; and gender confirmation surgery.”
The precinct chairs voted 169 to 41 to approve the resolution, 74% to 18%, with 18 abstentions.
Dutton Defended
Before the vote, several opponents and supporters of the resolution were allowed to speak. Allen Provost, chair of precinct 205 said, “Y’all are looking to turn Harris County blue but with this resolution I think that what y’all are looking at doing here, y’all gonna turn it back to red again.”
Alfred Green, precinct chair 210 added, “I’m against any and all recommendations for censure of Representative Dutton for his opinion because I can feel that a lot of people have that opinion, and I’m one of those.”
Both precinct chairs who spoke in Dutton’s defense were African Americans men, like Dutton himself. Dutton represents Houston’s Fifth Ward. His district is 43% Black, 35% Hispanic, and 18% Anglo, according to the Texas Legislative Council.
Retribution
On the other hand, the chair of precinct 123, Jonathan Miller, spoke in favor of censure, saying, “We are in Pride Month right now. This is June, and what Representative Dutton did is reprehensible. That he would use trans kids as a pawn for his legislation goes against the very fundamentals of what it means to be a Democrat. And that cannot be accepted in this party.”
Miller was referring to the fact that Dutton had advanced SB 29 out of committee only after another Texas Democrat had killed one of his priority education bills on a point of order. Dutton’s bill would have allowed the Texas Education Agency to take over failing school districts, and Dutton said that it was more important than the transgender athletics bill.
After his bill was killed, Dutton told fellow Democrat lawmakers that he would retaliate by passing SB 29 out of committee, according to the censure resolution. In video of the committee vote, Dutton said, “The bill that was killed last night affected far more children than this bill (SB 29) ever will. So as a consequence, the chair moves that Senate Bill 29 as substituted be reported favorably to the full House with the recommendation that it do pass.”
According to the censure resolution, Dutton also reportedly said that he “had a list of Democratic bills that he was ready to kill.”
Daniel Cohen, chair of Harris County Democrats in precinct 272, said that he thought the censure resolution didn’t go far enough, suggesting that Dutton resign. “If it makes me a purity pony to say that we should subscribe to our own platform… then I don’t know what we’re doing here. I think censure is getting off light.”
But Dutton has stood by his actions. In a recent interview with the Texas Tribune, he insisted that he doesn’t fear the political fallout, saying “I have never worried about the negative. If you see me running in a fight, I’m chasing somebody, I’m not running.”
Political Consequences, No Practical Ones
The censure resolution approved Sunday doesn’t have any substantive effects. Marty Golando, the Texas Democratic Party’s parliamentarian, equated the resolution to a press release or a policy statement. “This doesn’t mean much. There is no formal consequence. It doesn’t prevent him from calling himself a Democrat or running for office as a Democrat.”
Politically, however, the vote does signal to Democrat office holders to be wary of bucking the party organs, lest they lose access to resources and draw primary challengers.
At the same time, it also highlights the willingness of some Democrats to go against their own party platform. Jon Mark Hogg, a West Texas Democrat, criticized the censure resolution, saying that Texas Democrats don’t have the numbers across the state to engage in “purity rituals.”
Hogg is the founder of a political action committee that seeks to revive the Democratic Party in rural Texas. He said, “The job of the party is not to regulate purity of thought and toeing the party line. The job of the party is to win elections.”
Originally published at https://www.honestaustin.com on June 28, 2021.
