At 2:30am, the Ohio House *REJECTS* HB 151, which would have banned trans athletes

At 10:30pm on Wednesday night, the Ohio Senate sent the Ohio House an amended HB 151 for approval. If passed, HB 151 would ban transgender girls from playing on female sports teams.

Republicans also added more than 2,000 pages to the bill, comprised largely of SB 178, a bill to “reform function, responsibilities of state education offices.” This controversial bill largely strips the Ohio Board of Education of much of its power. Republicans also added an amendment that prohibited schools from discriminating against a student who has not had a COVID vaccine.

At around 2:30am, the Ohio House did not have enough votes to approve the amended HB 151. 

Whoa, kind of a surprise here…the House does not have enough votes to concur with the Senate amendments to HB151, the education overhaul and trans athlete ban. Technically the issue would move to a conference committee if lawmakers wanted to keep working on it pic.twitter.com/QSK40yYFJ2

— Andy Chow (@andy_chow) December 15, 2022

Procedurally, the bill would now be sent to a committee to work on changes before it is again presented to the full House. But lawmakers have already said that this would be their last working week of the year so it appears the bill is dead for this legislative session.