Written for The Texas Observer legislative blog "Floor Pass."
The national sport of Texas could get a little safer for kids under a bill passed today in the Texas House. Harlingen Democrat Eddie Lucio III’s House Bill 887 would create a pilot program for public schools to offer concussion insurance, but it stops well short of the protections Lucio had originally hoped for.
Lucio’s original bill would have limited full-contact drills and practice games in public schools to no more than an hour each week. Now he says he’d rather leave it up to the University Interscholastic League to handle those regulations. Lucio said his main safety concern is preventing chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, in Texas youth. Read more.