AUSTIN, Texas -- The temperature in Austin this week hit 91 degrees. It felt more like 96 by midafternoon.
Inside the state Capitol, where the thermostat hovers around 70 degrees, Rep. Carl Sherman was contemplating the Day of Judgment. When Jesus returns, the pastor said, citing Scripture, he will embrace those who fed the hungry, clothed the naked -- and visited the imprisoned.
"Our legislative priorities don't line up with the first things he's going to say when he comes back," said Sherman, a Democrat. In Texas prisons, he added, "The heat is unbearable."
In Texas, where the temperature regularly climbs above 100 degrees in the summer, county jails must be cooled to between 65 and 85 degrees. But state law does not require prisons to have air conditioning. The conditions behind bars recently landed the state in court, after which the prisons department agreed to cool inmate housing for some -- but most of the more than 100,000 inmates still eat, sleep and work in areas that lack air conditioning.
Lawmakers in the House voted to change that.
A bill that would have required the state to install climate control systems in all prisons sailed through the House with bipartisan support. Just 18 of the 150 members in the GOP-majority chamber voted against the measure.
But the legislation died unheard in the Senate, one of many criminal justice casualties this year.
The decision disappointed Sherman, who bemoaned the "selective compassion" of his colleagues. He mused whether switching off the prison board's A/C during a summer meeting would press the issue.
"You ever root for a losing cause or a losing team?" he wondered. "You know somewhere, at some point, we're going to lose. It's just a matter of when your heart is going to be broken."
One in five of the state's 100 lockups have no A/C, according to the prisons department, and nearly half are only partially cooled. There are about 34,000 air-conditioned beds for the roughly 117,000 inmates incarcerated systemwide.
These conditions regularly lead to lawsuits from inmates, some of whom describe living 23 hours a day in hot cells, their nights spent lying on the floor atop wet bed sheets to stay cool. Dozens of inmates and guards fall ill every year. Some have died.
Last year, prisoners complained about battling summer temperatures and the ravages of the coronavirus at the same time. Recently, the state faced 17 lawsuits regarding the heat.
House Bill 1971 would have required the prisons department to install climate control systems inside all state-run jails and prisons, including inmate housing areas and correctional officer stations. The installation would have been phased in over time, with the first third of the state's lockups completed by the end of 2024.
The measure also had an important escape hatch: It would need to be implemented only if state lawmakers set aside the money to do so. It estimated $100 million for each of three phases.
With five authors, three of them Republicans, and 14 co-authors, the bill passed with resounding support in the House.
"This is the right thing to do. It's the humane thing to do," author Terry Canales said during debate on the House floor May 14. The Democrat has tried, unsuccessfully, to get this bill to the floor in past sessions. "The reality is in Texas, we are cooking people in prison."
Once it got to the Senate, however, the bill was never heard from again.
It was referred to the Committee on Finance, which is chaired by Sen. Jane Nelson, a Republican and, as the lead budget writer, one of the most influential lawmakers in the building. Neither her staff, nor advisers for Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, the Senate president, returned requests for comment on why a public hearing was not held on the bill.
Advocates said Nelson also did not respond to their pleas that she bring it up for debate.
"I wonder how many people will die or commit suicide this summer due to deliberate indifference of the Texas Senate," Amite Dominick with Texas Prisons Air-Conditioning Advocates told The Dallas Morning News.
"One would think if the legislators could pass so many bills about the comfort and treatment of animals," she added, referring to bills mandating better dog and cat welfare, "surely we could treat our Texas incarcerated citizens at least humanely."
Scott Henson of Just Liberty, a nonprofit advocacy group, said the bill was one of many criminal justice measures that died in the Senate.
"The Senate does not want to do criminal justice reform of any type," he said, a few days before the end of the session today. "And that includes this."
Sen. Jose Menendez, who authored the legislation in the Senate, called the bill's death "frustrating."
"It's very likely that at some point the courts will, someone will get a verdict that says we're treating people inhumanely. I think we should do something about it," the San Antonio Democrat told The News. "It's sad."