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Coverage of a Texas bill that would grant a statewide court access card for lawyers, letting them skip security lines, spurred an interesting debate on Twitter yesterday, with at least 50 attorneys and judges weighing in.

House Bill 1359 by Rep. Gene Wu, D-Houston, initially proposed a system where all an attorney would need to do is flash his or her State Bar of Texas membership card to bypass security at any courthouse across the Lone Star State.

This would be much different than under current law, which lets each of Texas' 254 counties decide whether and how to grant lawyers the fast-track. Some counties let counsel in with the bar card alone, while others require an application, background check and fee to get a special ID card.

But the idea of security-free entrance with only a state bar card rubbed many lawyers the wrong way, so they tweeted their disdain. One prosecutor, who goes by @LBDubya on Twitter, used the example of an attorney charged with murder to drive home her argument that  ”state bar cannot police attorneys in real time.”

The proposed law, HB 1359, is worth following as it winds through the serpentine process that is the #txlege.

Lawmaker Wu, aka @GeneForTexas on Twitter, has already changed his bill in response to feedback he's heard from stakeholders. For example, during an April 8 committee hearing, Wu announced that he'd done away with the idea in his original bill for the normal old state bar card to fly attorneys through the metal detectors. His substitute version of the bill says that lawyers would apply for a special court access card with the State Bar of Texas, which would create an applicant-vetting committee, which would conduct criminal background checks on lawyers who want the easy-access cards.

This change, already, has made some attorney-tweeters much, much happier with the bill. One legal recruiter and law firm consultant, Charles Gillis, who goes by @7YearTrap on Twitter, hailed the update “a significant improvement.”

But others were not impressed, including appellate litigator Ryan Clinton of Austin, who's a former Texas assistant solicitor general and now shareholder at Davis, Gerald & Cremer.

“I've watched as a judge semi-secretly called for more security in the courtroom due to a lawyer's let's-just-say 'instability,' ” Clinton tweeted. “ So I'm opposed to any bill that would automatically exempt lawyers from security checks.”

We're interested in hearing from more people who have comments or concerns about HB 1359. Tweet your feedback to @AMorrisReports at this thread right here, and she will like and retweet witty comments.