State Senators voted Tuesday to overturn Gov. John Bel Edwards' veto on legislation that would ban transgender girls from competing on girls sports teams. The vote came on the first day of a historic veto session.
Senator Gerald Boudreaux told KATC's Katie Easter that the bill passed with the exact amount of votes needed to head to the House of Representatives. It's the only bill seen Tuesday that will move on.
"I think it'll be a close vote in the House just like it was the Senate. Hopefully more understanding of what it does will come out in the next day," said Boudreaux.
The senator says he's against the bill.
"I'm confident the LSHAA policies that are in place protect the females that are participating in sports today," he stated, adding that the transgender bill may block future sporting events coming to the state.
"There are some things in the bills that organizations have said that it is discriminatory and they have problems with it. So hopefully we can come to a point where we can correct that and don't lose support of the sporting events."
In the House chambers, Beau Beaullieu voted 'yes' for the bill back in May.
"I'm going to be standing with the votes I made during the regular session," he said. "If a bill comes up to be overridden and I was in support of it, I'm going to continue to support that bill."
Earlier Tuesday morning, a small group of protesters disrupted the first day of the veto session inside the Senate chambers. They were voicing their concern with the efforts to overturn the bill dealing with transgender athletes.
The protesters were escorted out of the chambers, and one person we spoke with said they felt violated as they were escorted out.
"I really didn't appreciate the way they were touching some of us," said Toni Jones with Real Name Campaign NOLA. "I felt they were being unprofessional, definitely not what you would expect from police at the capitol."
Video posted on Facebook shows the exact moment the group advocating for transgender rights, chanting "Senate Bill 156 has got to go" were removed from inside the Senate chambers.
"They put their hands on us, physically moved us, but we're still here," added Jones.
"It was a short outbreak, but we were able to get back to debating the bills," Senator Boudreaux said of the disruption.
Boudreaux explained that there are rules in place preventing applauding during session. The protesters remained outside on the Capitol steps while the vetoed transgender bill was overturned, passing 26 to 12, and handed off to the House of Representatives.
"We're out here to hopefully convince these democrats that should be progressing with us to not abandon us. We'll keep pushing throughout the entire session," said Jones.
The session will continue in the House of Representatives Wednesday at 1 p.m.
READ MORE: Louisiana Senate backs transgender sports ban veto override
See the votes: La. Senate fails to override veto of gun bill
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