House Bill 89, by Rep. Jaime Capelo, D-Corpus Christi, was left pending in the House Public Health Committee, which Capelo chairs. The bill retains the right of parents to refuse school-required vaccinations and bars schools from refusing admission to those children.

The conscientious, or philosophical, objection was added to medical and religious grounds as part of an omnibus health reorganization measure that passed during the recent regular session.

Even if the bill makes it out of committee, the only way it then could pass would be for Gov. Rick Perry to add it to the list of issues - the call - he wants considered during the special session, said Kathy Walt, the governor's spokeswoman.

"There hasn't been a decision to open the call to that issue," she said.

But the lawmaker who sponsored the conscientious objection measure, Rep. Arlene Wohlgemuth, R-Burleson, said, "I would be surprised if at this late date whether anything else is added to the call. I'm personally not expecting it to be added to the call."

And while Dawn Richardson, president of Parents Requesting Open Vaccine Education and an advocate for keeping the measure in place, isn't taking the committee's action for granted, she agreed with Wohlgemuth that the bill is in trouble.

"There's a lot of variables here," she said. "Nothing's a sure thing right now."

The bill staying in the committee may be because Capelo isn't able to reconvene the panel or he lacks the votes to get the measure out of committee.

Capelo didn't return a call to the Globe-News.

"There's not a lot of committee support for it," Richardson said of the HB 89.