the resulting legislation, saying it disproportionately affected voters of color and people with disabilities. In July 2021, Democratic lawmakers in the Texas legislature fled the state on a chartered flight to Washington, D.C. in an effort to block the passage of a bill that would reform the state election procedures. Abbott threatened to have the lawmakers arrested upon their return to Texas. In August, the Supreme Court of Texas made a ruling allowing for the arrest of the absent lawmakers, so they could be brought to the state capitol. In October 2021, Abbott appointed John Scott as Texas Secretary of State, putting him in a position to oversee Texas elections. Scott aided Trump in his failed efforts to throw out election results in the 2020 presidential election. LGBT rights In 2014, Abbott defended Texas's ban on same-sex marriage, which a federal court ruled unconstitutional. As attorney general of Texas, he argued that the prohibition on same-sex marriage incentivized that children would be born "in the context of stable, lasting relationships." Abbott condemned Obergefell v. Hodges, the Supreme Court ruling that same-sex marriage bans are unconstitutional. He said, "the Supreme Court has abandoned its role as an impartial judicial arbiter." Shortly thereafter, Abbott filed a lawsuit to stop same-sex spouses of city employees from being covered by benefit policies. In a letter dated May 27, 2017, the CEOs of 14 large technology companies, including Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, and Amazon, urged Abbott not to pass what came to be known as the "bathroom bill": legislation requiring people to use the bathroom of the sex listed on their birth certificates, not the one of their choice. The bill was revived by Abbott and supported by Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick. In March 2018, Byron Cook, the chairman of the House State Affairs committee who blocked the bill, claimed that Abbott privately opposed the bill. The bill was never signed; Abbott later said, "it's not on my agenda" in a debate with Lupe Valdez, the Democratic nominee for governor in 2018. In 2017, Abbott signed legislation to allow taxpayer-funded adoption agencies to refuse same-sex families from adopting children for religious reasons. In 2021, a Republican primary challenger criticized Abbott because Texas’s child welfare agency included content regarding LGBTQ youths. Shortly thereafter, the agency, whose members Abbott appoints, removed the webpage that included a suicide prevention hotline and other resources for LGBT youths. In 2022, Abbott