Lens on the Legislature: Update on Some Previous Subjects

Last week's article was published on legislative day 60 and noted that a very large number of bills could be expected to be filed that day. In fact, 863 bills and resolutions were filed, which means that about 13% of all the bills and resolutions filed through that date were filed on that date. The following day only 42 resolutions (and no bills) were filed.

The January 28th Lens on the Legislature explained how to monitor specific legislation. A new feature has since been added: vote counts. Here are some ways the public can now check on legislative votes:

• Many of the inquiries given in the January 28th article will ultimately lead to the vote count. For instance, inquiring on a bill by number and then hitting "actions," will bring up a screen that includes a link to the votes within the list of actions.
• A new nominees confirmed link shows the nominees confirmed (and the vote) by date.
• House passage votes by Date and Senate passage votes by Date links are now available.

The February 18th Lens on the Legislature focused on Impact Statements. HB3 provides a great example. Using previously described inquiries, the reader will see that 6 of the 8 types of impact statements were prepared for this bill alone. It should also be noted that most were prepared for the bill as introduced and then revised to reflect the bill as actually passed by the house. This online inquiry also shows a new term not yet discussed in this column - engrossment.

The engrossing process is one of retyping a bill to include all amendments, typographic error corrections, etc. House Rule 2, Section 1(a)(9), for example, instructs the chief clerk that all engrossed documents "shall be prepared without erasures, interlineations, or additions in the margins." A bill is said to be engrossed when it has been passed by the chamber in which it was filed and all amendments to the bill have been incorporated into the text of the bill. The engrossed bill is then forwarded to the second house for consideration. In this example, the engrossed version of HB3 is the version that ultimately passed the House and was sent to the Senate.

The March 4th Lens on the Legislature noted the resolutions designating various things as "the official XYZ of Texas." Add to that list HCR 93 designating Schulenburg the Official Home of Painted Churches, HCR 98 designating pan de campo as the Official State Bread of Texas, HCR 108 designating the Blue Lacy as the official Dog Breed of Texas and HCR 115 designating June as Texas Picnic Month.

Now that legislative day 60 has passed, virtually all new bills have been introduced. A few have gone through the committee process and then been passed by their originating chambers. Future Lens on the Legislature articles will explain the process as the successful bills move to the other chambers, then often to conference committees, and on to enrollment.