Strategic Partnerships, Inc.
Strategic Partnerships, Inc.
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As described in earlier Lens on the Legislature articles, a regular session of the Texas Legislature runs for 140 days and the last day of the current session will be May 30th. Therefore, today is Day 116.
The March 11th article noted that humans are often driven by deadlines and described sharp increase in bills filed as Day 60 approached. The same phenomenon will be occurring this month as other deadlines approach. A list of these deadlines and the House Rules and Senate Rules to which they refer are all available online.
These deadlines all refer to floor actions. The question often arises about the deadline for a bill to be reported out of committee. Article 3, Section 37 of the Texas Constitution requires that a bill may not pass unless it was referred to and reported by a committee of either house before the final three days of the session. Beyond that, Senate Rule 7.24 precludes the Senate from passing any bill reported from Senate committee during the final three days of the session. The real end of session deadlines, however, are driven by house rules. The house requirement for committee reports to go to the Calendars Committee and for the daily calendar to be distributed 36 hours in advance of floor consideration on second reading means that bills must be reported out of committee at least three days before any of the second reading deadlines. Practically speaking then, these committee deadlines begin kicking in this weekend for various types of bills.
The curious reader may wonder how much increase in activity will be seen as these deadlines approach. History may shed some insight. On average for the last four regular sessions 3701 house bills and 1915 senate bills were introduced. Note that resolutions are not included in this count. So far in this session, 3590 house bills and 1883 senate bills have been filed, which means it is a typical session. If we assume that the passage rate would also be typical, then we would expect about 935 house bills and 625 senate bills to pass both chambers and be sent to the governor. To date, only 17 house bills and 42 senate bills have completed that journey. Much remains to be done!
Many are struck by the seemingly small percentage of bills that are passed. Such an observation can be misleading, however. Apart from the fact that some bills simply don't pass, other factors that affect this percentage are:
With just slightly more than three weeks remaining in the 79th Regular Session, the success of this session will largely be determined by what occurs between now and May 30th. As more bills become signed into law, the focus of this column will change from an explanation of legislative process to a reporting of new laws.