Lens on the Legislature: It's Over (almost)!

Monday was the 140th day of the 79th Regular Session of the Texas Legislature and by early evening both chambers adjourned sine die. Sine die is Latin for "without day." In other words, they adjourned without setting a date for meeting again, in keeping with the constitutional requirement that the session last only 140 days.

876 House Bills and 513 Senate Bills were enrolled and sent to the governor. So far, the governor has signed 263 and vetoed none. As explained in the April 8th Lens on the Legislature, the governor has until Sunday, June 19th to sign or veto bills. If he does neither, they become law without his signature.

Should gubernatorial vetoes be expected? Reasonably good records exist back to the 12th Session in 1871 and in every session at least one bill was vetoed. The current governor vetoed 51 bills in the 78th Regular Session and 82 bills in the 77th Regular Session. The average for the preceding ten regular sessions was 36. These numbers include appropriations bills when the governor exercised his or her authority to veto line items in those bills.

The governor's authority to veto line items in appropriations bills is granted in Article 4, Section 14 of the Texas Constitution. This authority can mean more than trimming money from programs. Following the 78th Regular Session (2003), the governor used a line item veto to totally eliminate a number of small state agencies (Aircraft Pooling Board, Telecommunications Infrastructure Fund Board, Texas Wildlife Damage Management Service, Criminal Justice Policy Council, Texas Council on Environmental Technology, and Research and Oversight Council on Workers' Compensation).

How can one tell what has passed? If you have the bill number or have the time to look through hundreds of bills, the following online inquiries can be used:

Most readers will have a specific subject area in mind, however. The best way to see what bills have been enrolled in that area is to use the text search, click house, senate, bills, enrolled and bill text, and type in a subject such as "procurement." Using "procurement" as an example, 23 enrolled house bills and 12 enrolled senate bills relate to that subject in some way and are listed by this inquiry. Many relate to the subject in a minor way while others, such as HB1516 make significant changes to procurement processes. Of course, each of these bills must still be acted on by the governor, so the online inquiries in the preceding paragraph will still be important.

Next week's Lens on the Legislature will focus on specific bills. Subsequent articles will also discuss important resolutions, such as those related to amending the constitution.