Lens on the Legislature: The Special Session

Article 3, Section 5(a) of the Texas Constitution allows the Governor to convene special sessions and Section 40 states that "there shall be no legislation upon subjects other than those designated in the proclamation of the Governor calling such session, or presented to them by the Governor; and no such session shall be of longer duration than thirty days."

Of the 78 regular sessions of the Texas Legislature that have previously occurred, 54 have been followed by special sessions and 24 have not. The record was 6 special sessions in 1989-90. The longest stretch without a special session was the decade of the 73rd through the 77th sessions.

Governor Perry called the legislature back to town last week for the 1st Special Session of the 79th Legislature. His proclamation directed the legislature to consider legislation in 12 specific areas. Eleven of the areas relate to education and the 12th is to consider legislation that provides for local property tax rate compression and voter approval of local property tax rates.

In anticipation of the governor broadening the scope legislators have filed 131 bills through Wednesday evening. These bills span the gamut in terms of subject matter. The individual senate bills and house bills are available online and can be called up using many of the same inquiries as described in this column during the regular session. In addition, 85 resolutions have been introduced.

Many of these bills have already been referred to committees. The schedules of upcoming House committee hearings and Senate committee hearings are available online and many House committee hearings and Senate committee hearings can also be seen on the World Wide Web.

Because of the shortness of special sessions, the human tendency to deal with many more actions immediately prior to deadlines, and the likelihood that it will be another week or two (if ever) before the governor broadens the scope of designated subjects, there is a good possibility that the Texas Legislature will be an extremely busy place during the last ten days of the special session.

[Editor's Note: Past issues of Lens on the Legislature are available online]