Unless you happened to visit the Texas Capitol over the weekend, you may not fully appreciate just how busy things are right now with the regular legislative session set to wrap up a week from today.
Senate committees heard testimony on Sunday on several bills getting last-minute action in the waning days of the 89th session. On the House side, the chamber was in full session, bustling with unusually noisy activity, thanks in part to the number of representatives who’d brought in their kids and family members, presumably to get a first-hand civics lesson on the making of laws in Texas.
It was, to say the least, a fascinating spectacle to observe, especially with so much going on.
Blaise Gainey, who covers state politics for The Texas Newsroom, said there are still some priority items that have yet to pass both chambers.
“Senate Bill 6 has to do with setting up a more reliable power grid throughout the state,” he said. “Senate Bill 12 is the K-12 DEI ban, and Senate Bill 13 is the public school book ban – that’s what it’s summarized as – but it would stop obscene things from being available to children at public schools. Now exactly what defies obscene is what the big debate is over with that bill.”
On the House side, there is just as much up in the air.
“Technically the school funding bill hasn’t passed even though it is expected to pass early this week,” Gainey said. “There’s another one, the 10 commandments bill, hasn’t passed, the one that would put 10 commandments up in schools. Also the bail constitutional amendment, that has not passed. That’s a big bill. I believe the governor wants that. Lieutenant Governor [Dan] Patrick wants it. But my expectations, once again, are that it will pass. It just hasn’t at this time.”
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Gainey said he expects many of the outstanding priority bills to pass before the end of the session, along with any number of smaller bills addressing local issues.
“This late in the session … either you are waiting to see a big bill get passed, or you have a local project that you want to get passed,” he said. “These lawmakers, they tell people in their districts that they can do things, you know, that actually impact their homes. And so a lot of them want those local bills that they filed to get passed.”
For those bills that still have yet to make it through, many have to go through conference committees.
“That’s basically where leaders on both sides, most usually the chairs, and then also possibly the House speaker, get together and they talk about how a bill can be amended to better fit [each chamber’s] version,” Gainey said. “And then they ultimately come down to some middle ground and find something that they can both pass. And if they don’t, then the bill dies.”
Given this back-and-forth, Gainey said he’s expecting lawmakers to pull some late nights this week.
“The House has already said to expect to go to midnight tonight and tomorrow night,” he said. “On Tuesday, it’s the last day for the House to consider bills that originated in the Senate on their daily and supplemental calendar. So that means it just can’t be the first time that they’ve heard the bill. If they send it over to the House or back to the Senate and it’s getting amended, the Senate still can send it back over.
“But any of those first bills that they haven’t taken a stab at or a vote on, they’ll need to get done before Tuesday. So that’s why they’ll be staying late Monday night and late Tuesday night to try to get those done.”
