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Bill Filing Deadline Statistics

Mar 17

posted by TexasLRL in Bill statistics, 84th Session, Legislative process

Friday marked the bill filing deadline for the 84th Regular Session. When the deadline had passed, a total of 6,305 bills and joint resolutions had been filed. How does this compare to previous sessions?

 

This entry was posted on March 17, 2015 at 5:19 PM and has received 2023 views. Print this entry.

Bill Statistics at the 45th Day of Session

Feb 27

posted by TexasLRL in Legislation, Bill statistics, 84th Session, Legislative process

Yesterday marked the 45th day of the 84th Regular Session. That means we're 3/4 of the way to the 60-day bill filing deadline, which is Friday, March 13, 2015. For those who are curious, here is a look at bill statistics in comparison to a similar period last session.

 

Bills and Joint Resolutions
83rd Regular Session

(Nov. 12, 2012-Feb. 21, 2013)
84th Regular Session

(Nov. 10, 2014-Feb. 26, 2015)
House filed 1,733 2,057
Senate filed 743 834
Total filed 2,476 2,891
House referred to committee 1,188 837
Senate referred to committee 588 721
Total referred to committee 1,776 1,558
House scheduled for hearing 30 25
Senate scheduled for hearing 82 24
Total scheduled for hearing 112 49
House reported out of committee 1 2
Senate reported out of committee 33 5
Total reported out of committee 34 7

 

This entry was posted on February 27, 2015 at 10:12 AM and has received 2062 views. Print this entry.

Guides to the Texas Legislature

Feb 3

posted by TexasLRL in 84th Session, Legislative process

This post includes a list of guides published by Texas legislative agencies to assist you in following the legislative process. These guides will help you track and read a bill, understand the terminology used in the Texas Legislature, learn about issues facing the Legislature, and much more.

 

Guide to Texas Legislative Information, prepared by the Research Division of the Texas Legislative Council for the 84th Legislature (2014).
"The purpose of this publication is to help legislators, other state officials and employees, and interested citizens in researching the work of past legislatures and in tracking the work of the current legislature."

Issues Facing the 84th Texas Legislature, prepared by the Texas Senate Research Center (2015).

"[This report] is intended to serve as a reference guide to issues facing the 84th Legislature. It is not a comprehensive list of issues, but rather an outline of broad categories and topics of concern that have arisen during the interim."

Research Spotlight: Legislative Lexicon, prepared by the Texas Senate Research Center (2015).
"[This publication] provides users with clear definitions of many of the words, terms, and phrases used in the Legislature."

Reading Statutes and Bills, prepared by the Research Division of the Texas Legislative Council (2014).
"The purpose of this publication is to provide a basic overview of Texas statutes and bills and tips for how best to read and understand them."

Topics for the 84th Legislature, by House Research Organization (2014).
"This report highlights many, although by no means all, of the issues the 84th Legislature may consider during its 2015 regular session."

 

 

This entry was posted on February 3, 2015 at 1:27 PM and has received 2214 views. Print this entry.

Sunset Commission Meeting, January 14th

Jan 7

posted by TexasLRL in Legislative process

 

This entry was posted on January 7, 2015 at 8:29 AM and has received 771 views. Print this entry.

Lingo in the Texas Legislature

Nov 19

posted by TexasLRL in Legislative process

Not unlike other communities, members of the Texas Legislature use their own set of specialized lingo in their dealings with each other.  If you've never heard them before, these often colorful words and phrases can be confusing when encountered in a legislative context. With the 84th Regular Session right around the corner, we thought it would be a good time to define some of the legislative lingo frequently used in the Texas Capitol.
 
The following definitions are taken from the book Texas Politics and Government. For more serious glossaries of the legislative lexicon in Texas, see this helpful guide by the Senate Research Center, and the appendix in The Texas Legislative Council’s Guide to Texas Legislative Information.
 
Gutting:
Amending a bill in committee or on the floor in such a way that it severely weakens the bill or changes its original purpose.
 
Keying:
Watching another legislator to see which way he or she is voting before deciding how to vote. Floor leaders extend an arm with one finger held high to indicate that followers should vote "aye" or with two fingers held high to indicate that followers should vote "nay."
 
Logrolling:
Supporting and voting for another member's bill (especially a "local" bill affecting only the author's district) with the assumption that he or she will then support you when you have a bill coming up.
 
Pork barrel:
Appropriations of money to a project in a single legislative district.
 
Sine Die:
Legislators use this Latin phrase to describe the 140th day (the last day) of a regular legislative session. Means literally "without day."
 
That dog won't hunt:
A debating point suggesting that the legislator does not believe another member's argument.
 
Members of the Texas Legislature demonstrating the act of 'keying.'
From left to right: Representatives Menton Murray, Tom Uher and Dean Cobb demonstrating the act of "keying."
 

This entry was posted on November 19, 2014 at 10:51 AM and has received 2669 views. Print this entry.

Bill Prefiling: FAQs

Nov 4

posted by TexasLRL in Legislative process

Prefiling is the filing of bills and resolutions before the regular legislative session convenes. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, prefiling increases the efficiency of the legislative process by allowing more time to draft legislation, and by allowing leadership more time to review bills prior to committee referral. Prefiling in Texas occurs the first Monday after the general election in even-numbered years. Below are answers to frequently asked questions about prefiling.

 

Who can prefile legislation?

Returning members and members-elect of the upcoming legislative session may prefile bills. 

 

Can members of the public prefile legislation?

Not directly, but members of the public are free to contact their representative to discuss the possibility of the representative authoring a bill on a particular issue. For more information, please view the Citizen Handbook: How the Texas Legislature Works.

 

Is there a limit to how many bills a member can prefile?

There is no stated limit in the House or Senate rules.

 

How do you view prefiled bills?

  • If you are looking for a specific bill number, you can look it up on the Texas Legislature Online (TLO).
  • You can also view a list of bills filed each day by selecting "Today's Filed Bills" from the TLO General Reports section.
  • If you are looking for prefiled bills on a specific subject, the TLO Bill Search page allows you to select from a range of subject codes. 
  • If you need assistance locating prefiled bills, please call the Texas Legislative Reference Library at (512) 463-1252.

What happens to prefiled bills?

Bills are filed with the Chief Clerk in the House and the Calendar Clerk in the Senate, and are made publicly available via the Texas Legislature Online.

 

What role does the library have during prefiling?

In addition to answering research requests, library staff creates the TLO/TLIS record for every legislative measure. In addition, library staff reviews each bill and enters its proposed statutory changes into Index to Sections Affected (ISAF), assigns subject codes to each bill to enable better searching, and checks to see if companion measures were filed in the opposite chamber. We continue this process for each bill as it moves through the legislative process. 

 

 

This entry was posted on November 4, 2014 at 8:26 AM and has received 11315 views. Print this entry.

Update on SB 5 TLO actions

Jun 26

posted by TexasLRL in Legislative process

Actions taken by either house on a bill are entered and updated in the Texas Legislature Online system (TLO) manually by Legislative Reference Library (LRL) staff, and for that reason there is a delay between the time the action takes place and the time the action is entered into TLO.  TLO is not the official record of those actions, and LRL enters actions on TLO as a public service independently of the officers of the house or senate.  
 
The LRL strives to ensure the information in TLO is timely and accurate, and as part of our normal business process, the LRL ultimately verifies actions posted in TLO against the official journals of the senate and house.  TLO actions should be considered preliminary until verified against official senate and house records. When the senate took its final actions on SB 5, the LRL floor staff was unable to hear the motions made or the result of votes taken.  After midnight the LRL floor staff confirmed that a vote was taken on the motion to concur in house amendments and that the motion prevailed. The system used to enter actions for TLO defaults to the current date, so when the concurrence action was initially entered, the system automatically entered 06/26/13.
 
In reviewing the actions initially entered by LRL staff, and based on our best understanding at that time that a vote was taken on the motion to concur, we modified the date of the action to 06/25/13.  During or after the senate's deliberations on SB5, LRL did not enter or alter any information on TLO at the direction of any senate officer or member.
 
After confirming the date of the final vote on SB5 to have been 06/25/2013, the LRL has now corrected the entry on TLO to reflect the official record.  
 

This entry was posted on June 26, 2013 at 5:12 PM and has received 8301 views. Print this entry.

83rd Regular Session Wrap-Up

Jun 26

posted by TexasLRL in Legislation, Bill statistics, 83rd Session, Legislative process

House and Senate Bills
Filed 5,868
Sent to the Governor 1,437
Signed by the Governor 1,395
Signed by the Governor/line item veto 2
Vetoed by the Governor 26
Filed without the Governor's signature 14
Sent to the Comptroller 5
Joint Resolutions
Filed 193
Filed with the Secretary of State 10
Concurrent Resolutions
Filed 256
Sent to the Governor 176
Signed by the Governor 176

Bill statistics:
Midnight, June 16 was the last day the governor could sign, veto, or allow to become law without his signature bills passed during the 83rd Regular Session. When the deadline had passed, the governor had vetoed 26 bills (not including the line-item vetoes on SB 1, the General Appropriations Act, and HB 1025, a supplemental appropriations bill), signed 1,573 bills and concurrent resolutions and filed 14 bills without his signature. Joint resolutions that passed both chambers of the Legislature were filed with the Secretary of State, and will be on the ballot for the November 5, 2013, general election.

Vetoed bills:
Texas Constitution, Article IV, Section 14 states that if the governor vetoes a bill after the session has adjourned, he or she is required to give notice in the form of a proclamation. The library has compiled veto proclamations issued by Governor Perry for the 83rd Regular Session and made them available here.

Effective dates:
The library reviews the text of all bills that become law to determine their effective dates, and enters the information into the Texas Legislature Online. To find the effective date of a bill, check the "Last action" field on the bill's main page. In some cases, different sections of a bill may have different effective dates, in which case additional remarks will be given to provide the information.

In addition to updating the Texas Legislature Online with effective date information, the library compiles a list of bills and their effective dates following each regular and called session. The list is made available on the library's website once it is complete.

Signed copies of bills:
Bills that the Governor signed or allowed to become law without his signature are sent to the Secretary of State’s office, where they are made available online on the Bills and Resolutions page.

You can determine whether a bill sent to the Governor was signed or filed without signature by checking the bill in the Texas Legislature Online. If the bill passed but was filed without signature, you will see the action "Filed without the Governor's signature."

Session law chapter numbers:
The Secretary of State’s Bills and Resolutions page also lists the session law chapter number that is assigned to each bill that has become law. The session laws contain the text of all bills passed into law during a particular legislative session. Chapter numbers are used primarily for citing a bill in a legislative history annotation.

 

This entry was posted on June 26, 2013 at 8:03 AM and has received 1963 views. Print this entry.

Bills Signed, Vetoed, Or Filed Without Signature, June 10

Jun 10

posted by TexasLRL in Legislation, Bill statistics, 83rd Session, Legislative process

Below are bill statistics as of 10:00 a.m. on June 10. Sunday, June 16 is the deadline for the Governor to sign or veto bills. For additional information on what happens to legislation filed during the 83rd Regular Session, please see our FAQ page.

 

This entry was posted on June 10, 2013 at 3:57 PM and has received 1543 views. Print this entry.

What's Next? Post-Regular Session FAQs

May 28

posted by TexasLRL in Legislation, Bill statistics, 83rd Session, Legislative process

After 140 days, the regular session of the 83rd Legislature adjourned sine die on May 27, 2013.  What's next for the thousands of pieces of legislation considered during the regular session?

How many bills were filed? How many passed?

The legislative statistics report from Texas Legislature Online shows 5,868 House and Senate bills were filed during the regular session of the 83rd Legislature; 1,437 bills passed. 

 

See our bill statistics page for more historical statistics.

 

If the Legislature passes a bill, does it become a law right away?

No. Under Article 4, Section 14 of the Texas Constitution, bills passed by the Legislature must be submitted to the Governor for approval. The Governor can sign a bill, veto it, line-item veto an appropriation, or allow a bill to become law without his signature.

 

How long does the Governor have to approve or veto legislation?
The Governor has twenty days after final adjournment to consider bills received in the final ten days (not counting Sundays) of the session. Sunday, June 16 is the last day the Governor can sign or veto legislation.

 

If the Governor approves a bill, when will it take effect?

The text of a bill may include effective date provisions requiring the bill to take effect immediately, to take effect on a specified day, or there may be no mention of an effective date. Different sections of a bill may have different effective dates.

 

According to Article III, Section 39 of the Texas Constitution, a bill cannot become effective until at least 90 days after the session ends unless the bill passes both chambers with a favorable vote by two-thirds of the members. 

 

Monday, August 26, 2013 is the 91st day following final adjournment; bills that do not specify an effective date and those that did not have the two-thirds vote necessary to take effect earlier will take effect on August 26.

 

If a bill received the votes necessary to become effective immediately, it will take effect on the date of the last action necessary for it to become law. This could be when the Governor signs it, when the Governor files it with the Secretary of State without approving or vetoing it, or when the time for the Governor to act expires, if the bill has not been approved or vetoed during that time.

 

Use Texas Legislature Online to track the status of bills.

 

What happens to bills that did not pass?

Bills that did not make it completely through the legislative process die with the end of the session and are not automatically reintroduced during the next session. 

 

What about other types of legislation?

Joint resolutions that propose amendments to the Texas Constitution do not require the approval of the Governor, and are filed with the Secretary of State. Proposed constitutional amendments are sent to the voters for approval or disapproval. 

 

The 83rd Legislature passed 6 joint resolutions proposing constitutional amendments. These proposed amendments will be on the ballot on November 5, 2013. 

 

Most concurrent resolutions must be sent to the Governor for approval. The Governor must approve a concurrent resolution for it to take effect. 

 

Simple resolutions are passed by only one chamber of the Legislature, and do not require the Governor's approval.

 

This entry was posted on May 28, 2013 at 9:21 AM and has received 6758 views. Print this entry.

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