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You may have heard the terms "legislative day" and "calendar day" used fairly regularly over the past few months and wondered: what exactly is the difference between the two and how do they relate to the legislative process? 

 

A calendar day is a day of the year on which the legislature may be in session, regardless of whether either the house or senate actually meet, while a legislative day is the period between the convening of the legislature and the next adjournment. To fully understand what this means and how a legislative day interacts with a calendar day, you need to be familiar with the terms "recess" and "adjournment". 

 

Recess is a break of a meeting that temporarily pauses the legislative day. Conversely, adjournment is the termination of a meeting that officially ends that legislative day. For example, the house or senate may start a daily legislative session in the morning, recess for other legislative business, and adjourn that same evening, completing a legislative day on the same calendar day. If an adjournment occurs after midnight, the legislative day will span two calendar days. Alternatively, they may recess at the end of a day rather than adjourn, thus causing the legislative day to continue at the next meeting, whether that be later that same calendar day, the following calendar day, or several calendar days later. 

 

There are many rules associated with specific calendar days and legislative days; the adopted rules for the house and senate specify which type of day is applicable. For example, both chambers limit the introduction of bills after the first 60 calendar days of the regular session.

 

 A significant requirement related to legislative days is found in the Texas Constitution which requires a bill to be read on three separate legislative days in each chamber before it can become law. More than one legislative day can be completed on a single calendar day if the members agree to adjourn the meeting midday and start a new legislative day before the close of the calendar day. This is generally done with non-controversial bills such as those on the local and consent or local and uncontested calendars. This maneuver allows bills to move through the legislative process much faster, while still complying with constitutional requirements and the rules of the house and senate. Both the calendar day and the legislative day are noted in each day's journal.

 

As the 85th Regular Session comes to a close, keep these legislative terms in mind as you follow the house and senate as they carry out the business of Texas.

 

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Please note that this post addresses amendments offered during committee or floor consideration.

What is an amendment?

An amendment is a change to a bill or resolution that is proposed either during committee or floor consideration.

During committee consideration of a bill, amendments can be offered by a member of that committee, whereas any member can offer amendments to a bill during floor consideration.

When can bills and resolutions be amended?

A floor amendment can be offered during second reading or third reading consideration of a bill. During the second reading of a bill, each amendment must be approved by a majority of the members present and voting to be adopted. However, a vote of two-thirds of the members present is required to adopt an amendment during the third reading of a bill.

Like floor amendments, a committee amendment must also be approved by majority vote of the chamber in which the bill is pending. A committee amendment is laid out and subject to debate on the chamber floor during the second reading consideration of the bill.

Where can I find information about amendments?

For amendments to current or recent legislation, use the Amendment Search on the Texas Legislature Online (TLO). This search tool allows you to use the following parameters to narrow your search results:

The "Amendment Search" engine on TLO is located under the "Search" tab.

The ability to search for text within an amendment is particularly useful to see if language from one bill has been added by an amendment to another bill.

An explanation of the columns of information in the "Amendments" tab is provided above.

The "Amendments" tab in TLO contains more information about amendments, including the author of the amendment, amendment type, action, date the amendment was proposed, and link(s) to the amendment text.

The Current Amendment feature on TLO displays the text of amendments as they are considered on the House floor. 

If you are conducting historical research about a bill, use the Legislative Archive System database and the collection of scanned House and Senate Journals to look for amendment-related information. Bill files, which can be found under the "Text" tab, contain adopted amendments, while journals contain all proposed amendments.

When using the Legislative Archive System, the bill file is located under the "Text" tab.

More information about amendments can be found in the following resources:

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