Texas’s 140 day legislative session consists of three overlapping “seasons.” Bill filing season spans the first sixty days. Committee hearing season dominates March and early April. Finally, the season of floor action becomes the focus of the final days. This week, marks a change in the seasons as the bill filing period just ended and committees have full agendas.
The Texas Constitution sets the 60th day of a legislative session as the bill filing deadline, which fell on Friday, March 12th this year. Despite the challenges of COVID and SNOVID, the House and Senate have filed roughly the same number of bills as last time. Roughly 1900 of those bills were filed on the last three days of last week. Stated another way, around one out of every four bills filed this session was filed in the last three days.
Lawmakers, staff, and interest groups juggled bill filing and the beginning of committee hearings last week. Normally, the first week of committees hearing actual legislation is a “warm up” week for a variety of reasons. Often, this first week falls on the bill filing deadline. Also, the committee likes to move “easy” bills that are “worked out,” and most legislation is still being worked on. Finally, a small agenda gives committee staff a chance to learn or relearn the arcane rules applicable to committees. Last week was no different. This week, however, committees have posted notices with agendas full of legislation.
With less than 80 days left in the legislative session, time is of the essence. The bills heard in these next few weeks have the best chance of passing, statistically speaking. Therefore it is critical to get good bills moving and slow up bad bills unless they can be remedied through amendment.