Last week, committees accelerated to full speed. With the bill filing deadline in the rearview mirror, committees met in-person all day with long agendas, and posted even fuller agendas for this week.
Now that bill filing has ended, the final numbers are clear. The 87th Legislature filed 6,919 bills compared to 7,281 in the 86th. The total number of bills filed is the third highest according to the Legislative Reference Library. The House filed only 45 fewer bills than in 2019, and the Senate filed 317 fewer bills. The bottom line is that COVID-19 has made many things unusual about the 87th, but the volume of bills that were filed is not one of those things.
On Monday of last week, the Senate showed how quick it can move when it wants to. On Monday, the Senate suspended every necessary rule in order to file, hear in committee, and finally pass on the floor SB 2141 which would “correct” the billing “errors” at ERCOT related to the wholesale price for electricity which stayed at its maximum price for several days during the outages.
Speed is not the key to public policy, and serious questions remain. For example, it depends on who is asked as to whether ERCOT made a billing “error” or a “choice” in order to get electric generation back online. Additionally, there is disagreement about what the cost of that error or choice is. The range of possibilities varies from $3.2 billion to $16 billion. Finally, there is disagreement about which consumers or generators would benefit or be harmed by SB 2141 if the billing “error” was “corrected.” The Texas House pumped the brakes on the legislation, and finger-pointing ensued.
On Thursday, Texas Impact supported a bill that would expand mail-in ballot tracking and testified in opposition to a bill that would eliminate a voter’s ability to hand deliver a mail-in ballot in the House Elections Committee. A top priority for Texas Impact, HB 1382 by Rep. Bucy would create an electronic tracking system to track the status of an application to vote by mail, as well as the status of the mail-in ballot. Texas already makes this available to military and overseas voters, voters are used to being able to do this with packages, and bar codes and tracking enhance voter confidence and the security of an election.
In the same hearing, Texas Impact opposed HB 1725 by Rep. Paul, which would prohibit a voter from delivering in-person that voter’s mail-in ballot to the county. HB 1725 would eliminate an important safeguard in case a snafu happens at the county or the U.S. Postal Service. During the hearing, the Texas House’s broadcast failed and no video is available. However, the Dallas Morning News covered the story, and quoted our testimony that said “House Bill 1725 would make it harder on voters and polling locations by removing an otherwise valid and secure option, you have to have your photo ID. It is not necessary and is a solution in search of a problem.”