1. The Texas Legislature
Chapter Eight

2. Legislative Framework
Like the U.S. Congress, the Texas Legislature is responsible for bringing the interest and concerns of their constituents directly into the political process.
Bicameralism
Texas has a bicameral legislature like the U.S.
150 House Members (2-year terms): represents 168,000 people
31 Senators (4-year terms): represents 811,000 people
Meet for 140 days every odd-numbered year
The author of a bill has the option of accepting or rejecting the amendments to a bill.
Bicameralism allows a member of one legislative body to retaliate against a member of either body for not cooperating on legislation.
Membership
Senator: 26, U.S. citizen, qualified voter, resident of state for 5 years and district for 1 year
House Member: 21, U.S. citizen, qualified voter, resident of state for 2 years district for 1 year.

3. Legislative Framework cont’d
In Texas, the typical legislator is white, male, Protestant, college educated and affluent and has a professional or business occupation.
About 1/3 are attorneys: offers flexibility that legislators need.
Republicans control both houses of the Texas Legislature.
In 2015, there were 11 Ds and 20 Rs in the Senate and 52 Ds and 98 Rs in the House.
They earn $7200 a year and $150/day when the legislature is in session.
They can also claim 12 days (16 if on a committee) of payment if they are in official state business (they decide themselves what is official business!)
Do you think the legislators salaries are closely monitored?
Texas Ethics Commission
Should the legislature reflect the population in Texas- why or why not?

4. districting
Redistricting: the process of redrawing election districts and redistributing legislative representatives in the Texas House, Texas Senate, and U.S. House; this usually happens every 10 years to reflect shifts in population or in response to legal challenges in existing districts.
One-person, one-vote: all districts should have roughly equal populations.
Is it important that the legislature reflect the populations?
In which ways?

6. Sessions of the legislature
Texas legislature meets every two years unless the Governor calls a special session.
In what kinds of situation would the Governor call a special session?
Sessions of the Legislature
Regular Sessions: the 140-day period, occurring every odd-numbered years, during which the TX legislature meets to consider and pass bills.
The nature of the legislative session comes from the idea that short, biennial sessions would limit the power of the legislature.
Special Sessions: a session called by the governor that addresses an agenda set by him or her and that lasts no longer than 30 days.
Gives the governor control over which issues are discussed and which bills are passed.
Once the special session begins, the governor can open it to different issues.
Sometimes the governor bargains for a legislator’s vote in return for adding an issues.

7. Legislative Organization
Presiding Officers
President of the Senate: The Lieutenant Governor
Speaker of the House
Committee System
House Committees
Senate Committees
Legislative Caucuses
Party Caucuses
Racial/Ethnic Caucus
Ideological Caucuses
Bipartisan Caucuses

8. Legislative Operations
Legislative powers consist of passing bills and resolutions. Nonlegislative powers are those functions falling outside of the lawmaking function.
Legislative Powers
Bill: customary for a bill to be introduced in either House or Senate today to save time.
Revenue bills must begin in the house.
In TX, we have local bills, special bills and general bills.
What is the difference between these three?
Resolutions: an expression of an opinion on an issue by a legislative body.
Three types: concurrent resolution, joint resolution, and simple resolution.
Concurrent: Interest in both chambers, pass both chambers, generally requires governor’s signature.
Joint: Must pass both chambers, governor’s signature not required.
Simple: only concerns Senate/House, governor’s signature not required.

9. Legislative Operations cont’d
Nonlegislative Powers
Includes the power to serve constituents, electoral powers, investigative powers, directive and supervisory powers, and judicial powers.
Constituents: a person living in the district from which an official is elected.
Judicial Power includes the power for the House to impeach and the Senate to convict members of the executive and judicial braches of state government.
TX Constitution does not decide what is an impeachable offense.
Each body can compel attendance at a regular and special session.

10. How a Bill becomes a Law in Texas
Anyone can write a bill, but only a members of the legislature can introduce a bill.
What does this mean?
Six Steps:
Introduction
Referral
Consideration by Standing Committee
Floor Action
These steps are then repeated in the Senate
Conference committee action and approved by both houses
Action by the governor

12. How a Bill becomes a Law in Texas cont’d
Filibuster: a tactic used by members of the Senate to prevent action on legislation they oppose by continuously holding the floor and speaking until the majority backs down. Once given the floor, senators have unlimited time to speak as long as they follow Senate rules, and it requires a vote from 3/5 of the Senate to end a filibuster.
The Governor
The governor can either sign or veto the bill.
Veto can be overridden by 2/3 vote of both the House and the Senate.
TX governor does not have pocket veto power like the President.
Post-adjournment veto: veto that occurs after legislature adjourns, preventing it from overriding the legislation.
Line-item veto: power of the executive branch to veto specifics parts of an appropriations bill passed by the legislature.

13. Additional players in the legislative process
The Comptroller of Public Accounts: issues revenue estimates to inform the legislature of the amount of money it can spend in the next 2 years.
Very political, they can give the legislature a low estimate until they pass a bill that the comptroller wants.
The Media: determines issues of importance with the stories it covers. Ex. Stories on crimes > crime will move up on legislative agenda, same with issues like education, corporate fraud, immigration etc.
The Courts: ability to rule acts as being unconstitutional is what gives the courts power (interpret the law). Ex. Criminal justice and education issues.
Lobbyists: convince legislators to support the interest the lobbyist represents.
The Public: a legislature who fails to live up to expectations may not be re- elected.