By Lauren Fairbanks and J Pete Laney
TAD Governmental Relations
With the final weeks of the 89th Legislative Session in focus, the sprint to Sine Die on June 2 is underway. The first of several major legislative deadlines have started to tick by. The May deadline calendar is complex, but it rules the proceedings for the remainder of the legislative session.
The Texas House rules clearly lay out the specific deadlines for when bills must be passed through the chamber. They are strictly enforced. Meanwhile, across the Capitol, the Texas Senate suspends its rules daily for in order to consider all legislation. The Senate has more flexibility for deadlines, but because of the nature of the House’s deadlines, the Senate has historically adhered to the House-imposed deadline for consideration of a bill in its originating chamber.
For example, you’ll see on the calendar that May 15, the 122nd day of the session, is the last day the House can consider House Bills. This also typically has been the last day the Senate considers Senate bills. Both chambers historically have worked until midnight on the 122nd day.
Each session, bills start getting backed up that week in particular, as the list of bills the House is planning to consider that day becomes longer and longer each day. When that list of bills grows too long to be considered as planned on a day, those bills are added to the top of the next day’s calendar. It is not uncommon for the House to still be debating a set calendar from earlier in the week when time expires on the 122nd day. When the clock strikes midnight on Thursday, May 15, all House bills (other than local/consent bills) that have not been considered by the House are effectively dead.
The same procedures are repeated for the House’s consideration of Senate Bills. That deadline is on the 134th day, Tuesday, May 27. This deadline is also the first of many for the final week of the 140-day legislative session, when Sine Die (the Latin term signifying adjournment without setting a day to reconvene) is in sight.
In the sprint to the finish, and as legislators’ priority bills start dying (ie, failing to make it to the next round), you will see them attempting to save those bills by adding them as amendments to other legislation.
Your TAD team at the Capitol is diligently working to ensure no major amendments are added that could have sweeping impacts to the dairy industry across the state. We look forward to reporting the final outcome of many measures being considered this session in a final Sine Die report in June’s Dairy Dispatch.
