The House will reconvene today at 2 p.m.
The Senate will reconvene today at 1 p.m.
Video Broadcasts: House | Senate
House and Senate Overview
Both the House and Senate faced imminent calendar deadlines for May 24. House members citing angst regarding the Senate not referring their bills to committee voiced their lack of support for Senate bills on the Local and Consent calendar yesterday. However, after further deliberations, the House Local calendar was taken up and many of the bills were passed.
The Senate adjourned at 2:30 a.m. this morning and passed their Local calendar as well as many House bills from the Intent Calendar.
As the House and Senate get their bills back and decide if they are going to concur with the other chamber’s amendments or go to conference, the end of session deadlines will have an impact on these decisions. Amendments can provide technical or clarifying corrections or make other language changes. During this time frame, a bill may be resurrected as an amendment. For example, during the Senate deliberations yesterday, almost 100 adopted amendments on bills passed out of the chamber had language as previous stand-alone bills.
Analysis of bill statistics between the 133rd day of the 85th Session compared to the 84th illustrates that although more bills were filed this legislative session, less have passed and less than half the number of bills were signed by the Governor as compared from last session. More details on comparing bill statistics on 133rd day can be found on the site of the Texas Legislative Reference Library.
End of Session Deadlines
Friday, May 26 – last day for the House to act on Senate amendments
Friday, May 27 – ALL conference committee reports (CCR) in the House must be distributed by midnight
Sunday, May 28 – Last day for the House to adopt CCRs or discharge House conferees and concur in Senate amendments & last day for Senate to concur in House amendments or adopt CCRs
Monday, May 29/Sine Die – Corrections only in House and Senate
Bills on the Move Spotlight
HB 22 (Huberty/Taylor), relating to A-F public school accountability, was passed out of the Senate early in the morning on 5/25 with 11 adopted amendments (29-2). The bill establishes 4 domains for the rating – Student Achievement, School Performance, School Climate, and Closing the Gaps. The House can either concur or move to go to conference committee to work out the differences.
HB 273(Gonzales/Campbell), relating to the content of local and state propositions on the ballot, has been passed out of the Senate with one adopted amendment and is on the House Items Eligible Calendar today.
SCR 56 (Watson), requesting the lieutenant governor and the speaker of the house of representatives to create a joint interim committee to examine all state open-government laws was passed out of the Senate unanimously on 5/24.
HB 515 (VanDeaver/Taylor), relating to eliminating certain state-required assessment instruments and certain end-of-course assessment instruments not required by federal law, was unanimously passed out of the Senate as substituted on 5/24.
HB 2377(Larson/Perry), relating to the development of brackish groundwater, was unanimously passed out of the Senate with one adopted floor amendment on 5/24.
HB 1081 (Arevalo/Watson), relating to the new instructional facility allotment under the foundation school program was passed out of the Senate as substituted (29-2) on 5/24 and has been placed on the House Items Eligible Calendar.
HB 2561 (Thompson/Taylor), relating to the continuation and functions of the Texas State Board of Pharmacy, was passed out of the Senate as substituted with 7 adopted floor amendments on 5/24 (26-5).
