THE TEXAS
LEGISLATURE
Introduction
• Texas has the highest homeowner insurance rates in the
country.
• In 2001, the average Texas homeowner paid $937 for
insurance, compared to the national average of $530.
• In 2002, the average premiums rose by 38 percent between
early 2001 and early 2002.
• Almost every insurance company doing business in Texas
increased its premiums well above the benchmark rate set by
the Texas Department of Insurance.
• Two insurance companies announced that they would reduce
their exposure in the state, creating an insurance crisis in
Texas.
• The controversy over insurance regulation illustrates the role of
the Texas legislature in the policymaking process.
Structure
• Bicameralism
• Texas has a bicameral legislature composed of two
chambers consisting of a House of Representatives
and Senate.
• The Texas constitution assigns each legislative
chamber certain powers and responsibilities.
• The Senate has the authority to confirm or reject
the governor’s appointments by a two-thirds
majority.
• The House alone, by majority vote, has the
power of impeachment, which is a formal
accusation against an executive or judicial
officeholder.
Structure
• Bicameralism (cont.)
• Each House member represents approximately
139,000 individuals; whereas, each Senate
member 673,000 constituents.
• Representatives serve for a term of two years;
senators serve for a term of four years.
• Bicameralism has supporters and critics;
however, the conventional wisdom is that
bicameralism has a conservative effect on the
policymaking process because two chambers
must approve a measure before it can clear the
legislature.
Structure
• Session Frequency
• The legislature meets in a regular session every
other year (biennial), in odd-calendar years.
• The Texas Constitution empowers the governor
to call special sessions of the legislature, which
may last for a maximum of 30 calendar days.
• Annual legislative sessions are near the top of
the list of constitutional reforms because
reformers believe that the affairs of state
government are too complex to handle in biennial
sessions.
Structure
• Session Length
• The biennial sessions of the legislature are
limited to a maximum of 140 calendar
days.
• Legislative activity in Texas thus tends to
concentrate at certain times, i.e., the
deadline for submitting bills and the end of
the session.
Membership
• The 79th Legislature (2005-2006) included
• 36 women
• 37 Latinos
• 16 African Americans
• 1 Asian American
• Although the Texas legislature is an ethnically diverse
body, it is not a cross-section of the state’s population.
• The next slide indicates that Latinos, African Americans,
Asian Americans, and women were all
underrepresented in the 79th Legislature, whereas
whites were overrepresented.
Representation in the 79th Legislature
Membership
• Compensation
• The official salary for members of the legislature, both
House and Senate is set by the Texas Constitution at $600 a
month or $7,200 a year.
• Compared with other states, this compensation figure is low.
• Nonsalary compensation provided for Texas legislators
when the legislature is in session equals to a daily expense
allowance of $128.
• However, Texas legislators have provided themselves with
one of the most generous pension plans in the nation.
• Furthermore, state law also allows legislators to deposit
leftover or excess campaign funds into officeholder accounts
that can be used to pay for whatever expenses the
lawmaker wants to cover.
Membership
• Legislative turnover
• Legislative turnover refers to the replacement of individual
members of a legislature from one session to the next.
• It peaks in the first election after redistricting.
• It is more often the result of voluntary retirement, rather
than election defeat. Some members leave because they
cannot win reelection; others quit out of frustration.
• The 78th Legislature, which was the first legislature
elected from the 2000 census redistricting, included 43
new members - 5 senators and 38 members of the
House.
• The 79th Legislature included only 19 new faces out of
181 members.
Membership
• Term Limits
• Term limitation is the movement to restrict the
number of terms public officials may serve.
• Although fifteen states have enacted term limit
laws, Texas has not adopted term limits for its
legislators.
• Advocates of term limits believe that they will
improve the capacity of the legislature to do its
work; opponents are convinced that term limits
make legislatures less effective.
Organization
• Leadership
• The Speaker of the House and the lieutenant
governor are the presiding officers of the legislature.
• Speaker of the House is the presiding officer of the
House and is elected by the members of the House.
• Lieutenant governor is the presiding officer of the
Senate.
• The Speaker and the lieutenant governor control
many of the legislative procedures of the House and
Senate, respectively.
• They assign bills to committees and, once
committees have done their work, they have
considerable influence over which bills are scheduled
for debate.
Organization
• Leadership (cont.)
• As presiding officers in their respective chambers, they
recognize members for debate, rule on points of order,
and interpret rules.
• They serve on and make appointments to some of the
state’s most important policymaking bodies, including
the Legislative Budget Board and the Legislative
Redistricting Board.
• The Speaker and lieutenant governor exercise
considerable control over committee membership.
• The leadership of the Speaker and lieutenant governor
is a collective rather than individual; each official heads
a leadership team made up of supporters in the
chamber.
Organization
• Committees
• A standing committee is a permanent committee
established to handle legislation in a certain field
• The Texas House had 40 standing committees in
2005, and the Texas Senate had 15 standing
committees.
• House and Senate rules limit the number of
standing committees on which legislators may
serve to three.
• The lieutenant governor and Speaker make most
committee assignments.
Organization
• Committees (cont.)
• An interim committee is a committee
established to study a particular policy issue
between legislative sessions, such as higher
education or public school finance.
• A select committee is a committee established
for a limited period of time to address a
specific problem.
• A conference committee is a committee
created to negotiate differences on similar
pieces of legislation passed by the House and
Organization
• Legislative Assistance
• Staff assistance is important to members of the Texas
legislature because they are essentially part-time
employees asked to perform a monumental task in a
limited period of time.
• The legislature provides members with sufficient
funds to employ staff assistance, who perform a wide
array of legislative services.
• The legislature also provides members with
institutional assistance, for example, the Legislative
Council and the Legislative Reference Library.
The Legislative Process
• Introduction
• In each legislative session, members
introduce thousands of bills and hundreds of
resolutions.
• A bill is a proposed law.
• A resolution is a legislative statement of opinion on
a certain matter, i.e., congratulating a Texas
sport’s team for winning a championship.
• Joint resolution is a resolution that must be passed
by a two-thirds vote of each chamber.
The Legislative Process
• Committee Action
• After a bill or resolution has been introduced, the measure is
assigned a number and referred to a committee by the
lieutenant governor and the Speaker, respectively, in each
chamber.
• Committees begin consideration of proposed legislation by
holding public hearings.
• After the hearings are complete, the committee meets for
mark up, which is the process of revising, amending, or
rewriting of the proposed legislative measure.
• The committee members vote whether to recommend the
revised measure to their respective chamber for passage.
• If the proposed measure receives a majority of affirmative
votes, it is reported out of committee to the respective
floor.
The Legislative Process
• Floor Action
• The process by which legislation moves from
committee to the floor differs in the two chambers of the
Texas legislature.
• In the House, measures recommended favorably by
a standing committee go to the Calendars
Committee for assignment to one of the House
calendars, which sets the order of priority for
consideration of the legislative proposal.
• In the Senate, measures recommended favorably go
to the Senate calendar of bills, which sets the order
of priority for consideration of the legislative
measure on the Senate floor.
The Legislative Process
• Floor Action (cont.)
• House rules provide for consideration of
measures in order of priority set by the calendar
system, but the House may vote by a two-thirds
margin to consider a measure out of order.
• Senate rules require that bills emerging from
committee be placed on a single calendar for
consideration in order; however, it is a standard
practice to consider legislation out of order by
suspending the rules of priority with a two-thirds
vote of the Senate.
The Legislative Process
• Floor Action (cont.)
• Floor action on bills consists of members of either
chamber debating the bill on its merit and perhaps offering
amendments.
• In the House, debate is limited due to House rules
limiting debate.
• In the Senate, debate can vary due to the practice of a
filibuster; however, a majority vote can end debate.
• Following debate, voting occurs
• Members of the House vote electronically and a
scoreboard displays each vote.
• Members of the Senate vote by roll call.
The Legislative Process
• Conference Committee Action
• A proposed measure has not cleared the
legislature until it has passed both chambers in
identical form.
• Conference committees negotiate differences
between pieces of legislation passed by the
House and Senate.
• Conference committee is a special committee
created to negotiate differences on similar
pieces of legislation passed by both chambers.
The Legislative Process
• Action by the Governor
• Take no action on the bill; however, the bill becomes law
after ten days if the legislature is in session
• Sign the bill passed by the legislature into law
• Exercise line-item veto
• Power to strike out sections or items of an
appropriations bill while signing the remainder of the
bill into law
• Only applicable in an appropriations bill
• Issue a veto on the entire bill
• Governor’s veto can be overridden by a two-thirds vote
of each chamber if the legislature is still in session.
Legislative Policymaking
• A number of factors affect the legislative
process in Texas.
• Legislative leadership
• Interest groups
• Constituency
• Political parties
• Political ideology
Legislative Policymaking
• Legislative leadership
• The centralizing of power for the Speaker of the House
and the lieutenant governor becomes an important
factor in the legislative process.
• The support or opposition of the leadership strongly
determines the success or failure of a legislative
measure.
• Interest groups
• Interest groups influence the legislative process by
contributing money to candidates which provides
legislative access.
• Interest groups also affect the legislative process
through lobbying.
Legislative Policymaking
• Constituency
• Several models are linked to constituency service.
• The traditional model of representation is that candidates
make promises during the election campaign and then
keep (or fail to keep) those promises once in office. In
this approach, citizens hold legislators accountable for
keeping their promises.
• A second model of representation holds that lawmakers
do what they think their constituents will approve at the
next election. This approach recognizes that legislators
may sometimes address issues that were not discussed
during the last election.
Legislative Policymaking
• Constituency (cont.)
• A third model of representation holds that legislators
use their own common sense and good judgment to
do what is best for their constituents and the state as
a whole.
• Another model of representation suggests that
legislators sometimes represent constituents outside
their districts, such as campaign contributors. From
this perspective, big money contributors may have as
much or more influence over legislative decision-
making as the voters.
Legislative Policymaking
• Political Parties
• For most of the state’s history, political parties played a
relatively small role in legislative policymaking, because
nearly every legislator was a Democrat.
• The development of a two-party system in Texas has
changed the legislative process.
• The 78th Legislature marks the beginning of a more partisan
legislature.
• In general, Democratic and Republican members of the
legislature have different policy preferences, especially on
issues involving taxes and spending.
• Democratic and Republican legislators disagree on policy
issues because they represent different constituencies with
different interests.
Legislative Policymaking
• Political Ideology
• Political ideology influences the legislative process.
• Liberalism is the political view that seeks to change the
political, economic, or social institutions of society to
foster the development and well-being of the individual.
• Conservatism is the political view that seeks to preserve
the political, economic, and social institutions of society
against abrupt change.
• Liberals usually favor government regulation and high
levels of spending for social programs; Conservatives
favor the reverse.
• Historically, conservatives have dominated the Texas
legislature and legislative policies have reflected their
political values.
Conclusion
• The legislature is the central policymaking
institution of state government.
• It formulates policy in response to
external forces that set the political
agenda.
• The stages of policymaking process are:
• Agenda building
• Policy formulation and adoption
• Policy implementation and evaluation