re: :: Discussion from tonight’s TEXIT Town Hall - my notes ::

quote:

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What's the timeline after that?

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The TX Lege meets for 140 days. The bill will be filed by Rep. Biedermann. From there, it gets its first reading on the floor and is assigned to a committee. The committee chair schedules it for a hearing; sometimes they don’t if they are opposed to the bill, and it dies when the session ends.

But, if the committee hears the bill and it is voted out of committee, it gets scheduled to be heard on the floor, or it doesn’t. The House and Senate each have their own rules for scheduling bills for the floor and, as has been the case in the Texas House, the chair of the Calendars Committee can use his or her power to kill a bill by refusing to move it along.

However, if it moves along, it gets debated on the floor and is then voted on. If it passes in one chamber, it moves to the other chamber and the process repeats until the bill is passed by both houses. At the end of the day, what any bill needs to pass is the support of 76 members of the Texas House, 16 members of the Texas Senate, the lieutenant governor, and the governor. From there it moves to the governor’s desk for his signature or a veto. While this may seem overly complicated, I assure you that it is actually more so. Yet every session the Texas Legislature manages to pass well over one thousand bills into law.

Summary:
Step 1: Pass though the House
Call your reps.
Call the speaker, Dade Phelan.
Call Lieutenant Governor, Dan Patrick.

Step 2: Pass through Senate
Call your senators.

Step 3: Gov Abbott signs
The governor is up for re-election and is going to start acting conservative. What is he going to say about Texas independence? He wants to run for President of the US. Don’t forget that.

Step 4: People vote in November