149 problems but committees ain't one

Another week for the Texas Legislature's 86th session is complete and we are starting to see the battleground take shape. We currently have 1,535 bills filed that address everything from the next budget too requiring The University of Texas and Texas A&M to play football against each other.

The major topic this week was again found in the senate as committee chair assignments changed after words were exchanged between a Republican Senator & Lt. Governor. You can read more about what started the change here, but the true answer is we don't yet know how wide of an impact this could have on legislation. If you don't follow the legislature closely, it takes 19 of the 31 members of the Texas Senate to agree to bring a bill to the floor, which coincidently is the exact number of Republicans in the senate today. Historically partisan votes are not common in the Texas Legislature, but vote counting could be more interesting now.

The Speaker of the House, Rep. Dennis Bonnen, released his committee assignments on Wednesday, which is almost a month earlier than we received assignments in the previous session. This session, 35% of the committee chairs are Democrats, up from 34% under Speaker Straus. The key changes this session are Rep. Dade Phelan, 3 term Representative from Beaumont, will take the chair of the powerful state affairs committee and Rep. Four Price will take over the committee charged with setting the house calendar.You can see a complete list of committee assignments here.

Finally, the only bill they are required by law to pass , the state budget, has been filed in both the Senate & House. You can find the house budget here and the senate budget here. Last weeks recap lightly touched on the public education news in the budget, next we will take a closer look at article 1, general government, of the two competing budgets.

19 days down & 121 left to go!