If you’ve been following the Texas legislature for any appreciable length of time, then the close of the 87th Legislative Session must have felt eerily familiar to you: A whole bunch of conservative priority bills made it to the one yard line, only to be killed by various political maneuvers and the legislative schedule.
Texas Speaker of the House Dade Phelan let Democrats kill the election integrity bill by walking out, thus preventing a quorum:
On Sunday night, with just hours left for the Texas House to give its final approval to legislation, Democrats left the chamber and busted the quorum.
By doing so, they were able to kill multiple bills in the process, including a high-profile omnibus election integrity bill and a bail reform bill.
Both bills were deemed priorities of Gov. Greg Abbott in February.
In order for the House to conduct business, a quorum of two-thirds of the chamber’s members (100 out of 150) are required to be present.
Despite being an emergency priority item that lawmakers have been allowed to address since February 1, Senate Bill 7—election integrity legislation that has been the target of Democrats nationwide—was scheduled to finally be passed on Sunday afternoon, just hours away from the midnight deadline.
As debate began, Democrat members started to leave the chamber, taking their voting keys with them.
When a vote was taken on whether to excuse one of the members, the tally revealed that only 86 members were present in the chamber.
The House then adjourned until 10 a.m. on Monday, without objection.
Abbott quickly took to Twitter to say election integrity, as well as bail reform, would be among the items added to a special session call.
A ban on taxpayer-funded lobbying also died, as did bills on banning men from women’s athletic competitions and banning child sex change operations. (In addition, the previously discussed Critical Race Theory bill passed with so many Democratic amendments that it may end up being worse than no bill at all.)
These were just many of the conservative priority bills that died in the session. Michael Quinn Sullivan provided the following scorecard via email:
Incompetence or sabotage? It seems like no matter who sits in the speaker’s chair, be it Dade Phelan, Dennis Bonnen or Joe Straus, conservative bills make it through the Senate only to die in the House at the last minute. It’s a pattern that repeats itself over and over again.
I’m not enough of an insider to tell you exact culprits behind killing conservative legislative priorities (though Speaker Phelan obviously deserves a considerable share of blame, as does Republican state representative Jeff Leach, who’s delaying tactics over a point of order helped doomed many of the above bills).
Governor Greg Abbott is threatening to veto legislative funding in retaliation for Democrats walking off the job, and threatening to hold a special session to get it done. I’m all in favor of calling a special session to pass those items, but it’s unclear whether it would be a special summer session or the already-planned redistricting session after census data is made available. It’s also unclear whether any legislator would be motivated by the threat of losing their $600 per month paycheck.
In any case, what is clear is that conservatives need a new gameplan for the next special session. If you have any ideas on what that should be (or have good candidates (besides Democrats) for who is really the power behind killing conservative bills), feel free to share them in the comments below.
Tags: 87th Texas Legislature, Critical Race Theory, Dade Phelan, Elections, Jeff Leach, Social Justice Warriors, Texas, transexual, voting fraud
“by walking out”
treating these people as citizens results in them destroying your nation. when they achieve power, they won’t treat you as citizens, they’ll treat you as farm animals they own, because in their minds they are the citizens and the rest of us are nothing more than talking animals.
“It’s also unclear whether any legislator would be motivated by the threat of losing their $600 per month paycheck”
just veto every democrat issue.
and secure the integrity of your election process.
“If you have any ideas on what that should be…”
Lock them in chambers and don’t let anyone out.
I’m not a cruel person: I’m willing to provide food, water, coffee or tea (nothing stronger) and two unisex bathrooms each for the House and Senate.
They’ll have to clean their own bathrooms, though.
Its not just thr $600 check, but their $220 per diem every time theyre in Austin, pay for their staff, funds to pay rebt for district offices, etc. Abbott vetoing the legislative budget is a pretty significant hammer.
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