Bills Build Up Blame

Rep. Hartnett: Not impressed by the baton-dropping

With over 6,000 bill filed this session, it's a given that the legislature isn't going to pass or even hear most of them. Frankly, considering how bad some bills are, being ignored is their best fate.

Yet no lawmaker like to feel that their bill is falling through the cracks. So imagine the uproar when an entire chamber is worrying where its bills are.

The House kicked off the grumbling today during an exchange between Reps. Will Hartnett, R-Dallas, and Byron Cook, R-Corsicana. As of this morning there were approximately 200 House Bills still waiting for Senate committee hearings, some for over a month: By comparison, the House has yet to process 90 Senate bills, mostly recent arrivals. Hartnett pointedly asked his fellow members, "Any idea why the Senate is trying to make our bills rot over there?" Cook replied that he thought the Senate expected the House to do all the work for them.

Meanwhile, some in the Senate are lightly fuming that they're taking up almost nothing but House bills in committee, and there's not that many getting to them.

As Sen. Kirk Watson, D-Austin, noted recently, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst isn't dealing with any House bills that have a Senate companion until the Senate version has gone through the process. So a few other legislators have started wondering whether Dewhurst is getting in the way, either by accident or design.

That could explain the light booing when the daily messenger from the Senate announced to the House that the other chamber had passed a whole two HBs today before knocking off for committee meetings.

Democratic House Caucus Leader Jim Dunnam, D-Waco, was sanguine about any log-jam. “This is something that happens every session,” he said.