Dunnam on Straus

Rep. Dunnam: For all this, still thinks Straus is a better speaker than Craddick (Photo by Richard Whittaker)

April 6: The House Committee on Elections meets and discusses SB 362, the voter ID bill

May 7: The committee authorizes corrected minutes for that meeting

May 14: The corrected minutes are finally received

May 26: Democratic House Caucus Leader Jim Dunnam, D-Waco, argues that delay breaches the House's three-day rule on corrected minutes, thus meaning there's a point of order on SB 362 and it cannot be taken up.

It may seem like arcane rules, but that's how legislatures roll. Plus, Dunnam said, it's no longer about SB 362. "Voter ID is dead," he said. "It's just whether we acknowledge that now or put everyone through wasting a lot of time to acknowledge that at 12.01 tomorrow morning."

After he'd tried to stay above the fray, this point of order dragged Speaker Joe Straus right into the middle of the ring.

Dunnam had actually asked Straus about such a problem over the weekend, and Straus had indicated that it could theoretically scupper a bill. When he formally enquired today, he was left hanging as Straus was away from the desk. Is there something keeping the speaker detained, asked Dunnam (Speaker Pro Tem Craig Eiland was not advised.)

Finally, Straus re-emerged with a prepared speech, read by the clerk. The chair would not speak on theoreticals but, while edging towards confirming that an error on the minutes could be a sustainable point of order, the "critical policy issue" was correct and timely filing. Dunnam re-stated his question. "Do corrected minutes have to be filed within three days of the meeting in which the corrections were adopted?"

Straus said he may have misunderstood the earlier question, and that in fact House practice was to let the corrections be filed at any point before a bill got to Calendars. All that left Dunnam ruminating: Did precedent trump the actual rules, and was this all down to the committee coordinator to decide what was and wasn't precedent?

He was obviously unimpressed by Straus' answer. "What the speaker has said is that if I exceed the speed limit every day driving to work, then the posted speed limit is going to change."

Dunnam re-iterated that he blamed the Republicans for not allowing bills to be taken up out of order. "It's indescribable that we're called obstructionists when the truth is that we have a speaker who won't recognize us to move the agenda forward, won't rule on a point of order that would move this forward, and so we will continue with the course we set."

He was still optimistic that unemployment insurance reform will still get passed, and that if the governor did call a special session, it would be for something constructive, like windstorm and home owners insurance, and not a divisive partisan issue like voter suppression.