The Brief: Pre-Filing Day Hints At Legislative Priorities
The Big Conversation
Lawmakers filed 365 bills and joint resolutions on Monday, the first day they could pre-file legislation for the upcoming legislative session. Some will serve as the basis for laws that will be enacted by lawmakers. Some are simply the fulfillment of a campaign promise and will go no further.
The practical effect of filing a bill on Monday rather than later on is that it gets a relatively low bill number. “I think getting a low number, getting an early scheduled hearing, I think that helps you,” state Rep. Tom Craddick, R-Midland, told the Tribune’s Bobby Blanchard. “When you get a bill filed early, it gives you a chance and it gives people a chance to kind of view it and know its there.”
Craddick filed legislation again to ban texting while driving, continuing what has become an ongoing legislative priority for the veteran lawmaker.
Other bills would tackle hot-button political issues like open carry, gay marriage and raising the minimum wage. Others, though, would seem to address a need for which the time hasn’t come, such as a bill exempting Texas from daylight savings time.
The Day Ahead
• Today is the observance of Veterans Day. Federal and state agencies are closed.
• Gov.-elect Greg Abbott is in Brownsville for an 11 a.m. Veterans Day service. He will then participate in an economic development roundtable. He returns to Austin where he will meet with the press at 4 p.m. to give an update on his gubernatorial transition.
• Former President George W. Bush formally presents his new biography of his father, former President George H.W. Bush, in an 11:30 a.m. conversation with former White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card Jr. at the George Bush Presidential Library in College Station.
The SMCN will cover the upcoming Legislative Bills that will affect Hays County and San Marcos.
John Reynolds is the Newsletter Editor for the Texas Tribune where this story originally published, and it reprinted here through a news partnership. | @CorridorNews
Photo by Edward Jackson
