This morning's Chronicle has a letter stating that the Texas Legislature (specifically the Senate) passes bills without ever voting on them. Fortunately for democracy, the letter is wrong.

The writer bases her concern on the sentence at the end of many bills that reads "If this Act does not receive the vote necessary for immediate effect, this Act takes effect on the 91st day after the last day of the legislative session." From this, the writer assumed that EVERY bill that includes the sentence passes without ever being voted on.

That's an incorrect interpretation. The sentence merely states WHEN the bill would take effect IF it passed. All bills must have a majority vote of both houses to pass, and those votes are recorded and available to the public on the legislative web site.

Bills that pass with a majority, but not a 2/3 majority, generally cannot take effect in less than 90 days. A bill that passes with a 2/3 majority in both houses can take effect immediately, if it has a sentence like the one above that clearly states that it will have "immediate effect". A bill without that sentence must wait 90 days to take effect regardless of how large a majority it receives.

The bills that the writer feared were "passed by default" without ever being voted on were actually never sent to the floor for votes, and therefore never passed.

The are many parts of the legislative process that could be legitimately criticized and debated, but bills passing without a vote being taken does not happen.

As always, your comments and questions are welcome.

Scott Hochberg
State Representative
District 137 - Southwest Houston