Guest Post on Texas Legislature

Rules Need to be Changed: 

During the recent Special Session, Speaker Joe Strauss used various tactics to delay and/or prevent Senate bills from getting to the House floor.  For example, none of the 18 bills the Senate passed during the first week were assigned to a House Committee by the end of the second week. This made it impossible for elected Representatives to do their job. This is not acceptable.

It is time Texans stop complaining and start demanding rule changes addressing the abuse of power by House Speakers regardless of who holds the office:

     (1) We must demand Speakers be selected via a secret ballot within the House caucus. 

     (2) We must demand House rules be changed to allow open selection of committee chairs.

      

     (3) We must demand the discharge petition used in the U.S. Congress be adopted. It allows members to go around House leadership and force the Speaker to bring legislation that may not otherwise make it out of committee to the floor for a vote.

Unless meaningful changes are made, Speakers will continue to ignore the wishes of Texan voters and their Representatives.