I find it interesting that Sen. Rodney Ellis' SB 1611 - now a one-sided open-file bill for Texas prosecutors instead of a reciprocal discovery bill as originally filed - has been referred to the House Judiciary and Civil Jurisprudence Committee and scheduled for a public hearing on Monday, April 29th. One might have expected the bill to be referred to the Criminal Jurisprudence Committee, since that's where criminal discovery bills filed in the House with identical captions were sent.
This is the second bill I've noticed where similar or identical legislation from the Senate was sent to another committee than House Criminal Jurisprudence which heard the issue the first time. (This is the other.) Speaker of the House Joe Straus makes those calls. It's curious that the committee hearing the discovery bill most likely to pass isn't the one that's been considering the issue for the last month. Hard to know whether to read anything into that or not.
ALSO: The Homeland Security and Public Safety Committee on May 1 will hold a public hearing on the fertilizer plant explosion in West, which I suppose makes some sense but is a change of pace from the topics they usually cover.
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