Grits lamented previously that a great deal of Texas' criminal-justice reform agenda died this year in the House Calendars Committee (a procedural committee that schedules bills for floor votes, or doesn't) and apparently those bills weren't alone. The full Texas House of Representatives approved just 57% of legislation voted out of committee this session, according to data from the Legislative Reference Library. Bills that made it out of committee in the Senate had a 90% chance of passing out of that chamber.
It wasn't that the House was voting down bills, for the most part, the difference was by design. Often during the heart of the session, particularly during the crucial month of April, the lower chamber would hear excruciatingly short floor calendars as hundreds of bills backed up in the Calendars Committee. By the time the deadlines rolled around, Grits wondered why they were still bothering to hold committee meetings. There were more bills backed up in Calendars already than could possibly be heard in the homestretch in May.
Much of this was about the establishment Rs and the Dems aiming to control the Tea Party contingent, which appears ready to embrace more aggressive criminal-justice reforms than their more moderate Republican predecessors. But that can't go on forever. "Do nothing unless you have to" can't be a long-term strategy for governance, even if it appeared to be the mantra of this year's House leadership. Those guys were elected too, in the districts the centrist Rs drew for them two years ago, no less. Sooner or later you've got to let them vote on bills.
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