Flores 1
Eduardo Flores
Texas Government
Second Midterm Essay
In the state of Texas, a Bill has to undergo a long process in order for it to become
a Law. It all starts with members of Legislature, which introduce the bill and then it can
take two routes. The Bill passes through the Senate, the House of Representatives, the
Governor and it can die in many parts of this process or eventually become a Law.
Political groups and activists have a great influence in the laws that are being passed in
Texas and play a crucial role in the entire process. I will explain the process more in
depth in the following paragraphs.
Before even being able to introduce a bill, it has to meet certain conditions or
requirements in order for the Bill to become official. Then, Bills must be introduced by
members of the Legislature. From there, the Bill can take two roads: if the member of the
legislature is recognized by the Lieutenant Governor as the President of the Senate, then
the Bill may be introduced in the floor. In this part of the process, the more sponsors from
Legislature you have supporting your Bill, the greater the chances you have for the Bill to
become a Law.
Moreover, the Bill can take another route: the introducer of the Bill gives copies
to the Secretary of the Senate. Then he or she assigns the Bill a number and it is
scheduled to be read in the order it was received. If the Bill is not submitted by the first
sixty days of the session, the Bill will not be taken into consideration. After the bill is
introduced the Lieutenant Governor, he assigns it to a committee. This is when the
lobbyists come into play because they have to be influential, so that the bill gets a good
Flores 2
committee. The committees play a big part because they can either kill the bill or give it
life. But the position of his supporters, the funding of the bill, their own opinion of the
Bill, and past decisions of the Bill, will ultimately affect the Lieutenant Governor’s
decision.
When the bill is assigned to a committee they have to make the other legislators
hear about it before it goes to the floor; which are made shorter for efficacy and time
purposes. Now, the Bills are presented at the hearing among committees. A senator must
get a forty-eight-hour notice that the bill will be presented. If not, the senator can place a
tag meaning that he will delay the bill until the legislation period is over. After all of that
has happened, the bill will now need scheduling to be debated, the senate calendar must
present the schedule for the Bill. The bill will need to receive two-thirds of the votes to
