Full Chub Ahead!
Democrats' motion to take calendar out of order fails
By Richard Whittaker, 8:56PM, Fri. May 22, 2009
How did a bill about establishing a home- and community-based services workforce council become the most important bill in Texas?
Because Senate Bill 1850 was the test bill Democrats used to get control of the calendar process ahead of the feared fight over SB 362 – the voter ID bill.
House Democratic Caucus Chair Jim Dunnam, D-Waco, made a motion: Take up SB 1850 out of order, then go back for one last bill on local and consent, then go back to the Major State Calendar, taking bills up in the order Calendars Committee set them. To make it even quicker, Dunnam also proposed passing everything pending on third vote on a single vote. If that happened, Dunnam said, "Theoretically, we can get through many pages of bills on the General State calendar tonight."
Guess how well that proposal went down.
Rep. Larry Taylor, R-League City, said they should work on "the business of the people," move forward with the calendar as presented and reject the motion, an opinion with which Dunnam respectfully disagreed. Taylor had, however, already given a list of 59 members that would object to any attempt to take bills out of order: A sign that the odds of getting the two-thirds majority for a rules suspension was a hard slog indeed.
However, that was a double-edged blade: When Rep. Tommy Merritt, R-Longview, asked whether he could bring up SB 362 out of order he was told by Speaker Pro Tem Craig Eiland that the list would block that motion as well. If the vote failed, Eiland said, he would not recognize any further such motion (interestingly, Rep. Lois Kolkhorst, R-Brenham, asked whether taking up SB 362 tonight was even legitimate, if it wasn't on today's calendar. Read the tea leaves on that.)
The vote went on under strict enforcement and a record vote was called for (Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer, D-San Antonio, got confirmation that no-one could vote for an absent member, even if they had a letter.) But with only 74 ayes against 66 nays, the Dems were short of the two-thirds majority they needed, and the tactic failed.
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81st Legislature, Texas House of Representatives, Jim Dunnam, Voter ID, Chubfest '09, Chubbing