There’s a big balancing act at the Lege. There are only a little over three months left of the session, so work is piling up (as one journalist put it, keeping track of what’s going on is like drinking from a fire hydrant.) On the other hand, it’s scarcely three working weeks since the House rules were passed, and no-one wants to be going on with a wonky wheel, legislatively speaking.
Last week, Reps. Jim Dunnam, D-Waco, and Harold Dutton, D-Houston, both had procedural questions about the rules, and neither was overly satisfied with Speaker Joe Straus‘ answers. So Dutton was back today with another question. Last time, he asked whether it was possible for committee members to swap seats: Straus said no. Today, Dutton was more circumspect: What if members want to do something that wasn’t talked about in the rules? Would the fact the rules didn’t actively prohibit them from doing something make it OK?
Straus said he’d take it on a case-by-case basis. Dutton, a former supporter of Speaker Tom Craddick who has become Straus’ biggest critic and was the sole nay vote on the House rules, seemed unimpressed by the answer.
This article appears in February 20 • 2009.
