If You Can't Govern, Spin the Media
Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick is reaping a systemic failure in the Senate that he helped sow. And he made up for it this week with a public relations campaign of daily topical news conferences.
The Texas Senate once roared like a lion in the early days of every legislative session, priding itself on swift passage of numerous bills. Senate reporters often spent the end of the session lining the back walls of the House to watch bills from the Senate get debated. Angry senators would storm the House, demanding to know what had come of their bills. But this year, the Senate passed its first bill – an emergency transportation item – just this week.
The Texas Constitution forbids lawmakers from passing bills in the first 60 calendar days of a legislative session unless designated as an emergency by the governor. That provision can be set aside, however, if 25 senators vote to do so. Up through the regular session of 2003, voting to suspend the Constitution bill by bill was routine on uncontroversial bills. And with about 1,400 bills passed each session, few are controversial.
In the days of senatorial harmony, the state Constitution was routinely set aside to pass bills in the early days of the session. That came to the grinding halt in the special sessions of 2003 when the two-thirds rule – sometimes called the rose garden rule – was set aside to pass a congressional redistricting plan favorable to Republicans. The rule blocked debate on a bill unless affirmed by two-thirds of the senators present in the chamber. Democratic senators broke the quorum by fleeing to New Mexico, but ultimately returned to Austin and surrendered to the inevitable.
Read more: http://www.texasmonthly.com/burka-blog/if-you-cant-govern-spin-media