Texas’ 2025 legislative session runs from Jan. 14 to June 2. Lawmakers will debate a bevy of points and go a whole bunch of payments that have an effect on Texans’ lives.
First, the proposals should survive a number of procedures and votes to grow to be a actuality. For those who’re not conversant in the Texas Legislature, it will probably make you nervous to take part within the winding, months-long course of.
Right here’s a rundown of how the Texas Legislature works and how one can take part in it.
What’s the Texas Legislature?
The Texas Legislature is made up of the Home of Representatives, which has 150 members and is named the decrease chamber, and the Senate, which has 31 members and is named the higher chamber. Every consultant and senator represents a geographic district. These political districts had been redrawn in 2021. Discover your districts right here and your lawmakers right here.
After the 2024 elections, Republicans maintain 88 of the 150 seats within the Home and 20 of the 31 seats within the Senate. The Home speaker presides over that chamber. The speaker is among the 150 representatives in that chamber and is elected by a majority of members. The lieutenant governor presides over the Senate and is elected by Texas voters each 4 years.
What are legislative classes?
Each odd-numbered 12 months, the state Legislature gathers to go a two-year state finances and different legal guidelines for 140 days starting in January. This is named an everyday legislative session.
The governor may name for lawmakers to convene for as much as 30 days outdoors of normal classes. Throughout these so-called particular classes, lawmakers can go legal guidelines solely on points outlined by the governor. In 2023, Gov. Greg Abbott known as 4 particular classes to deal with property taxes, immigration and border enforcement and faculty vouchers, amongst different issues. The Texas Senate additionally convened September 2023 for Legal professional Normal Ken Paxton’s impeachment trial. (The Senate acquitted Paxton of prices introduced by the Texas Home.)
How does a invoice grow to be a legislation in Texas?
Invoice submitting
Lawmakers have been submitting payments since Nov. 12. Basically, lawmakers can proceed submitting any payments through the first 60 calendar days of the legislative session. After that time, solely payments associated to native issues or emergency objects and appropriations will be filed, except four-fifths of lawmakers are current in a chamber vote to droop the rule.
Whereas 1000’s of payments are filed — greater than 8,000 payments had been filed within the final common session — solely round a thousand will go.
“The system is designed to kill laws, not go laws,” stated Kathy Inexperienced, the director of state and federal technique for AARP Texas who has greater than 30 years of expertise working within the Legislature, in state companies and with curiosity teams.
Committees
First, a invoice should be referred to a committee within the chamber the place it was launched. The Home speaker assigns payments to committees in that chamber and the lieutenant governor assigns laws to Senate committees. The committee chair then decides which laws might be thought-about when the panel meets.
If a committee takes up a invoice, an open listening to permitting for public testimony is held. The committee can then select to report, or advance, a invoice to the remainder of the chamber or to not take motion on the laws.
Most payments are referred to a committee, however many are by no means thought-about or are left pending in a committee, in accordance with the state’s handbook on the legislative course of.
“Step No. 1 in advocacy is to foyer to get the invoice scheduled for a listening to and to not overlook that essential step,” stated state Sen. Judith Zaffirini, D-Laredo, who has served within the Texas Senate since 1987 and holds the report for passing probably the most payments.
To get a invoice a listening to, Zaffirini stated individuals ought to work with the employees of lawmakers who’re the authors or sponsors of a invoice and the employees of the committee to which it was referred.
Ground debate
As soon as a invoice passes a committee, it should be scheduled for debate by the complete chamber earlier than it will probably proceed advancing.
After debate on a invoice, the vast majority of lawmakers in a chamber has to approve the invoice twice to ensure that it to go. Whereas the Senate normally takes each votes on the identical day, the Home usually doesn’t.
Chambers should agree
After a invoice is handed within the chamber it originated in, it’s referred to the opposite chamber, the place the invoice should undergo the identical course of. And whether it is handed, the 2 chambers should agree on any modifications they made to the laws earlier than it’s despatched to the governor’s desk to be signed into legislation.
Additional complicating this course of: Lawmakers should meet sure deadlines to behave on payments and transfer them ahead. Which means that one technique to kill a invoice earlier than sure deadlines is to attract out debates on laws or amendments.
“Amendments [are] actually the way in which that you could get in beneath the hood of a bit of laws, and actually attempt to modify it for the higher [or] attempt to modify it for the worst in the event you’re attempting to defeat it [by] creat[ing] like a poison capsule within the laws,” stated Alex Birnel, advocacy director for MOVE Texas, a company that focuses on voting rights, local weather and prison justice reform.
A poison capsule can be an modification that modifications a invoice’s intent, makes it ineffective or much less palatable for lawmakers to go.
Amendments will also be used to revive provisions from different payments. Lawmakers may use what’s known as some extent of order — or POO — to problem and derail payments if a rule wasn’t adopted. The minority get together typically makes use of this tactic to kill a invoice after they lack the votes to defeat it.
Resolutions, similar to joint resolutions calling to place an modification to the Texas Structure on the poll for voters, observe barely totally different legislative processes. You possibly can learn extra particulars about resolutions and the lawmaking course of within the state’s handbook.
How is the state finances determined?
The state finances can be a bit of laws and strikes by way of the Legislature in an analogous course of as different payments. It’s developed by way of a two-year course of that’s led by the Legislative Finances Board, which is co-chaired by the speaker and lieutenant governor, and consists of enter from state companies, the governor’s workplace and the comptroller. Whereas lawmakers go a whole bunch of latest legal guidelines each legislative session, the finances invoice — which pays for state companies, public schooling, well being care, roads and extra — is the one piece of laws lawmakers need to go. You possibly can learn extra about that course of right here.
Who’re the facility gamers?
The legislative session is run primarily by a handful of highly effective figures in Texas politics: the governor, the lieutenant governor, the Home speaker and the chairs of the Legislature’s committees.
Solely the governor can name a particular session, however their energy is in any other case slightly restricted within the Texas Legislature.
The governor outlines emergency objects, or priorities. In the course of the first 60 calendar days of a legislative session, lawmakers can go solely laws associated to the governor’s emergency objects.
The governor may signal or veto payments, together with line objects within the state finances handed by lawmakers. Lawmakers can override a veto with two-thirds votes from the members current in every chamber, however they hardly ever do, Inexperienced stated.
“That’s the place quite a lot of his energy is available in,” she stated. “He has that skill to resolve whether or not that invoice really turns into legislation or not.”
If a governor takes no motion on a invoice, it nonetheless turns into legislation. The governor might depart a invoice unsigned as a symbolic act or to distance themselves from the laws, stated Sherri Greenberg, a dean for state and native authorities engagement on the College of Texas at Austin and a former Democratic state consultant.
It’s the lieutenant governor, the second-highest statewide elected official within the state, who’s considered probably the most highly effective particular person within the Texas Legislature, Inexperienced stated, as a result of they oversee the Texas Senate. Along with referring payments to committees, the lieutenant governor has huge discretion over who to call to a committee. In addition they resolve ties and procedural questions.
Republican Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who has held the workplace since 2015, has additionally gained energy within the Senate by reducing the edge of votes wanted to bypass a Senate custom and produce a invoice to the ground for debate. Traditionally, the Senate has positioned a “blocker invoice” on the high of its every day agenda, stopping the Senate from passing every other payments except two-thirds of senators agreed to “droop the common order of enterprise” and skip over the blocker invoice.
The custom lends affect to the minority get together by requiring bipartisanship to advance a invoice, however Patrick has swayed senators to vote to decrease that threshold throughout his tenure. Primarily, this implies Republicans within the Senate can advance a invoice with out the help of a single Democrat.
The speaker of the Home performs an analogous position because the lieutenant governor however should be elected by their colleagues. Nonetheless, the speaker within the Texas Legislature normally holds extra energy than the speaker within the U.S. Home of Representatives as a result of state representatives are inclined to observe the speaker’s lead, stated Brendan Steinhauser, a political strategist who has achieved legislative or political work since 2002 and has labored with conservative teams such because the Younger People for Liberty.
“Folks understand how a lot energy the speaker has by way of their payments getting killed,” he stated.
This 12 months, the election for the speaker of the Home has grow to be contentious with two Republicans – state Rep. David Prepare dinner of Mansfield and state Rep. Dustin Burrows of Lubbock – vying for the position.
Republican state Rep. Dade Phelan of Beaumont, who had served as speaker of the Home since in 2021 and oversaw Legal professional Normal Ken Paxton’s impeachment, dropped out of this 12 months’s election for Home speaker after going through criticism from high Republicans.
The chairs of some committees are additionally notably influential. For instance, the Home Calendars Committee, in addition to the Senate Administration Committee, Home Appropriations Committee and the Senate Finance Committee can play key roles in whether or not payments are heard on the ground of the chamber or are funded.
“So it’s a matter of not solely lobbying the committee that’s contemplating the invoice and the members who will vote for the invoice, but additionally the members of the finance committee and the members who will vote for the finances as a result of funding is essential,” Zaffirini stated.
Every chamber’s State Affairs Committee can be highly effective as a result of it has broad jurisdiction to obtain payments on virtually any matter.
Traditionally, the speaker of the Home has appointed committee chairs from each events, however some Republicans and conservative teams have pushed again in opposition to that follow in recent times.
What’s the tempo of the Texas Legislature?
The primary three months of the legislative session are normally gradual. After lawmakers gavel in, new members might be sworn in, a speaker of the Home might be elected and every chamber will undertake its guidelines.
Normally by late January, the speaker of the Home and the lieutenant governor will identify lawmakers to committees, which can start holding hearings for payments, Inexperienced stated. And in early February, the governor normally outlines his emergency objects throughout his State of the State speech.
It is a good time to make your voice heard by contacting your lawmakers’ workplaces or collaborating in public testimony, in accordance with longtime advocates.
In April and Could, the tempo quickens as lawmakers rush to satisfy deadlines. Throughout this time, the work days on the Capitol get longer, and lawmakers may match by way of the weekends to barter and go laws.
Listed below are some key dates for the upcoming session:
Jan. 14 is the primary day of the legislative session.
March 14 is the sixtieth day and the deadline to file most payments.
June 2 is sine die, or the final day of the legislative session.
June 22 is the final day the governor can signal or veto payments.
Sept. 1 is the earliest day most payments can go into impact, in the event that they didn’t go with greater than two-thirds of help from every chamber.
How can I sustain with payments and conferences?
The Texas Legislature On-line: Via the Legislature’s web site, you’ll find the payments which have been filed on this legislative session or in previous classes and see their progress. You possibly can create a private listing of payments to simply view and arrange electronic mail alerts for updates on laws. And you may get electronic mail alerts for when notices of a committee listening to are posted. You may also use the web site to search out hyperlinks to broadcasts of flooring or committee conferences within the Home and Senate and different sources, similar to a glossary of legislative phrases. (We may typically stream committee hearings on pages for particular tales.)
The Invoice Standing Hotline: In the course of the legislative session, you may name 877-824-7038 in Texas to get “up-to-the-minute” details about a invoice’s standing, the legislative course of, assist getting a duplicate of the invoice and get in touch with info for a lawmaker’s workplace, in accordance with the Legislative Reference Library. However hotline employees can’t interpret a invoice or switch your name to a lawmaker’s workplace. The Legislative Reference Library additionally has an FAQ on the Legislature and different sources, together with a every day assortment of stories tales associated to the state Legislature.
The Texas Tribune: You may also sustain with essential information of the Legislature by way of the Texas Tribune’s protection. Listed below are a few of the methods you may observe our work:
Subscribe to our newsletters. For summaries of a very powerful Texas information from us and different information retailers, you may join The Temporary, our free every day publication, or for The Briefly Weekly. You may also join breaking information alerts or weekly RSS newsletters compiling all our tales on subjects such because the Texas Legislature, schooling and well being care.
Observe our free WhatsApp channel, the place we’ll be sending updates a minimum of as soon as per week with important information concerning the Texas Legislature. Discover and observe us by way of this hyperlink. Faucet the bell icon within the channel to activate notifications and never miss updates.
Take heed to our weekly podcast, TribCast, the place Editor-in-Chief Matthew Watkins, reporters Eleanor Klibanoff and James Barragan and different company will talk about the most recent information from the 2025 legislative session. Discover it wherever you hearken to podcasts and on our YouTube channel.
Need much more updates? We even have a premium publication, The Blast, with unique reporting, nonpartisan evaluation and the primary phrase on political strikes throughout the state. Subscribe and get entry to our texting line for well timed updates and alerts of latest editions of The Blast.
How can I lead change within the Legislature?
Though most laws dies and one get together presently holds management of the Legislature, political strategists, advocates and lawmakers all say addressing points continues to be doable within the Legislature.
“The Legislature teaches you that unusual issues occur,” stated Birnel of MOVE Texas. “Partly due to the amount of payments and the brief period of time all of them need to make it by way of, quite a lot of laws dies, even issues which might be priorities, so to talk, of the bulk get together, and good amendments make it by way of.”
For instance, Texans can now monitor their mail-in ballots on-line due to a invoice handed in 2021, even amid dissent amongst lawmakers on different voting laws, Birnel stated.
Usually, passing laws requires dedication.
“Persistence is the secret,” Zaffirini stated, pointing to the 2017 passage of laws she championed that banned texting whereas driving within the state. Whereas the Home invoice handed in 2017, Zaffirini first filed laws on the coverage in 2009. “Occasions change, individuals change, conditions change. Once I first filed my anti-texting invoice, I couldn’t even get a listening to, and eventually I handed it within the Senate.”
As soon as a invoice passes, it will probably grow to be simpler to go different associated payments and create extra change, stated Luke Metzger, the manager director of the advocacy group Atmosphere Texas.
“It’s straightforward to get annoyed after which simply cynical concerning the course of,” he stated. “What’s stored me going for 20-plus years of engaged on this has simply been working for that incremental progress as a result of that makes a distinction. Even small modifications can have significant impacts on individuals’s lives.”
How can I take part within the legislative course of?
Contact your lawmakers: You don’t need to be an knowledgeable to satisfy or discuss with a legislator’s workplace. On a regular basis Texans may share their considerations and private tales, which will be the best advocacy, Inexperienced stated.
“For those who’ve obtained tales about these precise issues that have an effect on your every day life, discuss to your legislator about that,” she stated. “They should hear the tales; they should perceive what individuals again of their districts are going through.”
But it surely helps to be ready with information of the laws, together with its impression and doable prices, and concerning the lawmaker you’re contacting, Zaffirini stated. For instance, don’t foyer a legislator to help a invoice in the event that they’ve authored it or if the laws has already handed of their chamber, she stated.
The earlier you contact your lawmakers’ workplaces, the extra probably you’re in a position to meet with somebody and construct relationships that may assist later within the course of. Assembly with the employees of a lawmaker will be simply as essential or extra essential than assembly with a legislator.
“Workers is essential within the course of as a result of employees makes the suggestions relating to the invoice,” Zaffirini stated. “So by working with a employees, [voters] put together the employees to be persuasive with a member.”
You may also electronic mail lawmakers’ workplaces, which generally embody employees members devoted to studying by way of correspondence, stated Shera Eichler, a authorities affairs advisor and former chief of employees for a state consultant.
Testify at a public listening to: You possibly can register by way of kiosks on the Capitol or on-line whereas utilizing the Capitol Wi-Fi. Within the Senate, you could have to fill out a card in particular person through the listening to to testify. You will discover extra recommendations on easy methods to testify right here.
It’s extra impactful to succinctly talk about your expertise than it’s to learn written testimony or simply cite information, Metzger stated. However you too can submit written testimony or have another person testify in your behalf.
It could take time for laws to come back up for dialogue in a committee listening to, particularly if a listening to is scheduled for after a chamber meets for flooring debate, so it helps to be ready to be on the Capitol for some time or to ask the employees of a invoice’s creator or a committee when the laws might be heard.
“Planning is essential, and sometimes plan to spend the day and keep in a single day if essential,” Zaffirini stated. It could additionally assist to speak with employees if it’s essential depart by a sure time, she stated.
Be part of an advocacy group: For those who discover a company that’s engaged on points that matter to you, they may also help you navigate and keep engaged within the legislative course of, Birnel stated. For instance, Birnel stated MOVE Texas plans to convey younger individuals to the Capitol for foyer days. Organizations may share your insights and considerations after they work with lawmakers to craft or advocate for laws and amendments.
But it surely doesn’t take a well-funded group, Eichler stated.
“Possibly there’s a gaggle of oldsters or a gaggle of your neighbors that share the identical frequent considerations, the place you may all meet with the legislator collectively or ship a letter collectively,” she stated.
Elevate consciousness in your group: Even in the event you can’t make it to the Capitol, contacting your lawmaker or elevating consciousness in your group might additionally assist transfer the needle on a difficulty, Metzger stated.
“Usually, what you do within the district is much extra essential than what occurs within the constructing as a result of the legislators finally reply to their constituents and need to characterize the constituents,” he stated.
You may also write a letter to the editor of your native newspaper or discuss to the information media. And as of late, you may simply share your story on social media and tag lawmakers, Birnel stated.
This text initially appeared in The Texas Tribune, a member-supported, nonpartisan newsroom informing and interesting Texans on state politics and coverage.
