Don’t know if it’s 1400 bills or not, but there has been a lot of pre-filing activity for the 80th Lege.
Legislators proposed measures that would crack down on child sex predators, restore health benefits to children in low-income families and lower the age for starting school.
Texas children born to undocumented immigrants, however, would be denied public education, welfare, food stamps, public housing, disability benefits and more under one sweeping proposal.
Monday marked the first day lawmakers could file bills for the 80th legislative session, which starts Jan. 9.
Ideas ranged from the serious – raising the minimum wage and allowing Texans to use deadly force to protect their vehicles – to the frivolous – making the bolo the official state tie.
House members filed 212 bills and resolutions, and senators filed 86 pieces of legislation. Thousands more will be filed before the session ends in late spring.
Alas, the story does not say who filed the Bolo Bill. I’ll have to keep an eye open for that one.
Vince has been indefatigable in tracking the bills so far. Here’s some links:
Minimum wage, filed by Houston’s State Sen. Rodney Ellis.
Paper trail for electronic voting, about which its sponsor State Rep. Aaron Pena has more.
There’s sure to be more. I’m still looking to see if an anti-municipal WiFi bill will get introduced, and to see who will carry the bogus voter-ID water now that Mary Denny is a private citizen. Stay tuned.
UPDATE: As noted by Grits, there’s also another bill to ban municipalities from issuing tickets based on red light cameras.
Kuff, you missed Melissa Noriega’s tale of fighting of the anti-municipal WiFi folks last time around at our lunch last Friday, but maybe you’ve heard her tell it before? If not, get her to tell you!
The 1,400 was supposedly how many were sent to Lege Council – they have to then draft the bill, return it to the member, then the member decides when to file it. 310 were filed on the first day.
One interesting one for Houston: Banning red light cameras. Best,
Pena’s bill is not helpful…not at all. This gets exactly the same situation that Gore and Kerry faced–paper vote totals hidden by machine tallies. And, when challenged for more observably accurate handcounts, the clock is run out so that it becomes mute (Kerry’s votes are still not counted in Ohio even after 2 years…so slow on purpose). And, it does not abide by the Texas Constitution for observably honest elections with numbered ballots. It does not pass any test on the face of it.