Yesterday, the Texas Legislature sine die the legislative session. What is sine die? Dallas Morning News attempts to define the latin word. Basically, the state's Constitution only allows the state's elected officials to pass legislation within 140 days. The Governor can call a "special session" if the business of the people has not been completed; which may be the case here.
A few weeks ago, several important legislation died on the House of Representatives' calendar. The House has a committee that sets bills passed out of legislative committees to be debated on the floor.
In response to the influx of the voter fraud by the elderly, minorities, and illegals, the state's Republican legislators decided to pass stringent laws to require a form of photo ID along with their voter registration card. The Republican Chair of the Calendars Committee decided to place the Voter ID bill before other important bills. Democrats called foul and decided to stall the noncontroversal calendar of bills, which was set before the regular calendar, for five days. They were successful in preventing debate of the Voter ID bill.
However, because of the Democrats' tatic, legislators had to find other bills to amend and piggyback and save their bills that were casualties of the Voter ID debacle. Some succeeded. Many caused other bills to collapse due to non-germane amendments.
Five state agencies were among the casualties of the last couple of weeks of the legislative session. On September 2010, the state's transportation department, insurance department, racing commission, affortable housing corporation, and the office of public insurance counsel, will be shut down. One option that is being widely discussed is a possible "Special Session."
The Governor of the State would have to call a session by proclamation on particular issue. In this case, he'd have to call a special session on the continuation of these state agencies. However, if History teaches us anything, the Governor can call legislators back to Austin and tackle other issues, such as Voter ID.
Nonetheless, for now, SINE DIE.
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