More than one thought, word and idea at a time...
For the second time, Texas has passed a bill out of the House Committee attempting to legalize poker in the Lone Star State. Not too long ago, the HB 222 vote was 6-3 sending the bill on its way up the hill. Hopefully, we will have a date set soon. I will certainly keep you posted.
Thank you for all the support so many of you have shown. Keep up the emails to your State Representatives!
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Great News! I figured it would pass thru committee. I am not familiar with the process; can you tell us what the next step is? Is the only thing we can do as supporters are send emails to our reps? Is there any other type of pressure we can put on them? Thanks and good job on keeping everyone up to date!!
James:
I’m kinda paraphrasing, but, in Texas, it goes something like this:
1) Bill introduced. [DONE]
Bill gets second reading on House floor, debate/amendments.
2) Bill read in House. [DONE]
3) Bill assigned to House Committee. [DONE]
4) Committee debates, holds public hearing. [DONE]
5) Committee either amends bill or leaves as is. [DONE]
6) Committee votes to kill bill or pass back to House. [DONE]
7) Bill is placed on the House Calendar. [NEXT STEP, PENDING]
9) Bill gets third reading on House floor, up-or-down vote.
> If the bill is passed, it heads over to the Senate.
> If the bill doesn’t pass, it’s dead.
10) Bill arrives in Senate.
11) Bill is read and passed to the appropriate Senate Committee.
12) Senate committee debates, votes.
13) If bill survives, it heads back to the Senate floor.
14) Bill gets second reading in Senate. Amend/Debate.
15) Bill gets third reading. Up-or-down vote.
> Again, if it passes, it goes back to the House with any changes or amendments attached.
> If it doesn’t pass, it’s dead.
16) Bill returns to House.
> If the bill returns to the House unchanged, it is signed by the leaders of both the House and the Senate and is prepared for presenatation to the Governor.
> If the bill is returned with amendments attached from the Senate, the House must either agree, by vote, with the changes, or a special conference is called between representatives from both chambers to finalize the bill.
17) Once bill is finalized, it is signed by the leaders of both chambers and sent to the Governor.
18) When the Governor receives the bill, he has ten days to act in the following manners:
> If he signs the bill, it becomes law 91 days after the Texas Congress closes shop. However, if the bill contains an earlier specified date for enactment, then the bill becomes law on that date instead.
> If he vetoes the bill, if goes back to Congress. If 2/3 of both the Texas House and Senate vote to override the veto, it becomes law without consent of the Governor.
> If he does not act on the bill within 10 days of it landing on his desk, it automatically becomes law without his consent.
There, you’ve learned everything you’d ever want to know about Texas Government. =)
Hey, thanks for the summary. Let’s just hope they get to #8 first… if it ends up on the bottom of the schedule and they don’t get to it due to education, taxes, health care and other bills considered just as important as poker then it will die.
I don’t think we have to worry this year about the calendar… We have a GOOD man on our side. so it will be early on the list…NO Fill-A-Busters this time…