Legislators spent a good part of yesterday being mad at people, so maybe things really are starting to return to normal.
Thawing out
Now that the state is on the road to recovery from #Snowpocalypse2021 / #SNOVID-21 / “The Big Chill” / #TexasFreeze (take your pick), it’s become even more obvious that this will be a session unlike any other. The lost week put the 87th Legislature yet further behind schedule when compared to the pace of a “normal” session, with more delays to come due to the coronavirus pandemic (remember that?). However, there were some new signs of life, such as the House finally starting to refer filed bills to committees. That is generally considered only the second of roughly 15 steps a bill must take on its way to the governor’s desk, but for those hoping to pass bills this session, it’s welcome news. The unanswered question is how the Lege will prioritize its 94 remaining days this spring when things are moving so slowly.
Lite Guv’s chart toppers
For a glimpse into how the Senate may answer that question, look no further than the lieutenant governor’s list of 31 priority bills that he released earlier this week, all of which will be given highly-coveted bills numbers (SB 1–SB 31) once they are filed by their Senate authors. Among those that may impact your business are:
- Senate Bill 1 by Nelson (R-Flower Mound) (state budget)
- SB 7 (election and ballot security)
- SB 10 (taxpayer funded lobbying)
- SB 11 by Huffman (R-Houston) (appellate court reorganization)
- SB 20 (gun possession defenses)
- SB 21 (bail reform)
- SB 23 (don’t defund the police)
- SB 24 (law enforcement transparency)
All we have for most of these high priority bills right now are labels, not actual words on paper in bill format. As a result, we can’t get into a detailed analysis of any of them now (with one exception we’ll discuss below). What we can say is that these are 31 bill topics that will get to cut to the front of the line when it comes to committee hearings and floor debates in the upper chamber; how they will fare across the rotunda remains to be seen.
Appellate re-org?
One bill in the above list that might jump out to you as an odd topic to prioritize is SB 11 by Huffman (R-Houston), a bill to re-organize our state’s appellate court system. This is something we noted in passing a few weeks ago through one of our “quotes of the week” taken from a news story out of El Paso in which local officials expressed concerns about what the bill might morph into. Here’s more on that story.
While the Lege is constitutionally required to redistrict itself, Congressional seats, State Board of Education seats, and the state’s judicial districts every decade (the latter of which they routinely ignore), the boundaries of the state’s courts of appeals are determined solely by the Lege and are not required to be redrawn. However, that doesn’t mean there aren’t good policy reasons to reconsider the wisdom (such as it is) behind our state’s large, decentralized appellate court system. That’s where the tort-reforming folks at Texans for Lawsuit Reform come in. They released a study last year titled “A System Needing Structural Repair” which describes the somewhat haphazard historical development of our appellate court system, then compares it to other states’ (usually smaller and more centralized) appellate court systems and advocates for a replacing our current 14-court system with a more centralized five- to seven-court system. You can read the report for all the details; it’s linked above, and we found it interesting from both an historical perspective and a nerdy appellate public policy perspective.
So, that report contains the policy pitch for re-organizing the appellate courts by merging them into a more efficient and centralized system. But what other consequences might it have? As pointed out in the El Paso story mentioned above, some observers have wondered what impact the proposed changes might have on recent gains Democrats have made on the appellate courts in the larger metropolitan areas of the state, gains which might be rolled back or diluted if those urban courts’ districts included more outlying counties that traditionally vote Republican. And during a session in which partisan distrust may be at its peak due to the redistricting duties already on its agenda, this could end up being a stealthily controversial topic for the Lege this year, especially if certain Republican legislators from smaller communities decide that voting their district—especially those that might lose their local appellate courts in a re-organization—is a higher priority than voting their party.
That said, what does this mean for prosecutors who could be directly affected by any wholesale re-organization of the appellate court system? For starters, the conventional wisdom is that the current version of SB 11 is a “shell bill”—a placeholder for more detailed language to come when the bill is heard in committee—so don’t get wound up about anything currently in it. However, you should start weighing the pros and cons of potential changes to your current appellate district, including how far away your “local” district might move, how that might impact your office’s budget and operations, and who might ultimately serve on those courts, among other concerns. Meanwhile, we will continue monitoring the issue and let you know when more actionable information comes to light.
Remote court proceedings
The long-awaited bill to allow the greater use of technology for remote proceedings during non-pandemic times has been filed. Senate Bill 690 by Zaffirini (D-Laredo) was filed this week and it should spur an important discussion of these issues.
Unfortunately, the initial filed version of the bill is not very illuminating. In a nutshell, it would allow any judge to remotely conduct a court proceeding or a portion of a court proceeding—such as jury selection or a witness’s testimony—without the consent of the parties, unless the state or federal constitutions require that consent, in which case either party may object. And when, you might be wondering, is a party’s consent constitutionally required? Good question, and it’s one not answered by the bill. Which means the current language provides no real guidance on resolving the issue of when remote technology can or can’t be done, which is the only answer many of you care about. But the good news is that the author’s office is open to constructive feedback from practitioners with the intent to improve the bill as it moves through the process, so if you have thoughts on this topic that you want to share, reach out to Shannon for more information on how to most effectively do that.
Bill filings
Bill filings continued at a steady pace this week and are only a few hundred bills behind historical norms despite the challenges posed by the pandemic and the recent storm outages. Through yesterday, we are tracking 870 (26%) of the 3,315 bills filed to date. Time permitting, next week we will try to highlight some of this session’s most interesting “new” bills (as opposed to the many, many, many bills that are re-filed versions of old bills which failed to pass in prior session.)
To view the current bills that would amend the Penal Code or Code of Criminal Procedure or that fall into our “Bills to Watch” category, use the links on the right-hand side of our Legislative page. And as always, if you ever have questions about any piece of legislation, please contact Shannon for more scoop.
House committee schedule
In addition to the referral of House bills to committees, the committee schedule was also released. Among those committees that prosecutors may most often find themselves in front of will be:
Juvenile Justice & Family Issues Mondays, 10:00am, E2.014
Criminal Jurisprudence Mondays, 2:00pm or upon adjournment, E2.010
Corrections Wednesdays, 8:00am, E2.026
Judiciary & Civil Jurisprudence Wednesdays, 8:00am, E2.014
Homeland Security & Public Safety Thursdays, 10:30am or upon adj., E2.030
Many of these committees will hold their organizational meetings in the next week or two, at which time they will adopt their rules and prepare for hearings on actual bills later in March.
Scattershooting
Here’s a few stories we read this week that you might find interesting:
- “What drove the historically large murder spike in 2020?” (The Intercept)
- “Why cities have more people but less clout” (Governing)
Looking ahead
Next week’s menu will still feature budget hearings as the main course, with House committee organizational meetings serving as appetizers and desserts. No word on when Senate committee might organize for action, but don’t be surprised if they wait until after the bill filing deadline (March 12). In preparation for those eventual bill hearings, next week’s update will include a look at how the committee hearings process will differ from past sessions and how you might best advocate for yourself on issues that are important to you.
Quotes of the Week
“Unfortunately, the last few days have been a black eye on the reputation of Texas.”
—Texas comptroller Glenn Hegar (R-Katy), during testimony before the Senate Finance Committee on the fiscal impact of the recent winter storms.
“Some of the blame belongs right here in this building. There’s blame out there for everybody.”
—State Rep. Charlie Geren (R-Fort Worth), during this week’s House hearings on the causes of, and potential cures for, the state’s recent power outages.
“There’s a powerful commitment to that base ideology of small government, low taxes, and deregulation … [that will] limit the amount of reform that is mandated. … Once we’re in the spring, we’ve got pleasant weather, the sun is out, we have a cooling breeze, a lot of the ardor for this series of reforms is going to evaporate.”
—Cal Jillson, author and political scientist at SMU, when asked how he thinks state leadership will respond to last week’s energy debacle.
“It’s like H-E-B is the moral center of Texas. There seems to be in our state a lack of real leadership, a lack of real efficiency, on the political level. But on the business level, when it comes to a grocery store, all of those things are in place.”
—Stephen Harrigan, Austin-based novelist, quoted in a NY Times article about the role the iconic Texas grocery store chain plays during natural disasters in Texas.
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