November 17, 2014 4:27 PM

Enriquez: Resounding Republican victory means it is time to get things done

Co-Founder of Glasshouse Policy points to data that suggests even in a GOP dominated Legislature, bipartisan bills have the best chance of passage

As the dust settles from the recent election, it is clear that the 84th Texas Legislature will look a lot like the 83rd Legislative Session, including Republican dominance of the Texas House and Senate, and control of key leadership roles statewide. So, it would be wise for policy practitioners to learn from the successes of the previous session and try to repeat those successes this time around.

Glasshouse Policy crunched the numbers from the 83rd Session and the data confirms that the clearest path to getting things done begins with Republicans and Democrats working together. In fact, our research reveals that a bipartisan-authored bill filed in the Texas House of Representatives was nearly 6 times more likely to pass than a bill filed by same-party legislators.

We arrived at this conclusion after taking a close look at the political parties of the joint-authors of every bill filed in both the Texas House and Senate. For the purposes of our report, bills jointly authored by at least one member of each political party are considered to be “bipartisan.”

What did we find when our analysis was complete? Bills coauthored with bipartisan support, while rare, were more likely to become law than their single-party counterparts. And, interestingly, despite the success of collaborative bills, there were relatively few bipartisan bills filed.

Here are some of our key findings:

The complete column from Francisco Enriquez can be found in the R&D Department.

By Francisco Enriquez