May 23, 2019      11:50 AM
Speaker Bonnen stresses that House members are responsible for non-germane Senate amendments on House bills, not his office
In a shift from Straus era, House members – instead of the speaker – are now primarily responsible for fighting off certain proposals added by the Senate; veterans of the process see the move as deferential to Senate language in the closing days of the session
In
a brief announcement from the dais, Texas House Speaker Dennis Bonnen this week put the members
on notice that the chamber is no longer going to automatically kick back bills
to the Texas Senate when senators have added non-germane amendments to
House bills.
Under
the House rules adopted at the beginning of the session, this is how it will
work in the closing days of the session, Bonnen said: House members need to go through
their altered bills for things that may have been added by senators that could,
in many cases, be quite significant.
By Scott Braddock
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