We Weren't Loud Enough!!!

Time runs out for hundreds of House bills

12:00 AM CDT on Friday, May 15, 2009
By CHRISTY HOPPE / The Dallas Morning News
choppe@dallasnews.com

AUSTIN – The ability to carry a gun on college campuses died Thursday night, quietly, without a bang, like almost 200 other bills on a long list of business that didn't get done.



HARRY CABLUCK/The Associated Press
Rep. Norma Chavez, D-El Paso, was working her way through the stack of bills on her desk during the session in the House on Thursday in Austin. As the clock ticked down to that bewitching hour of midnight, bills that began the session as bright, shiny ideas found themselves just this side of Friday turned into pumpkins.

Rule are rules, and Thursday night was the last opportunity for all House legislation to have received its first vote before the chamber.

A list of about 350 proposals, their short little captions running down 24 legal-size pages, began in the optimism of a new morning, but by evening's dusk their hope had withered. As the brutal legislative clock moved through the dark night, most eventually became that which had killed them: dead lines.

On the list of what can't be salvaged this session, which ends June 1, was the campus carry bill.

"I don't think it has another chance," said its author, Rep. Joe Driver, R-Garland. "It leaves another gun-free zone out there."

To him, that is a terrible thing that cannot be addressed for another two years.

Driver regretted the session's slow pace, which began with the House electing its new leader, Joe Straus, and the transition put it a week behind its traditional schedule.

But this week, the tempo became excruciating to him. He lamented the House not working past 11:30 p.m., and every dinner and lunch break – that pushed his bill closer to its expiration date.

"It's crunch time. When we're only tackling a page every two hours, that's bad," Driver said.

Angela Hale, spokeswoman for Straus, said the House has taken breaks at the request of members so they could conduct other business, hold hearings and pass bills out of committee.

"There are always frustrations at this time of the session when bills don't make it to the floor. The speaker is trying to balance all of these concerns," she said.

Also unlikely to pass is a measure by Rep. Warren Chisum, R-Pampa, that would have pushed couples wanting to divorce into counseling before dissolving their marriage.

Besides those on the House agenda that didn't make it past deadline, all of the hundreds of House bills left in committees also perished.

Authors are looking for related Senate bills that will come through the House next and could be a place for their bills to be reborn as amendments.

Rep. Gary Elkins, R-Houston, was the author of the last bill on Thursday's list – HB 345, which would mandate businesses protect sensitive personal information in their files. He already knew its fate by mid-afternoon.

"We're not going to get there," he said.

But he was philosophical: "The Bible says the first shall be last and the last shall be first," he said. "I'm looking for a vehicle."