By J. Lyn Carl, GalleryWatch.com
Austin, TX – Those bills deemed "emergency" items by Gov. Rick Perry at the start of the 78th Legislature just keep hitting stumps.
While the House is bogged down in a parliamentary war seasoned with more than 300 amendments to its HB 4 that would provide sweeping tort reform, the Senate side of the rotunda is having similar problems getting SB 14, that would regulate insurance rates, to the Senate floor.
Although Sen. Mike Jackson's SB 14 has been on the Senate intent calendar since Tuesday, that is where it has remained.
Senate Business and Commerce Committee Chair Sen. Troy Fraser, author of another insurance bill, SB 127, made an "appeal" to his fellow members on the Senate floor today regarding amendments to the two bills.
Earlier in the week, Jackson made a motion to set an 11 a.m. Tuesday deadline (24 hours before the Senate was expected to take up the bill on Wednesday) for all amendments to SB 14 to be prefiled. Democratic senators balked at his proposal when it was revealed it would preclude any new floor amendments and only allow amendments to prefiled amendments to be offered from the floor.
Jackson backed down and changed the deadline to Wednesday and also indicated he would allow any floor amendments not prefiled also to be considered.
Today's "stump" that the bill hit was described when Fraser noted that although some of the amendments to the legislation had indeed been prefiled as asked, those prefiled amendments cannot be released to the authors of the bills without permission from the person filing the amendment.
Fraser said he still hopes to bring the bill up for consideration on Monday or Tuesday of next week. "The problem continues to be that amendments were sent to the clerk's office and we tried to get the amendments. They cannot be released unless the member agrees to have them released."
Fraser said if he and Jackson don't see the amendments before they come to the floor, they will not have time to "digest them."
He said because of the impact of the legislation and because it is such a big issue, he is not going to ask for a motion in writing that the amendments have to be given to the bill authors, but told members, "If you file an amendment, tell the clerk it is OK to release the amendment to the (bill) author." That will allow the authors to "know the impact of the amendment prior to coming to the floor," said Fraser, and will "speed the process."