Contact Dave McNeely at davemdavemcne ely111@gmail.
The number 21 takes on special significance in the Texas Senate. That is the two-thirds vote of the 31 senators needed to bring a measure to the floor for debate.
Senators traditionally do not approach the lieutenant governor, who presides over the Senate and basically sets its agenda, to request recognition on a bill until they are reasonably certain that 20 of their colleagues will vote with them to bring it up.
On the flip side, the other significant number is 11. That’s the necessary one-third to guarantee blockage of the two-thirds vote. Sometimes, when senators are trying to kill off bills they don’t like, they will circulate a letter signed by at least 11 of them, telling of their plans to vote “no.”
Those numbers are made important by the Senate’s rules. Senators traditionally park an innocuous bill – like whether to incarcerate squirrels on the Capitol’s north lawn – at the top of the Senate calendar, and just leave it there.
That means any other measures have to be brought up out of their regular order – and that requires a two-thirds vote to suspend Senate rules. However, once a bill reaches the floor, it only takes a majority to pass it.
Freshman Sen. Dan Patrick, R-Houston, tried to do away with the two-thirds rule early in the 2007 regular legislative session, on grounds it was anti-democratic. He got one vote – his own. That’s because most senators, most of the time, like the rule, even though it makes it tougher to bring up legislation.
For one thing, it encourages senators to reach across the partisan aisle. The current line-up in the Senate for next year is 18 Republicans and 12 Democrats.
That’s just 30 senators. The 31st, the Houstonarea 17th District seat vacated by Republican Kyle Janek last summer, will be decided by a Dec. 16 special-election runoff between Republican Joan Huffman and Democrat Chris Bell.
That means the Democratic minority will have at least one, and possibly two, more than the one-third minimum to block a bill. That affords them a cushion, requiring a unanimous Republican majority to appeal to at least two, and possibly three, of the Democrats to reach a two-thirds vote.
For another thing, requiring a two-thirds super-majority to bring bills up means a measure must have considerable support before it can reach the floor. That keeps senators from having to cast as many controversial votes on iffy measures that may not pass both houses of the Legislature as they would have to if a bill could come up by a simple majority.
In fact, one of the reasons some senators in the past have complained about the Sunset review process that requires agencies to be re-approved every dozen years, is that it can require senators to cast some tough votes.
If an agency like the Public Utility Commission or Department of Human Services is up for Sunset review, the measure continuing it is almost certain to reach the floor. Senators can’t just willy-nilly let important state agencies die.
But that also means that when a major agency is up for Sunset, interest groups will try to load into the bill their own pet projects, or remove aspects they don’t like. Those who have to cast the deciding votes are the senators – and some of those votes are sure to make somebody mad.
Then there’s the simple fact that some senators occasionally agree to sponsor legislation because a powerful constituent or interest group wants them to – even though the senator may think the bill is lousy or unnecessary. At those times, the senators have to keep from smiling when they get off the hook by reporting that the two-thirds vote simply isn’t there.
There are occasions when a senator will play both sides. He or she will vote to bring up a bill on grounds it deserves a hearing, but then vote against passing it.
Also, since the Senate rule requires a twothirds vote of those present and voting to bring up a bill, someone who opposes the measure, but wants to curry favor with an interest group or another senator, may “walk” – be absent from the floor – while the vote is taken to bring it up.
If all other senators were present, that would drop the number of votes to bring up the bill from 21 to 20. Later, the senator who walked can return and vote against the bill.
Most Texans neither know nor care about the nuances of the two-thirds rule. But it can make a great difference in whether important measures are ever considered, much less passed.
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