Burnt Orange Report

New Quorum Rules in the State House?

By Byron LaMasters

With all this talk of Republicans gearing up to try and steal HD 149 for Talmadge Heflin on the house floor, one thing immediately entered my mind -- breaking quorum. It would certainly be unlikely, but I can't say it didn't enter my mind. Well, of course, Republicans want to change the rules on that. They talked about doing it last year, but I'd be surprised if they don't take it seriously this year. You know, after stealing the election for Heflin, they'll probably want to re-re-redistrict Chet Edwards out of office (ok, I'll shut up before giving them too many ideas). The Monitor reports that the bill has already been filed:

A Republican state legislator wants to force his Democratic colleagues to remain inside state lines during the next legislative session, in order to avoid boycotts like the ones seen in both the Texas Senate and House last year.

State Rep. Dan Branch, RDallas, filed a resolution on Monday that seeks to change the number of legislators needed to form a quorum from two-thirds to a majority. [...]

If Branch’s resolution survives the session, the issue would be presented to Texas voters in a constitutional amendment election set for Nov. 8, 2005.

From the looks of it, this is a constitutional amendment which would require support of two-thirds of the house to pass -- something tells me it's unlikely that Republicans could find three -- not to mention the needed thirteen Democrats to give them a two-thirds majority. State Sen. Juan "Chuy" Hinojosa (D-McAllen) certainly doesn't like the idea:

"It doesn’t make sense — he would need two-thirds to pass it and why in the world would I vote to give up my rights? I don’t think it has any support in the House or the Senate," Hinojosa said.

I do think Republicans will do something to change the quorum rules (or enact punishments for lawmakers who choose to break quorum) that does not require a constitutional amendment. I'm not sure exactly what they can and cannot do regarding rule changes without a constitutional amendment, but I'm sure that I'll find out over the coming months.