Texas House meets for less than 9 seconds in forced Saturday session
AUSTIN (Nexstar) — The Texas House of Representatives met for exactly 8.8 seconds for the House's first Saturday session of the 89th Regular Legislative Session.
In those seconds, House Speaker Dustin Burrows, R-Lubbock, announced that a quorum was not present, which is the minimum number of members needed to be present in order to work. Quorum for the House is 100 members.
This follows Friday's events of also not meeting quorum. Speaker Burrows initially announced a quorum was present, but State Rep. Brian Harrison, R-Midlothian, called for verification and found attendance fell short.
"I'm very proud to have objected [Friday] and to require strict enforcement," Harrison said. "Speaker Burrows is conducting what I call 'operation run out the call' because he is trying to run the clock out on Republican priorities that he doesn't want to be blamed for killing."
Nexstar reached out to Speaker Burrows' office for comment and has not heard back yet. We will update this story if a response is given.
At this point in the 88th Regular Legislative session, the House reported 13 bills and joint resolutions out of committee. In this year's legislative session, the House has only reported 5 bills and joint resolutions.
In comparison, the Texas Senate has reported 94 bills and joint resolutions in this year's legislative session.
Mark Strama, a civics professor at UT Austin and a former Texas lawmaker who served five terms in the Texas House, said the slower pace can be attributed to Burrows not being elected as Speaker until the first day of this legislative session—a rarity in Texas politics.
"It took the first month of the session for [Burrows] to sort out who would be committee chairs, who would be assigned to each committee, and then to start referring bills for the committees to organize themselves and start holding hearings," Strama said. "They're really just getting their legs underneath them right now."