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House clerk reads dozens of bills on first reading and refers them to committees
Summary
At a brief session, the House clerk read dozens of bills and resolutions for first reading and referred each to the appropriate standing committee; no floor votes were recorded during the reading and the House adjourned until 2 p.m. Tuesday.
The House convened and the House clerk read dozens of bills and resolutions for first reading and referral to standing committees, covering subjects that included public health, education, transportation, natural resources and criminal penalties.
The readings began with the clerk announcing, “The house will come to order the following bills and resolutions on first reading and referral to committee. The clerk will read the bills and resolutions,” and continued through a sequence of bill numbers and committee referrals recorded in the transcript. The measures were referred to committees including Public Health; Higher Education; Judiciary and Civil Jurisprudence; Transportation; Public Education; Appropriations; Natural Resources; Insurance; Agriculture and Livestock; Ways and Means; Elections; and others.
Why it matters: First reading and committee referral is the procedural step that sends each measure into the legislative process for committee consideration, hearings and possible amendment. Referral determines which committee will examine the bill’s substance and whether it advances toward a formal vote by the full House.
Details recorded in the reading include, by way of representative examples from the transcript: HB 3451 by Rosenthal (relating to change of name and associated birth records, referred to Public Health); HB 3452 by Jones of Dallas (relating to criminal disciplinary‑history inquiries for undergraduate admissions, referred to Higher Education); HB 3460 (relating to the bilingual education allotment under the public school finance system, referred to Public Education); HB 3485 (relating to availability and instruction of automatic external defibrillators at certain schools, referred to Public Education); HB 3500 (relating to municipal authority to pledge hotel and convention center tax revenue, referred to Ways and Means); and SB 3519 (relating to prohibition on cultivation of castor beans, referred to Agriculture and Livestock). The transcript lists a continuous set of bills and resolutions in numeric sequence; the reading did not include substantive debate on the measures themselves.
The transcript records only the clerk’s reading and the committee to which each bill was referred; it does not show committee action, floor debate on the measures themselves, or any recorded roll‑call votes associated with the items read. The clerk’s reading constituted the procedural first reading and referral; no motions, seconds or vote tallies were indicated in the transcript.
The session concluded with the clerk noting the adjournment: “Without objection, the house stands adjourned until 2PM, Tuesday.”
