80th Texas Legislature, Pre-filed bills

The 8th Texas Legislature won't begin until January 9, but legislators are already pre-filing bills. Doing so gives their legislation an official number and a stronger possibility (they hope) of getting their bill passed during the actual session. Once committees are formed in the new session, bills with be formally "read" in the House and Senate and referred to committee where they will be recommended for passage--or die.

You can find a list of the prefiled bills at the Capitol website. Click the link for reports. Make sure that the box for Legislature says "80R - 2007." There are a number of ways to search for bills, including author, subject, and filing date. If you choose filing date, start with November 13 to see bills pre-filed from the beginning--and select every week day thereafter to see all of the bills.

If you want to follow any bills during the session, you can create a "My TLO" account and set up your own tracking lists. I am setting up online tracking lists for Texas AIDS Network using Google Docs & Spreadsheets. You can, if you want to, follow what I'm following by checking the Texas AIDS Network 2007 Bill Track.