80th Legislature: Pondering The Two-Thirds Rule

The Houston Chronicle has an interesting piece up on the dynamics under the Dome leading into the 80th.

A large portion of the article was dealing with the Texas Senate’s “two-thirds rule.” This is particularly interesting because, since the Redistricting debacle, a lot of people who monitor the Lege have eyed the 80th as the time when Republicans would finally get up the courage to mount a full frontal effort to do away with the rule.

From the Chron:

The dynamics on the Senate side are driven by the two-thirds rule — a rule that requires two-thirds of the senators present to vote for a bill procedurally before it can come up for debate. Eleven senators can block any bill from reaching the floor.

Rep. Carlos Uresti, D-San Antonio, defeated Sen. Frank Madla in the party primary on the grounds that Madla too often gave Republicans the procedural vote they needed to bring legislation up for debate. Because of Uresti’s victory, Democrats say they now have a solid group of votes to block legislation. Madla died in a house fire in San Antonio on Friday.

“There are some very gut issues you will see Democrats holding the line on — voting rights, vouchers, maybe some privatization issues,” said Sen. Leticia Van de Putte, D-San Antonio, chair of the Senate Democratic Caucus.

Van de Putte said Democrats also are hoping to use their clout to impact the state budget.

[...]

Van de Putte said the rule is good for Democrats and Republicans. “With Dan Patrick in the Senate, the two-thirds rule protects all senators, including Republicans, from having to vote on really bad public policy,” Van de Putte said.

So, will the 80th be the last hurrah for the two-thirds rule? We’ve already seen what can happen when the rule is suspended, a la the ‘03 Redistricting debacle.
Only 16 Republican senators are needed to vote to eliminate the rule. I’m not sure that, given the political climate and the fact that some of those Republicans may finally face heavy opposition next cycle, there are 16 votes to be had for such a partisan issue.

For one thing, doing away with the two-thirds rule would essentially ensure that school vouchers and possibly South Dakota-Style anti-abortion laws could go down on the books in Texas. I believe there are even Republicans in the Senate who wouldn’t like to see that happen.
Of course, senator elect Dan Patrick (R-Houston) thinks just the opposite:

But Patrick said the power of the Democratic bloc can be broken just by changing the Senate rules. There are 20 Republican senators, and only 16 are needed to eliminate the two-thirds rule.

“I’m hearing some Republicans say we’ve got to move to the middle. If we do that, the Republican Party will be destroyed in Texas,” Patrick said.

Evidently, Patrick hasn’t looked at the general election returns yet. Aside from Dan Patrick himself, most similarly-aligned, similarly-situated radical right wingers with opponents found themselves defeated or under 50 percent in three-way races.

That, more than Dan Patrick’s personal opinion, should be a cue to the Republican Party that it is in “typewriter mode” right now: about 12 years ago, someone just kept hitting “carriage return” and got the them stuck on the far right. Now, it’s time to hit the space bar a few times and slowly move back.

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