{"id":12,"date":"2013-06-29T15:23:00","date_gmt":"2013-06-29T15:23:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/highplainsblogger.wordpress.com\/2013\/06\/29\/days-of-senate-collegiality-coming-to-an-end"},"modified":"2013-06-29T15:23:00","modified_gmt":"2013-06-29T15:23:00","slug":"days-of-senate-collegiality-coming-to-an-end","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=12","title":{"rendered":"Days of Senate collegiality coming to an end"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n

Sound \u201cTaps\u201d for the era of collegiality and bipartisanship in the Texas Senate.<\/p>\n

They\u2019re all but gone.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/2013\/06\/27\/coming-out-swinging-dan-patrick-announces-lt-gov\/<\/a><\/p>\n

State Sen. Dan Patrick, R-Houston, has announced his candidacy for lieutenant governor, vowing to bring \u201cauthentic conservative leadership\u201d into the Legislature\u2019s upper chamber. You know what means, yes? The two-thirds rule that used to govern the way the Senate did business is a goner, toast, road kill.<\/p>\n

I know that because (1) Patrick opposes the rule and (2) the incumbent lieutenant governor, David Dewhurst, is going to fight like hell to keep his job and one of the things he\u2019s going to do to keep it is get rid of the rule himself.<\/p>\n

The lieutenant governor can do that, as the Senate\u2019s presiding officer. Dewhurst did so, in fact, prior to the start of the special session that ended this past Wednesday morning. He\u2019ll do so again when the Legislature convenes Monday for its second special session, which Gov. Rick Perry has called to shove through an anti-abortion bill that was filibustered to oblivion by state Sen. Wendy Davis, D-Fort Worth.<\/p>\n

Republicans occupy 19 of 31 Senate seats. The two-thirds rule, established long ago, is meant to seek bipartisan support on legislation. That means bill sponsors would need 21 votes to bring any bill to a full Senate vote, which also means that at least two Democratic senators would need to sign onto a bill if it had full Republican support. <\/p>\n

Such a rule helps breed at least a semblance of collegiality.<\/p>\n

Patrick hates the rule. He vows to get rid of it. He\u2019s a GOP firebrand who\u2019s now taken the unusual \u2013 for Texas \u2013 step of challenging an incumbent within his own party.<\/p>\n

Dewhurst was bloodied badly in the first special session as Davis took control of the floor at the session\u2019s 11th hour and the Senate gallery erupted in cheers, hoots and applause near the end of her filibuster to help carry Davis across the finish line. Patrick and his Republican colleagues were steamed at what happened and so Patrick has decided to take matters into his own hands by challenging Dewhurst in next year\u2019s Republican primary.<\/p>\n

For his part, Dewhurst is talking tough \u2013 against Senate Democrats, the media (who he alleges helped foment the uprising in the jam-packed Senate gallery) and anyone else who stands in the way of enacting Senate Bill 5, the aforementioned anti-abortion legislation. Check this out:<\/p>\n

http:\/\/hotair.com\/archives\/2013\/06\/28\/dewhurst-ill-pass-the-late-term-abortion-ban-and-take-action-against-those-who-incited-demonstration\/<\/a><\/p>\n

The days of comity and collegiality in the Texas Senate aren\u2019t long for this world. <\/p>\n

This will be an ugly and sad spectacle to watch.<\/p>\n\n

Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sound \u201cTaps\u201d for the era of collegiality and bipartisanship in the Texas Senate. They\u2019re all but gone. http:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/2013\/06\/27\/coming-out-swinging-dan-patrick-announces-lt-gov\/ State Sen. Dan Patrick, R-Houston, has announced his candidacy for lieutenant governor, vowing to bring \u201cauthentic conservative leadership\u201d into the Legislature\u2019s upper chamber. You know what means, yes? The two-thirds rule that used to govern the way … Continue reading Days of Senate collegiality coming to an end<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}