NEWS: House Committees Announced!
- Speaker Phelan announced House committee chairs & members last Thursday.
- The lists show which names are seniority picks (requests from members picked in order of seniority) and which names are Speaker appointments.
- Constitutional Carry (and many other gun bills) are typically assigned to the Homeland Security and Public Safety committee (HSPS). Other gun bills in the House go to Criminal Jurisprudence, State Affairs, and other committees.
- This session, HSPS is chaired by James White, who authored a permitless carry bill (HB 1911) in 2017 and joint authored Rep. Stickland’s Constitutional Carry bill (HB 357) in 2019.
- The party affiliation of the HSPS committee membership is 6 Republican, 3 Democrat. Four members are GOA-endorsed (Cole Hefner, Jared Patterson, Matt Schaefer, and Tony Tinderholt).
- Even after a committee votes to move a bill forward, it still dies unless the Calendars Committee decides to send it to the House floor for a vote.
Gun Bills Filed
- You can see our GOA gun bill list at txgoa.us/87r.
- The list includes bills we support AND bills we oppose.
- You can sort the list by position, author, or category; filter it to show only a certain type or category; or download it as an Excel spreadsheet.
- We will continue to update this list throughout session.
What’s Next?
- Both the House and Senate have announced their committee lists.
- Next, the Speaker and Lt. Gov. will start referring bills to committees.
- The 1-month period reserved for bill filing ends February 11. Committees could start meeting to hear bills as early as February 12.
- Typically, a committee will hold an organizational meeting to discuss logistics before it holds committee hearings to hear bills.
Sign up for alerts!
- Use the Texas Legislature Online website (capitol.texas.gov) to get email notifications when specific committees schedule a meeting, or when your chosen bills move forward.
- First, sign up for a free account (click “login” in the top right corner, and use your main email address).
- For bill alerts: go to My TLO > Alerts > Bills. Enter a bill number and a personal note, and click “Add Bill.” When you’ve finished adding all your bills, click “Save” before you leave the page.
- For committee alerts: go to My TLO > Alerts > Committee Notices. Click the “Receive Email Alert” box for each Senate or House committee in which you’re interested. Click “Save.”
- See our TLO training video (#2 at txgoa.us/txlege) for more details and an example of how to use this website feature.
Recent GOA News & Updates
