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A rules package has been adopted for the Texas House of Representatives, but that package is being called out as another win for the House Democrats. It looks like elected officials in Austin have started taking pages from Washington D.C.'s book.
Brandon Waltens with the Texas Scorecard says the process of passing this package closely resembled what we've seen from omnibus spending bills at the federal level. He said, "Members were given, at 4:30 in the morning, this over 200-page document. And then were never allowed to debate or offer amendments on it. It was rushed through."
Waltens also says that there are two dead giveaways that this package is a win for the House Democrats. Those are the fact that all but one Democrat voted for the package, and a Democrat lawyer who previously worked for the Obama White House wrote the package.
Those are clear indicators that Democrats should be, and are, very happy with this package, so what's in it? Waltens says it gives Democrats more power than they had last session, because despite the fact that it technically bans Democrats from being Committee chairs, it mandates that only Democrats be made the Vice Chair of House Committees.
It also gives significantly more power to a committee's vice chair. Waltens said that, "They're actually able to put bills on the schedule; they can gum up the works that way."