HB 910 Conference Committee

[RPBrown]

Good, bad, or indifferent, here are the Senate Conferees
Senate Conferees: Appointed (05/28/2015) Estes (Chair) | Eltife | Huffines | Huffman | Uresti

[viking1000]

Can they dump both amendments ? Will the discussion be with both house and senate members in the same room, and will it be televised ... Not sure I am asking this right .

Yes, but I can't get into how it can be done. There is a procedure.

Chas.

Thanks Chas, I kinda knew there was something. I will shut up and let it play ..

[The Annoyed Man]

The vote to send it to conference committee was overwhelming.... 70 something against to 90 something in favor. It is hard to see how a 20+ vote difference would suddenly swing the other way and vote to pass it in the event that the committee reports the bill back to the floor unchanged. That is a political fiction existing only in the fairyland imaginations of the most fringe OC supporters.

THAT is why the Huffhines amendment was a poison pill. If the Senate had voted to pass the bill as is, without creating a scenario where their final bill conflicted with the House's final bill, HB 910 would have been signed into law yesterday. Instead, and as I understand it, the conference committee now faces these possibilities in order to iron out the differences:

1. The first possibility is that the committee would vote to send the bill back out, unchanged, for an up or down vote in the House. IF THAT HAPPENS, there are only two possible outcomes:
   
   1. Least likely outcome of that: the 20+ vote margin in the House that originally voted against the bill in its current form, change their minds and they vote to pass the bill as is.
   2. Most likely outcome: the 20+ vote margin in the House that originally voted against the bill in its current form, all stand firm on their conviction that the Huffines Amendment makes bad law, and they refuse to pass it......for the same reasons they refused to pass it before.
2. The second possibility is that the conference committee would recommend changes to the bill and refer it back out. If they make changes, the following things have be be resolved before June 1st..........and let me remind all those who kept touting how smart Huffines was, today is May 28th and it is nearly 2pm as I write this..... so for all practical purposes, June 1st is only 3 days away. That means that there are 3 days to get this thing done, IF THE LEGISLATURE TACKLES NO OTHER BUSINESS (and it is not the case that there is no other business to tackle):
   
   • The Bill has to go back to the Senate, where it absolutely WILL be filibustered, killing any hope of passing OC in this session. THANK YOU Senator Huffines, for your unswerving and badly articulated defense of principle, even if it means killing a good bill.
     
     AND
   • The Bill has to go back to the House, were time will run out before they can reconcile ANYTHING with a filibustered Senate. And again.... THANK YOU Senator Huffines for your brand of political genius.

Please God, WHEN are the OCT apologists going to admit that they got taken downtown and spanked by reality? HERE is the reality:

1. HB 910, sans Huffine's meddling, was not a perfect bill, but it was a good bill. Without Huffine's meddling, we would have had OC signed into law today. Period. That is a given fact.
2. There is historical precedence for this. When CHL first passed, it was not perfect either, and it has been amended and tweaked several times over the years to make it better. What examples? Here:
   
   • Amended to add 30.06.
   • Amended to remove penalties for failure to disclose CHL to LEO.
   • Amended to change wording for unintentional failure to conceal.
   • Amended to remove the requirement for the licensee to take a CHL renewal class.
   • Amended to reduce license fees for veterans and LEOs.
   • Amended to add employee parking lot protections.
   • There are more that I won't bother to list here, EXCEPT to say that:
   • It MIGHT have been amended to allow OC this year, if Huffines hadn't opened his pie hole.
   • We MIGHT have gotten Campus Carry passed if OC had not sucked up all the oxygen in the room.
   • We MIGHT have gotten an expanded list of places where we can carry, but OC burned up all the time and political capital.
     
     Etc., etc., etc.

To you guys who think Huffines is a principled genius, it's NOT just that we might not get OC (it doesn't look good), but we also didn't get a lot of other equally important things because, as the debates dragged on and on over OC, either time ran out, or the political capital necessary ran out, before those other things could be accomplished. ON THE OTHER HAND, IF Huffines had not butted in and screwed it all up, we would have at least had OC, even if we didn't get the other things. BUT..... BECAUSE Huffines butted in, the only possibility we have of salvaging anything this session is if those 20+ votes in the House who would not vote to pass the amended bill will change their minds and vote in favor, as is. I like a snowball's chance in hades as better odds.

Thank you for cutting off all of our noses to spite your face.

With all due respect, the bill came from the House with the same amendment from Dutton. The Senate striped it out in committee and Hoffines amended it back in. Personally I place the blame on non-concurrence on the back of the Republicans that voted for the bill in the House then changed their minds when the same bill (for all practical purposes) came back from the Senate. I suspect that pressure from police organizations has made them afraid to support it. Phillips has said that he feels confident that it the HB910 comes back to the House as is that it will pass.

He did not put it back in. He put back his version, with some very minor changes. Those minor changes were all it took to invoke a different path for the bill. The changes made it not EXACTLY equal to what came over from the house.

Exactly. Apparently, neither Huffines NOR his staff have ever heard of "cut and paste". And that is ALSO appalling.

[CrimsonSoul]

Any idea when the conference should be getting together?

[ATX117]

The "intent" of the language was the same however I'm not sure about the intent of Huffines since it was clearly a deliberate change of language with a well understood impact on the possible path of the bill. By putting this in there, it created tactical options for the House that would not have existed otherwise.

I agree. I do not know why he changed the language or if it was intended, but I still say the Republicans have to take the blame for changing their votes. And that doesn't mean there's not blame to go around to Huffman, Hoffines, etc. Unfortunately I can't do much about this since I am represented by a Democrat. But at least she had the decency to not show up and vote. :)

[ELB]

It was removed to facilitate passage in the senate.

The same senate that voted to put in an amendment to do exactly what the one removed in committee did, and then passed the bill with the amendment intact.

Governor Abbott tweeted earlier today that he thinks the Leg will get all the major legislative goals accomplished and therefore no need for a special session.
CORRECTION: I misremembered, it was Mark Wiggins of KVUE repeating what he heard the Gov say.

The only hope is the committee comes out with a bill both chambers will pass immediately. If the Huffine and Dutton amendments get sacrificed to do so, so be it.

[safety1]

It was removed to facilitate passage in the senate.

The same senate that voted to put in an amendment to do exactly what the one removed in committee did, and then passed the bill with the amendment intact.

Governor Abbott tweeted earlier today that he thinks the Leg will get all the major legislative goals accomplished and therefore no need for a special session.

I hope the Governor is right! OC was in the major legislative goals right

[Middle Age Russ]

From my perspective, the parties involved in the failure of HB 910 to end up on Abbot's desk include, but are not limited to: Republican leadership (Strauss and Patrick), addition of non-needed amendment in both the House and Senate (with differing language and the same intent), and Republican Representatives that appear to be playing a political game of some kind by voting for a bill once and against essentially the same bill later. This situation illustrates one of the shortcomings of our political climate these days -- Principles and Politics really don't mix well and at the best of times are uneasy bedfellows.

[Charles L. Cotton]

The vote to send it to conference committee was overwhelming.... 70 something against to 90 something in favor. It is hard to see how a 20+ vote difference would suddenly swing the other way and vote to pass it in the event that the committee reports the bill back to the floor unchanged. That is a political fiction existing only in the fairyland imaginations of the most fringe OC supporters.

THAT is why the Huffhines amendment was a poison pill. If the Senate had voted to pass the bill as is, without creating a scenario where their final bill conflicted with the House's final bill, HB 910 would have been signed into law yesterday. Instead, and as I understand it, the conference committee now faces these possibilities in order to iron out the differences:

1. The first possibility is that the committee would vote to send the bill back out, unchanged, for an up or down vote in the House. IF THAT HAPPENS, there are only two possible outcomes:
   
   1. Least likely outcome of that: the 20+ vote margin in the House that originally voted against the bill in its current form, change their minds and they vote to pass the bill as is.
   2. Most likely outcome: the 20+ vote margin in the House that originally voted against the bill in its current form, all stand firm on their conviction that the Huffines Amendment makes bad law, and they refuse to pass it......for the same reasons they refused to pass it before.
2. The second possibility is that the conference committee would recommend changes to the bill and refer it back out. If they make changes, the following things have be be resolved before June 1st..........and let me remind all those who kept touting how smart Huffines was, today is May 28th and it is nearly 2pm as I write this..... so for all practical purposes, June 1st is only 3 days away. That means that there are 3 days to get this thing done, IF THE LEGISLATURE TACKLES NO OTHER BUSINESS (and it is not the case that there is no other business to tackle):
   
   • The Bill has to go back to the Senate, where it absolutely WILL be filibustered, killing any hope of passing OC in this session. THANK YOU Senator Huffines, for your unswerving and badly articulated defense of principle, even if it means killing a good bill.
     
     AND
   • The Bill has to go back to the House, were time will run out before they can reconcile ANYTHING with a filibustered Senate. And again.... THANK YOU Senator Huffines for your brand of political genius.

Please God, WHEN are the OCT apologists going to admit that they got taken downtown and spanked by reality? HERE is the reality:

1. HB 910, sans Huffine's meddling, was not a perfect bill, but it was a good bill. Without Huffine's meddling, we would have had OC signed into law today. Period. That is a given fact.
2. There is historical precedence for this. When CHL first passed, it was not perfect either, and it has been amended and tweaked several times over the years to make it better. What examples? Here:
   
   • Amended to add 30.06.
   • Amended to remove penalties for failure to disclose CHL to LEO.
   • Amended to change wording for unintentional failure to conceal.
   • Amended to remove the requirement for the licensee to take a CHL renewal class.
   • Amended to reduce license fees for veterans and LEOs.
   • Amended to add employee parking lot protections.
   • There are more that I won't bother to list here, EXCEPT to say that:
   • It MIGHT have been amended to allow OC this year, if Huffines hadn't opened his pie hole.
   • We MIGHT have gotten Campus Carry passed if OC had not sucked up all the oxygen in the room.
   • We MIGHT have gotten an expanded list of places where we can carry, but OC burned up all the time and political capital.
     
     Etc., etc., etc.

To you guys who think Huffines is a principled genius, it's NOT just that we might not get OC (it doesn't look good), but we also didn't get a lot of other equally important things because, as the debates dragged on and on over OC, either time ran out, or the political capital necessary ran out, before those other things could be accomplished. ON THE OTHER HAND, IF Huffines had not butted in and screwed it all up, we would have at least had OC, even if we didn't get the other things. BUT..... BECAUSE Huffines butted in, the only possibility we have of salvaging anything this session is if those 20+ votes in the House who would not vote to pass the amended bill will change their minds and vote in favor, as is. I like a snowball's chance in hades as better odds.

Thank you for cutting off all of our noses to spite your face.

With all due respect, the bill came from the House with the same amendment from Dutton. The Senate striped it out in committee and Hoffines amended it back in. Personally I place the blame on non-concurrence on the back of the Republicans that voted for the bill in the House then changed their minds when the same bill (for all practical purposes) came back from the Senate. I suspect that pressure from police organizations has made them afraid to support it. Phillips has said that he feels confident that it the HB910 comes back to the House as is that it will pass.

He did not put it back in. If he did, this would not be playing out this way. He put back his version, with some very minor changes. Those minor changes were all it took to invoke a different path for the bill. The changes made it not EXACTLY equal to what came over from the house.

True, but my focus was on the intent. A few small changes in wording shouldn't have been an issue for the Republicans that bailed on it. For all practical purposes it was the same bill. And as far as the different path, that was started by Sen. Huffman when she stripped the Dutton amendment out. I'm not supporting Huffines here, I just want to see blame placed where it belongs.

The blame belongs on Huffines, not Huffman. After HB910 passed the House with the Dutton amendment, the LEO pressure was tremendous. They were/are putting pressure on the Governor to veto it, if the amendment remained/remains. I personally don't think Gov. Abbott would have vetoed the Bill, but it was and is a possibility. The greater threat was what we ultimately saw happen on the Senate floor when Huffines offered his amendment. After offering his unlicensed-carry amendment, then withdrawing it in the interest of time and the Senate's calendar, he then proceeded to offer the amendment in question. This took up several hours on the Senate floor putting numerous other bills in jeopardy. I have not been told this, but based upon my 35 years of experience, I know pressure was mounting to pull HB910 down until later so that other bills could pass. This is precisely why the Dutton amendment to HB910 was stripped in committee. Huffines was told that his amendment could kill open-carry, but he didn't care. Again, this man has already announced that he's running for Congress and name recognition is what he wants.

You are correct in that, had the bill come out of committee without amendment, then there would have been no conflict. However, it's passage and surviving a veto were by no means a certainty, in light of the massive law enforcement opposition to the Dutton amendment. Some would candidly tell you that it wasn't even a probability. When passing emotionally-charged bills, experienced people do everything they can to lay the groundwork for passage and that requires removing hurdles to the extent you can. Experience and a statesmanlike approach counsels one not to create politically dangerous and/or embarrassing situations for the very people you want to vote for your bill. Experience also teaches you not to set up a bully pulpit for your opposition, especially when a do-nothing amendment is at issue. Huffines admitted on the Senate floor that you don't have to add much to the mix to meet the "reasonable suspicion" standard. He wanted something with his name on it to use in his congressional campaign. As others have mentioned, changing the language from the Dutton amendment was no accident; cut and paste is quite easy. The sad fact is he didn't want the Dutton Amendment restored, he wanted the Huffines Amendment created so he could ride it to Washington.

If HB910 dies, it will be solely on the shoulders of Huffines. Yes, more House Republicans could have voted to concur, but then there's the possibility of a veto. Nothing in politics is a guarantee, so you play the odds and try to stack the deck in your favor. Taking a "damnn the torpedoes, full speed ahead" attitude usually gets your political ship sunk.

Chas.

[safety1]

With a lot to still get done in both chambers, will these votes (if we make it that far) get moved up or saved by some
maneuver the common folks don't know about?

[Ruark]

If HB910 dies, it will be solely on the shoulders of Huffines. Yes, more House Republicans could have voted to concur, but then there's the possibility of a veto. Nothing in politics is a guarantee, so you play the odds and try to stack the deck in your favor. Taking a "damnn the torpedoes, full speed ahead" attitude usually gets your political ship sunk.
Chas.

Charles, thanks for being clear and comprehensive as usual. A lot of us use this forum just to kill time while waiting for your next post....

I'm still a little fuzzy about something, though. It's been repeated and repeated, including in both chambers, that recent constitutional law (from the Ohio cases) precludes unwarranted stops, and thus the amendments are redundant and unnecessary, if not downright irrelevant. Because of these recent decisions, an LEO can't detain you without RS, with or without the amendments. Are these hysterical LEOs simply unaware of this? If Abbott's veto is/was a possibility, does that mean he's unaware of it, too, or does it mean the recent decisions don't carry as much weight as we thought they did?

[Glockster]

Chas., just to clarify as I've seen a couple of different things posted in one thread or another -- the deadline for this is Sunday night, based on the 140th day being reserved for corrections only - correct?

[Ruark]

According to:

http://www.legis.state.tx.us/BillLookup ... 10#vote759" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The conference committee report has been filed! Does anybody have any details?

[thechl]

Frankly, I don't care if the Huffine amendment is included or not, since I believe it is redundant to a major principle of the 4th Amendment. However, for law enforcement to act like this is some sort of a slap at their integrity is a bit disingenuous, in my opinion.

Didn't we just celebrate the passing of SB273? Isn't that a bill that merely reiterates current Texas law, but then adds a penalty because municipalities are ignoring that law with impunity?

I have spoken (in a very friendly manner) with a couple law enforcement officers in my town about the unenforceable 30.06 signs that are splayed on most city buildings. Their response is that they have a perfect right to post the sign "for public safety." When they are informed that there is a preemption issue, the discussion ends. The signs remain.

Alas....

[ATX117]

The blame belongs on Huffines, not Huffman. After HB910 passed the House with the Dutton amendment, the LEO pressure was tremendous. They were/are putting pressure on the Governor to veto it, if the amendment remained/remains. I personally don't think Gov. Abbott would have vetoed the Bill, but it was and is a possibility. The greater threat was what we ultimately saw happen on the Senate floor when Huffines offered his amendment. After offering his unlicensed-carry amendment, then withdrawing it in the interest of time and the Senate's calendar, he then proceeded to offer the amendment in question. This took up several hours on the Senate floor putting numerous other bills in jeopardy. I have not been told this, but based upon my 35 years of experience, I know pressure was mounting to pull HB910 down until later so that other bills could pass. This is precisely why the Dutton amendment to HB910 was stripped in committee. Huffines was told that his amendment could kill open-carry, but he didn't care. Again, this man has already announced that he's running for Congress and name recognition is what he wants.

You are correct in that, had the bill come out of committee without amendment, then there would have been no conflict. However, it's passage and surviving a veto were by no means a certainty, in light of the massive law enforcement opposition to the Dutton amendment. Some would candidly tell you that it wasn't even a probability. When passing emotionally-charged bills, experienced people do everything they can to lay the groundwork for passage and that requires removing hurdles to the extent you can. Experience and a statesmanlike approach counsels one not to create politically dangerous and/or embarrassing situations for the very people you want to vote for your bill. Experience also teaches you not to set up a bully pulpit for your opposition, especially when a do-nothing amendment is at issue. Huffines admitted on the Senate floor that you don't have to add much to the mix to meet the "reasonable suspicion" standard. He wanted something with his name on it to use in his congressional campaign. As others have mentioned, changing the language from the Dutton amendment was no accident; cut and paste is quite easy. The sad fact is he didn't want the Dutton Amendment restored, he wanted the Huffines Amendment created so he could ride it to Washington.

If HB910 dies, it will be solely on the shoulders of Huffines. Yes, more House Republicans could have voted to concur, but then there's the possibility of a veto. Nothing in politics is a guarantee, so you play the odds and try to stack the deck in your favor. Taking a "damnn the torpedoes, full speed ahead" attitude usually gets your political ship sunk.

Chas.

Good points. I'm new to watching the legislature in detail, I may wish I never started. I remember my concern after the House voted HB910 out was that the Senate would just pass it so that it would not have to go back to the House. In retrospect, it would have been in better shape to pass a concurrence vote without the Hoffines amendment.