May 30, 2025      10:58 PM

New precedents being set over fight to delink judicial pay and lawmaker pensions

"Historic." An alternative to the conference committee process? The Senate tries to essentially create a line-item veto for the Lt. Gov., instead of a conference committee, when senators don’t agree with House changes to a Senate Bill

In a moment that even seasoned Capitol Veterans found confusing, the Texas Senate led by Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick decided that the Texas House changes to a Senate bill about judicial pay should not go to a conference committee and instead came up with what looks like a new way handle that kind of disagreement between the two chambers.

SB 293 by Chair Joan Huffman was going to follow the tradition of linking judicial pay increases to increases in pensions for lawmakers, but the House sought to delink those things and instead solely increase judicial pay. Senators don’t agree with that. As one said, “we sacrifice a lot to be here serving” and argued that the two things should still be linked.

But the way it played out even confused one GOP legislator, Sen. Charles Schwertner, who asked “what happens next” after the Senate’s move tonight.

By Scott Braddock

Copyright May 30, 2025, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved