Texas Senate Breaks Gridlock

Dan is the man. If not for Senator Dan Patrick, we'd probably have another session of wimp-out on key issues like voter ID. Instead, a Partisan Fight Breaks Out in Texas Senate over breaking gridlock by changing Senate rules, which led to Texas Senate voting to suspend the 2/3rds rule on the voter ID bill. The Democrats protested, in part by putting forward their pet issues to suspend the rules on - More on this here.

Democrats used the Senate's two-thirds rule to kill the voter ID bill in the previous session and other bills. You would need 21 of the 31 members – to move legislation to the floor, and with only 19 Republicans, the Democrats were holding veto power over certain bills, in particular voter ID. "[Sen Dan] Patrick wants the Senate to adopt a rule requiring 19 senators – precisely the number of seats the GOP now holds – to approve moving bills to the floor."

It is common sense that it is wrong to abuse the majority by stopping bills in the Texas Senate that have a solid majority support. The 2/3rds rule is too high a barrier, we should change it to 3/5ths like in the US Senate.

On Jan 15th, the Texas Senate did go partway on that, and Senator Dan Patrick said:

This is a major step forward for the people of Texas. During the 80th Session, Democrats took advantage of the two-thirds rule by blocking the passage of voter identification legislation. The people of Texas do not want gridlock in the Texas Senate on issues that are important to them. ...
Ultimately, I believe that the two-thirds rule should be changed to a three-fifths majority for bringing all bills to the floor. Today’s rule change is a great first step toward accomplishing the will of the people.

Right on both counts. A bonus is that liberals are going bonkers and exposing their own hypocrisy in the process. As I said, Dan is the man.