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With the passing of the Tuesday, April 8 deadline for bills to be voted out of fiscal committees, the legislative process has now entered its next phase. Both the House and Senate have shifted their focus to floor debates, caucus, and conference committee negotiations as they work through the last two weeks of the 2025 regular legislative session. The next deadline of consequence is the Opposite Floor Cutoff on April 16th by which bills must be voted out of the opposite chamber.
Although the broader legislature remains focused on voting on policy bills through April 16, budget negotiations are ongoing behind the scenes. Fiscal leaders are grappling with how to reconcile their funding priorities with concerns raised by Governor Ferguson last week, especially around proposed revenue measures. The central challenge is finding common ground between legislative goals and the governor’s push for reduced spending and less new revenue.
Final Steps for a Bill: Concurrence, Conference, Enrollment & Signatures…If a bill has been amended by the second house, the first house must decide whether it will concur in the amendments. If the first house agrees, leadership places those bills on the concurrence calendar (House) or concurring calendar (Senate). If the first house concurs in the amendments, the bill has passed the Legislature.
If the first house disagrees with the second house, it can ask the second house to recede from the amendments. If the second house recedes, the bill has passed the Legislature. If the two houses cannot resolve their differences, one of them can ask for a conference committee. Members from each house meet to discuss the differences. If they agree on what is to be done, the conference committee makes a report. Both houses must adopt the conference committee report for the bill to pass the Legislature, no floor amendments are allowed. If one house does not adopt the conference committee report (whether by vote or inaction), the bill has not passed.
Once a bill has finally passed the Legislature, it is enrolled. A certificate proclaiming that it has passed is attached and, if necessary, the amendments from the second house or conference committee are incorporated into the body of the bill. The bill is signed by the Speaker of the House, the Chief Clerk of the House, the President of the Senate, and the Secretary of the Senate and is sent to the Governor for his action.
Bills that are delivered to the Governor more than five days before the Legislature adjourns have five days to be acted on. Bills that are delivered fewer than five days before the Legislature adjourns have 20 days to be acted on by the governor. Both are counted as calendar days, not business days. Sundays are not counted, but Saturdays and state holidays are counted. Legislative sponsors can invite members of the public to bill signings.
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