House Speaker Joe Straus (left) and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick.

Along with their bully pulpits and control over the legislative process, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and House Speaker Joe Straus have another valuable weapon in their efforts to influence the legislative session: low bill numbers.

While most bill numbers are assigned sequentially based on when they are filed, the speaker and the lieutenant governor traditionally award the lowest bill numbers to measures they view as priorities.

With just over a month left in the legislative session, here’s an updated look at Senate Bills 1-20 and House Bills 1-20. This legislation provides a window into where Patrick and Straus are placing their political capital and where the two chambers could find themselves at odds as the session’s end draws closer. Patrick has passed most of his priority bills out of the Senate, while the House has several priority bills waiting to receive a vote on the House floor. Three of the House bills have not been filed.

Scroll down to see the various categories, the related bills and links to descriptions of related issues in our Texas Legislative Guide.

 

var url = ‘//s3.amazonaws.com/graphics.texastribune.org/graphics/top-20-bills-84th-txlege-update/index.html’; var pymParent = new pym.Parent(‘pym-graphic’, url, {}); var y = $(“#pym-graphic”).position().top + $(“#pym-graphic”).contents().find(‘a[name=anchor]’).position().top; $(window).scrollTop(y)

 Learn about The Texas Tribune’s policies, including our partnership with The Trust Project to increase transparency in news.

Aman Batheja was a political reporter and editor for the Tribune from 2012 to 2019. Previously he worked for eight years at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, most of that time covering state and local politics....

Morgan Smith was a reporter at the Tribune from 2009 to 2018, covering politics, public education and inequality. In 2013, she received a National Education Writers Association award for “Death of...

Becca Aaronson was the first product manager at the Tribune, where she worked from 2010 to 2018. As product manager, Becca managed the Tribune's website redesign, coordinates cross-departmental projects...