Texas Bill to Help Minor Parties Passes Committee

Posted on by May 9, 2025

On May 1, the Texas House Elections Committee passed HB 4309. It says that parties that nominate by convention will be the recipients of filing fees paid by members of the party who seek a convention nomination. Current law sends the money to the state government.

For parties that nominate by primary (i.e., the Democratic and Republican Parties), current law send the filing fees paid by members of those parties to their party. Therefore, HB 4309 would treat qualified minor parties the same as the qualified major parties. The Libertarian Party was instrumental in getting HB 4309 introduced.

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Texas Bill to Help Minor Parties Passes Committee — 26 Comments

  3. HB 4309 will be considered on the House Floor on Saturday, May 10 (maybe). The Calendars Committee reports a long list of bills for each day. If they don’t get through the list of bills they are rolled over to the next day. They have around 10:00 PM on Friday, May 9 finished up the calendar for May 8, but are hung up on the first bill on the list for May 9.

    The May 9 list has 73 bills.
    The May 10 list has 118 bills, HB 4309 is #90.
    The May 11 list has 93 bills.

    May 11 is more likely.

  4. The new antipope is a dual citizen of the USA and Peru. As the new head of state of the Vatican City State, my first guess is that he’s also now a citizen thereof, but finding an answer to that question is taking longer than I feel like spending on it.

  5. On Friday May 9, they finished up the May 8 calendar and got a little bit into the May 9 calendar, before recessing at midnight.

    They intended to begin at 9:00 AM on Saturday, but didn’t get a quorum until closer to 10:00 AM. At that time HB 4309 was roughly 296th on the agenda. They moved quickly through local bills on 2nd and 3rd readings (changing the legislative day so that both readings could occur on three several days), and then moved on to 3rd reading of bills that had been approved on 2nd reading on Friday. This can go pretty quick, since most substantive debate occurs on 2nd reading, though 3rd reading is legally the actual passage of a bill. When you have a good auctioneer presiding these can be done in about 20 seconds. Sometimes there will be a 3rd reading amendment. So far there has been almost no chubbing and no POO.

    They had a mariachi performance in honor of Día de las Madres, and then took a break for lunch (when they are pulling an all-day session, they serve food in a meeting room so representatives won’t leave the Capitol.

    At noon, HB 4309 is 211th on the agenda. It still looks line Sunday for consideration.

  8. Trump is the true pope because he’s the second coming of Jesus. He will defeat antipope Leo XIV and the rest of the forces of Satan at the battle of Armageddon.

  9. JD Vance for Pope
    Trump for God Emperor

    Trump will not be pope. Popes are placeholders until Jesus returns. He has already returned, and His name is Mister President God Emperor Donald John Trump Senior.

    JD Vance can wrangle the Catholics until Trump officially signs an executive order that He is Jesus H Christ. First, however, Vance must divorce the dothead, take a vow of celibacy, and go to Rome to kill him another antipope, this time sticking around for the conclave to be the new pope.

    So let it be written. So let it be done. Amen and hallelujah!

  16. Liberator Trump will show up with all the angels blowing trump-ets and the righteous rightist host of Heaven to defeat Satan, demons, and all the sinister leftist forces of evil ! Be there or be Lucifer’s toilet paper square!

  17. On Saturday May 10, the House adjourned around 8:10 P.M. having worked its way through most of Friday’s calendar. The adjournment was until 10:00 A.M. HB 4309 remains in the queue, roughly at 90 plus bills that were postponed. But there will also be third readings. The Calendar for Sunday and Monday will be stuck on the end of the calendar. The deadline for consideration of House Bills on second reading is 5/15.

    My guess is HB 4309 will be considered on Monday late, but could get pushed on to Tuesday.

  19. HB 4309 is 184th in the queue for Monday, March 12. If it makes it to the floor on Monday it will be late.

  21. The House completed Friday’s calendar and began working through Saturday’s. HB 4309 finished up 54th in the queue.

    HB 4309 is 136th in the queue on Tuesday’s calendar. 3rd Reading on the bills passed on 2nd Reading on Monday goes in front of bills that are scheduled for 2nd reading. Typically, this goes fairly quickly. The bills have already had a roll call vote, and fewer amendments are proposed. More controversial bills may have been talked out. There are also some bills that have been postponed. This is sometimes because they are waiting on the Senate companion, but other times because they know that the bill will take longer to debate, and they want to get to other bills first.

    HB 4309 has a good chance of reaching consideration on Tuesday, later evening. Things could go faster if there is agreement to push through the calendar.

  22. I’m with Q. I still don’t understand how that relates to Armageddon.

  23. HB 4309 failed to pass on second reading. The uncertified vote totals were 60 ayes, 78 nays, 11 absent, 1 present not voting (the speaker). The bill had support from the Democratic caucus and a few Republicans. Companion Senate Bill 2197 has been stuck since March waiting for a committee hearing. Since the legislative session by law ends on June 2, these bills are effectively dead and will have to wait until the next regular session in 2027.

  25. HB 4309 had 2nd reading at 10:48 P.M. The initial vote was 67 Yeas, 70 Nays. In the Texas House, voting is done by button on the representative desk. Green for Yea, Red for Nay, and White for Present Not Voting. The results are displayed on tote boards behind the dais. In the past there have been scandals where representatives have been shown to be voting for a colleague.

    When the result is close (5 or fewer votes) a verification vote can be requested. In a verification vote, the clerks read the name of each representative who had voted and they check that the representative is present. They might confirm the vote, but since the video is on the clerks, I’m not sure. Since the Nays are called first, and then the Yeas, a representative could simply raise his hand and vote Nay with two fingers, and Yea with one finger. Sometimes the representative is not present and their name is temporarily stricken. After they have gone through the roll call, they go back over the representatives who did not respond. If they do, they are added back to the vote. If they don’t respond, they are stricken from the vote.

    This changed the vote to 64 Yea, 68 Nay. Some of those who were stricken received excused absences immediately after the vote, so they might have actually pushed a button and left before the verification. Or there might have been a fake vote, and it was noticed that since they did not respond to the verification that it would be noticed.

    Then 5 Yea votes switched to Nay votes, and 6 Not Voting switched to 1 Yea and 5 Nay. This is typically attributed to malfunction of the voting equipment. This made the final count 60 Yea, 78 Nay. Since 10 of the switchers to Nay were Republicans, it is likely that they did not want to be seen as voting Nay, until the result was certain. Others might have just been listening to the debate and it seemed reasonable, and then had it “explained” to them why the bill was bad policy or bad for their future primary elections.

    In the end, only three Republicans voted Yea.

  26. Oh well. Hopefully we will get to discuss Armageddon before it actually happens.

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