Speaker's Race: The AlternaBlog

6:06
Tom Craddick is now officially the Speaker of the House. Bonus points to Rep. Richard Raymond, who had the guts to speak out against Craddick and his scare tactics in his objection to an otherwise uncontested election. That's it for the Speaker's race, so that's it for me. Thanks for following along, everybody.

5:59
The passing of HR 34 and 35 took a few hours to get through. In about 45 seconds, those two house resolutions were just wiped away. There's a certain irony in that.

5:45
Craddick has just been nominated as Speaker. Who knew a nomination would take that long? The pool is now open on whether/how long it will take for Senfronia to decide to run again.

5:28
Pitts has officially pulled his name out of the race. Threw his hat in for Craddick while he was at it. Maybe now he'll be in charge of garbage detail instead of bathroom cleanup. I think that does it for the speaker's race.

5:26
HR 36 has just been withdrawn. Seems like folks just want to get on with it. Ooh, now Rep. Pitts is coming up to speak. Money's on his withdrawing.

5:17
The last resolution of the day, it appears, is now being passed out to legislators. HR 36 deals with Speaker candidate speeches.

5:09
The motion for voting procedure, with the amendment requiring immediate disclosure of the vote, has passed, 132-16. If the amendment passed with around a 90-60 split, but the bill itself passed 132-16, that tells me there are a *whole lot* of representatives out there that didn't exactly know what was going on between the votes to table and votes to approve. Good tactics on the Craddick camp's part, I suppose.

5:06
It's just been announced that Wayne Smith's mother just passed away. Our condolences here at the Texas Blue go out to Rep. Smith and his family.

5:05
And once again, Hartnett moved to table, and the motion passed, killing the amendment. Craddick's team is 2 for 2.

5:00
Now in discussion is the amendment to get rid of the record of the vote altogether -- to count and then destroy the ballots. Rep. Merritt, the author, gave an impassioned speech on the amendment.

4:55
Not that it mattered -- the Geren amendment was tabled, and the Hartnett amendment (calling for immediate release of results) was called and passed.

4:35
Apparently there was SO much confusion on the floor of the legislature, that they did not catch the point of the ruling on the point of order. It has been confirmed by the Secretary of State -- the Geren amendment is constitutional, and if it were passed, it would override any request for a record vote. Geren is now up and clarifing that the amendment is not a "secret ballot" amendment -- it simply delays reporting of the results. I'll try to quit calling it that, really, I will. Such a convenient shorthand, though!

4:19
We're about done with the reading of the decision on the point of order, and it looks like the constitutionality of the secret ballot stands. In brief, III.41 indicates the clear intent in the constitution that not all ballots in the legislature must be public, and in light of that, and that III.11 allows the body to determine the rules of the proceedings, that therefore III.12, in presupposing a voice ballot, would not apply in a form of voting where there are no yeay's or nay's. Confused yet? You're in good company -- so is the legislature.

4:11
Aaaaand we're back.

4:03
In case anyone thinks we've gone off and started drinking instead of covering the speaker's race, that would unfortunately not be the case. The House still stands at ease while the point of order is examined.

3:29
King called the hand and showed. Procedures are paused while the chair researches the point of order King just brought up: that III.12 makes the current amendment to the amendment on the floor (anyone's brain hurt yet?) unconstitutional. That would be the amendment postponing disclosure of votes until after committee assignments, if I'm getting this right. (Which it would seem that I am. Phew!)

3:18
Rep. Hochberg must be reading Capitol Annex too. He cited the line from III.41 in mentioning that the limitations in III.12 do not apply. Go, Scott!

3:11
Rep. Hartnett is being beaten about the face and shoulders by a number of representatives, who really don't seem to be big fans of HR 35 Amendment 1, requiring immediate release ("as soon as possible") of the tally of individual votes. This is getting ugly.

2:55
While we're waiting for amendments to be filed, duplicated, and passed around, I went over to read Vince Leibowitz's blog on Capitol Annex, discussing Rep. King's major objection to secret ballots: that by the Texas Constitution, any three legislators can call for a public accounting of the ballot.

Rep. King cited Article III, Section 12 as the source of his issue. Vince mentions that III.41 trumps what Rep. King claims. I don't actually believe that's correct -- III.41 simply states the standard action for elections not of House officers, but does not state what applies when it is regarding said officers -- but I also don't think that's an issue. III.12, which King cites, does state that upon request, a record of a vote must be entered into the journals -- however, it does not state *when* they have to be presented, meaning the amendment to not present until after committee assignments is a perfectly viable option.

2:53
A zinger comes in regarding the Open Records Act. For those not keeping track (and wow, is it ever difficult to keep track), Rep. King has been trying to come up with reasons why a secret ballot would be moot for the past half hour or so. One of his objections, that the voting results are subject to the Open Records Act, was just measured and found wanting. Apparently, the Texas Supreme Court had already ruled in a similar instance in the Senate that such votes were not open to ORA inquiries.

2:43
I finally caved to office pressure and decided to liveblog concurrently with Josh (the primary liveblog he's keeping is over here). I think he encouraged that mostly so I'd have another outlet to complain about using parliamentary procedure as a bludgeoning tool and would quit talking his ear off about it. And, for that matter, quit coming up with terms like "amendment football," which was given birth to just a few minutes when I yelled it across the office along with my vocal rendition of the ESPN theme.