If you want to be successful in politics.....

[baldeagle]

.....you have to learn how the game is played and understand the rules. Until you do that, you have no chance of changing them in your favor.

Here's some facts to consider:
In the 2013 legislative session 5,561 bills were filed in the Texas House and 2,594 bills were filed in the Texas Senate. (You can find links to those reports here.)

The legislature meets for up to 140 days every other year. The only thing the legislature is statutorily mandated to do is pass a budget. The rest is optional.

Were they to consider each and every one of those bills, the House would have to debate at least 1.65 bills every hour working seven days a week 24 hours a day. But they don't work 24 hours a day and they don't work 7 days a week, so each bill can get no more than 20 minutes of debate, and those bills that pass must go to the Senate as well. For each bill that takes more than 20 minutes of debate (the budget bill can take days and they're required to debate that one) some other bill or bills must suffer.

There are also deadlines for when bills must be filed, when they must be passed, and so forth. It doesn't take a math genius to figure out that some prioritizing must be done if anything is going to be accomplished.

So, while there may be 20 gun-related bills introduced in a session, those bills represent less than 4/10ths of 1 percent of the total. For them to make progress they must have a champion - someone who sincerely wants to see the bill passed and is willing to make the effort to shepherd it through committees and to the floor of the House so it can be voted on. The more champions for a bill, the more likely it is to succeed, and the more support for a bill the more likely those who are not champions for it will believe it has sufficient support to pass. And each Representative and Senator has more than one bill that they care about. (My representative authored 14 bills, all of which I'm sure she cares about and none of which have anything to do with firearms.) So even the authors have to prioritize what goes first, second, third and so forth on their personal list of things they care about. The later a bill gets started, the more likely it is to die before a vote can occur.

For a bill to become law it has to pass both houses AND be signed by the Governor. Each session the Governor has to sign about 1400 bills into law. What do you think the chances are that he even knows what he's signing? O, sure, there are "signature" bills that everyone knows about, but there have to be tons of them that he signs simply because someone on his staff said he should. He has to depend on his staff to vet the bills and cull the ones he wants to veto (25 in 2011, for example) unless he's conscientious enough to read each and every one and consult attorneys as to their meaning and legality.

So, when you contact someone about a bill YOU care about, keep in mind that they also have bills that THEY care about, and their priorities may not be the same as yours. Imagine the pressure they are under to get the "right" bills to the floor and to be knowledgeable about the bills they have to vote on. How do you think they will respond to bullying and berating tactics? How would you respond?

Mind you, this is not to make excuses for the politicians but to get you to see the bigger picture. Campus carry may be high on your list, but water rights and health issues may be higher on your representative's list and education may be a priority for his or her spouse. If you want him or her to get excited about campus carry, you need to give them a positive reason for doing so. You need to convince them it's worth spending what little precious time they have to learn about the bill and decide if they want to vote for it. It wouldn't hurt for you to include, in your communications with them, a brief description of the bill and why they should support it so they don't have to do all the research themselves.

In politics as in life the squeaky wheel gets the grease but it has to be a persistent squeak that's not too annoying.

[styxx]

Absolutely. In my humble opinion, when you call a committee member (actually the staff of the committee member) and are 1. calm and respectful 2. able to quickly review what the bill does 3. able to succinctly articulate why the public cares about what the bill does 4. able to present a few major supporting facts that are simple to communicate and understand - It is much more likely that the Rep's or Senator's staff will be able to see the reasons that their boss should support the bill. If they see the reasons, they will advise their boss accordingly.

[baldeagle]

I'm surprised more have commented on this. Apparently everyone already knows everything about how the legislature works.

[ALCSTUDIOS]

I'm surprised more have commented on this. Apparently everyone already knows everything about how the legislature works.

I am actually quite dumb when it comes to legislature workings but I'm learning quickly, Thank you for posting this information.

[2farnorth]

I'm surprised more have commented on this. Apparently everyone already knows everything about how the legislature works.

I understand how the process works but had no Idea what the volume was. Thanks for the info.

[JKTex]

I'm surprised more have commented on this. Apparently everyone already knows everything about how the legislature works.

Ya, pretty much.

Seriously, I was trying to read with my tired eyes and only made it a little way in and knew it was good! I may borrow it since it really does put things in perspective. 1 committee having 165 bills doesn't seem to make some people understand, but the bigger picture and more detail as you've provided might help. People put blinders on and ignore everything else going on.