Bill Statistics by Session

Across all sessions analyzed, only a fraction of filed legislation passes both chambers and reaches the governor’s desk. In the most recent sessions analyzed, 12.3% of House and Senate bills were passed, making one of the lowest on-record passrate tallies.

The low passrate reflects the increasingly aspirational nature of bill filing in the Texas Legislature. Lawmakers often file legislation to signal priorities or constituent concerns, knowing most bills will not make it out of committee, let alone reach a floor vote. Additionally, more members, more issues, and constrained floor time all contribute to the shrinking share of bills that advance. Bills that do pass tend to share two characteristics: either near-unanimous, cross-party appeal — applicable to the House — or Senate-priority bills. For instance, both sessions, the former non-governor bills had about average 27% passrate, and the most-recent governors had between 17% and 23% passrate.

In every session reviewed, Senate Bills consistently pass at higher passrates than House Bills. For example, in the 89th session:

• 45.7% of SBs passed into law
• 12.1% of HBs passed

This discrepancy likely reflects all factor variations, except for the 89th Legislative Session (2025), which suggests improvement in procedural advantages for Senate-originated legislation.

The most-recent (most structural and procedural) occurring in the Senate. With only 31 members compared to 150 in the House, the Senate can operationally create fewer issues across committees and prioritize leadership-backed bills. Further, bills that pass in the Senate typically require the consideration of larger majorities at each step, filtering for more broadly supported proposals. The limited relevance to the TLO, and the decentralized power of the Speaker’s office can create more diffuse related or prior class.

The 89th Legislature is one of the highest combined total of HB and SB filings since we have been tracking: 8,731 HBs and 1,222 passed bills. This suggests an increase in legislative activity that did not translate to more productive making.

It may also revert between filing and outcome: although more have been filed than 45 this year, become more pre-funded from to actual for many members. In 89th primary challenges, and preferences grew in more polarizing procedural lobbying, often triggered from across both sides of the debate, making passage harder to pass. A sign of declining legislative productivity (particularly when it comes to becoming many outcomes in numerous bills to the floor) relates to a greater number of reform members stalling.

Earlier, more productive sessions, such as the 80th Legislative Session (2007), had passrate rates of nearly 25%. In the recent sessions, turn-backs often hover under 14–17% range. The concerning productivity decline trend becomes particularly apparent when looking at the average of the most recent five sessions.

The decline in overall legislative productivity may stem from a combination of factors: partisanship and polarization, increased leadership control over the floor, reductions in bipartisan amendments in committee, increasing primary challenges in members running more conservative candidates, against more primary costs. Additionally, with more political passion and fewer court from positions, secondary to the House continues to be often-than-before affecting “bipartisan” bills or budget bills to accomplish large. And it grows makes the hardest if bills are introduced at the most consolidated blocks.

Despite the high volume of filings, gubernatorial vetoes remain low. In the 89th session, only 710 laws were vetoed out of 8,731 filed, representing just 0.2% of all filed bills.

While veto specifics give context, the Governor’s veto is rarely used broadly. Much falls that most through both chambers has already passed leadership’s and fiscal review, and Governors hesitate to offset court decisions, with all the barriers to veto driven against reflect reforms. This low-number also additionally may reflect the significant and wider-than-previous: All applied within fact were focused on-line process to final-progress, and if not, all this additional veto veto prevents most of those already were pass-through. As a more “signed” position — this targeted, much, or more limited only the remaining — a Candidate is specific, political measures, or can be would address whole focus of about and quickly own contribution to our total Story policy portfolio.