Rewriting or changing a bill by adding or deleting portions of it before it is considered for passage.
What is mark up?
100
Placing two incumbent officeholders and parts of their political bases in the same elective district through redistricting.
What is pairing?
100
Appoints and supervises the state auditor who, with the consent of the senate, heads the State Auditor's office.
What is the Legislative Audit Committee?
100
Legally mandated restrictions on the number of times that a politician can be reelected to an office or the number of years that a person may hold a particular office.
What is term limits?
100
On final bill passage, votes and the names of those who cast the vote are recorded in each house's journal.
What is a recorded vote?
200
Another way of referring to committees - refers to the amount of work and decision-making power of the committees.
What is Little legislatures?
200
Committees that includes both senators and representatives.
What is a joint committee?
200
Provides research support information and bill-drafting assistance to legislators.
What is the Legislative Council?
200
To set a bill side and not take any action in it throughout the entire legislative session; most bills are done in this manner.
What is pigeonholed?
200
To take official action, both houses require two-thirds of the total membership to be present.
What is a quorum?
300
The process of the unequal distribution of population during the districting process that would make one district substantially larger or smaller than the other.
What is malapportionment?
300
Refers to action by the entire house or the entire senate to debate, amend, and vote on legislation.
What is floor action?
300
The legislators who are responsible for getting legislation passed or defeated.
What are floor leaders?
300
Subdivisions of standing committees that consider specialized areas and categories of proposed legislation.
What are subcommittees?
300
They handle the schedules of all bills that come out of their standing committees.
What are House Calendars Committees?
400
In Texas, it often determines whether a candidate will win an election or not.
What is Party affiliation?
400
To cast and oral vote that is not recorded in the official record.
What is a voice vote?
400
The setting aside of the rule of chronologically ordering bills so that other bills can be considered.
What is suspension of the rule?
400
The first bill placed on the senate calendar in each session, which is usually a bill that will never be considered by the full senate.
What is blocking a bill?
400
The twelve Texas senators that hid out in 1979 to avoid a quorum.
Who were the "Killer Bees?"
500
Those residents of the state who are directly affected by the lawmaking choices of a particular elected official usually residents and businesses in the home district of the elected official.
What is the constituency?
500
A formal objection that rules of procedure are not being followed on the house floor.
What is point of order?
500
A gerrymandering technique in which concentrated political party voters in one geographical area are split into several districts so that their voting power in any one district is negligible.
What is cracking?
500
The Massachusetts governor in 1812 who is responsible for the name of drawing district lines for partisan political advantages.
Who is Elbridge Gerry?
500
The Texas Representative that cast a "ghost" vote on an electronic voting machine after his death.