Texas Lawmakers Can File Bills for the 2027 Session Starting Monday

Members and members-elect of the 90th Texas Legislature can begin filing bills on Monday, November 9, two months before the session convenes at noon on January 12, 2027. The date is set by House Rule 8, Section 7, and Senate Rule 7.04, which open filing on “the first Monday after the general election preceding the next regular legislative session,” according to the Texas Legislative Council.

Lawmakers file early and in bulk. On the first day of prefiling for the 89th Legislature, November 12, 2024, members filed 1,511 bills and resolutions in the House and Senate, a record for an opening day, the Legislative Reference Library reported. By the end of that regular session, they had filed 8,719 bills and 295 joint resolutions. The governor signed 1,045 of those bills, let 140 more become law without his signature and vetoed 26.

Filing a bill early does not move it any faster. A prefiled bill gets a number and becomes a public record, and under House rules it “may not be recalled” once it is filed. It is not read for the first time or sent to a committee until the session begins. In the House that wait runs longer, because the speaker assigns bills to committees and the House does not elect a speaker until it convenes on January 12. The speaker then names the committee chairs and members.

The Texas Constitution sets the shape of the early session. Its first 30 days are reserved for introducing bills and a short list of urgent business, including emergency appropriations and matters the governor declares emergencies, and committees hold hearings in the 30 days after that, under Article III, Section 5. After the first 60 days, a member needs a four-fifths vote of the House to introduce most bills. The 60th day, counted from January 12, is Friday, March 12, 2027. Local bills and emergency matters from the governor are exempt.

Constitutional amendments travel by joint resolution, which needs a two-thirds vote of each chamber before it goes to the voters. Ordinary bills need a majority. Either way, nothing becomes law unless a committee has acted on it and reported it, under Article III, Section 37 of the Texas Constitution, which the House Research Organization cites in its guide to the process.

That committee step is where the Texas Independence Referendum Act stopped in 2021 and 2023. The bill would set a vote of Texans on independence for November 2027. In both sessions it was referred to the House State Affairs Committee and died there without a hearing, under Speaker Dade Phelan. The Texas Nationalist Movement (TNM) has said it will ask the new leadership of both chambers for a public hearing on the bill in 2027.

The House where the bill died twice will have a new majority and a new speaker in January, and every bill filed starting Monday waits on that speaker to decide where it goes.