III. Continual Continuances |
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By the time the continuance-disclosure reform took effect on September 1, 2003, Governor Perry already had extended the 2003 legislative-continuance season by convening two special sessions on redistricting that year. Two weeks after the reform took effect the governor convened yet another special session to promote Tom DeLay’s congressional redistricting agenda. Indeed, during the three and a half years from January 2003 through mid 2006, Governor Perry called an extraordinary seven special sessions that lasted an average of 29 days each. Nine additional months during this period were consumed by two regular sessions. Yet the continuance season ran considerably longer. Legislator-lawyers can block court proceedings from up to one month before a session starts to up to one month after it ends. All told, court blackout days consumed 26 out of the 42 months from January 2003 through mid-2006.9 In other words, legislators could tie up court proceedings for more than two years worth of this three-and-a-half-year period! Perpetual special sessions have created a virtual open season for legislative continuances.
Legislative Sessions, 2003-2006
Research for this report began prior to the advent of the current continuance season surrounding the special session that Governor Perry convened on April 17, 2006. This report analyzes legislative continuances reported to the Texas Ethics Commission from the time that the continuance-disclosure law took effect in September 2003 through September 2005, which marked the close of that year’s continuance season. |
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9. This takes into account that some of these legislative sessions occurred virtually back to back. In those cases, the 30-day continuance “tail” that follows one session overlapped with the 30-day continuance “head” preceding the next session. These overlapping periods were not double counted, which would have exaggerated the actual number of court blackout days. |