The status of a transparency bill thought missing in the Texas legislature was revealed by Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick on Tuesday.
As previously reported by The Dallas Express, House Bill 30 was initially thought to have been missing after being passed by both legislative chambers toward the end of the regular session and sent in a batch of 60 other bills to Patrick for his signature.
However, Patrick told reporters during a Tuesday press conference that he purposefully removed the bill from the batch.
Patrick held the press conference to discuss his ongoing battle with the House and Governor Greg Abbott over property tax relief but was asked about the status of HB 30 at the end of the conference.
He said that while he was negotiating over property taxes with Abbott and House Speaker Dade Phelan (R-Beaumont), there was a deal going on unbeknownst to him between the House and the Senate that if the Senate passed HB 30, the House would pass a Senate bill in exchange.
Patrick did not specify which Senate bill this was.
“So we passed House Bill 30 — again, I wasn’t on the podium — and they killed our bill,” he said. “Our bill was dead.”
“I didn’t know anything about it until the next day,” he said. “I stuck [the bill] on my podium, and it’s been there for the last five days.”
Patrick said he always intended to sign the bill but set it aside because he did not know exactly what was happening with the situation and “just wanted to see what it was about.”
He said he “pulled it out of the stack” because the House “played games” and killed the Senate’s legislation after the Senate passed HB 30.
Patrick cryptically said the matter will “take care of itself before you know it.”
The bill must be signed by the lieutenant governor before it can be sent to the governor, as previously reported by The Dallas Express.
HB 30 was authored by Rep. Joe Moody (D-El Paso) and would close the “dead suspect loophole” that allows governmental bodies to redact or withhold law enforcement records pertaining to someone who has not been convicted of a crime.
The provision, called the “dead suspect loophole,” was initially intended to protect individuals accused of crimes they may not have committed, but its opponents argue some agencies have used it to conceal information about suspects who were killed by police officers or died in police custody, hence the need to close the loophole.
More transparency from governmental institutions, particularly the City of Dallas, is widely supported by local residents, according to polling conducted by The Dallas Express.
