The Texas Legislature meets every two years on odd-numbered years. During the legislative session, hundreds of bills are introduced by legislators for consideration.

Bills that become law are arranged by subject matter into various codes such as the Election Code, Family Code, and Penal Code. These statutes are published online by the Texas Legislative Council. They are also available in print from private publishers.

The legislature also meets when the Texas governor calls a special session. During a special session, the Texas Constitution states that “there shall be no legislation upon subjects other than those” set forth in the governor's proclamation or otherwise presented to the legislature by the governor.

Signed Copies of Bills

Session Laws

After a regular legislative session, the general and special laws are published by the Texas Secretary of State. This collection is arranged by chapters.

Researching the history of a law or why the legislature enacted a law involves looking at different sources. Each source helps inform the intent behind the legislation.

Many sources have been digitized and are available online. For older legislation, you may need to listen to audiotape recordings of committee hearings. For very old legislation, more advanced historical research techniques may be needed.

The Guide to Researching Legislative History and Intent from the Legislative Reference Library and the Texas Legislative History Research guide from the Tarlton Law Library explain which sources to use and link you to digitized materials.

Bill Files

Official documents concerning a bill from the legislative process are compiled into a bill file. Bill files may contain different versions of the bill, bill analyses, financial notes, committee reports, and amendments.

Bill History

A bill's history is a list of all the legislative actions that were taken on the bill and the date each action occurred. Additional information like a committee's name may also be listed.

This information is important because you can identify when the bill was discussed by a committee. Recordings or other records from the hearing can help you understand legislative intent.

Committee Hearings & Floor Debates

Each chamber of the legislature has its own media office that handles audio and video recordings.

Senate

House

Journals

Additional information may be found in the House and Senate Journals. See the House and Senate Journals collection from the Legislative Reference Library.