Texas Senate Committees: Standing, Select, and Hearings

The Texas Senate committees are the 16 standing panels, plus a rotating set of select, special, and investigating committees, that hold hearings on every bill before it can reach the Senate floor. Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick appoints every chair, vice chair, and member, and decides which committee receives each bill. For the 89th Legislature, which convened in January 2025, the standing lineup ranges from a 15-member Finance Committee down to five-member policy panels, and several committees were reorganized in September 2025 after the regular and called sessions ended.

How a Bill Moves Through a Senate Committee

The committee system runs on rules the Senate adopts at the start of each regular session. Those rules give the lieutenant governor the authority to appoint all committee members and chairs, refer legislation to committees, and make parliamentary rulings during floor debate.¹ Because every bill must clear a committee before the full Senate can vote on it, that referral power effectively controls the chamber’s agenda.²

When a bill is filed, the lieutenant governor sends it to what the rules call a “proper” committee. The rules do not spell out each committee’s jurisdiction in detail, but informal boundaries are followed in practice. Every bill must receive a public hearing with public testimony before the committee can vote to send it forward, and notice of the meeting has to be posted at least 24 hours in advance.³

After a favorable committee vote, a bill lands on the Senate’s “regular order of business” in the order it was reported. In practice, that calendar is not used. At the start of each session, a placeholder called the “blocker bill” is placed at the top and stays there, so no other bill can come up under normal order. To move a bill, a senator puts it on the “Intent Calendar” and then secures at least a five-ninths vote of the senators present to suspend the rules.³ That supermajority requirement is one of the Senate’s most distinctive procedural features.

Standing Committees of the 89th Legislature

For the 89th session, the Senate established 16 standing committees. Senators typically serve on four or five.³ Finance is the largest at 15 members; Business and Commerce, Education K-16, and State Affairs each seat 11; several policy panels have as few as five. The committees, with their chairs and vice chairs as appointed by Lt. Gov. Patrick at the start of the session, are:⁴

Administration — Bob Hall (Chair), Adam Hinojosa (Vice Chair); 7 members
Border Security — Brian Birdwell (Chair), Peter Flores (Vice Chair); 5 members (dissolved September 4, 2025)
Business and Commerce — Charles Schwertner (Chair), Phil King (Vice Chair); 11 members
Criminal Justice — Peter Flores (Chair), Tan Parker (Vice Chair); 7 members
Economic Development — Phil King (Chair), Kevin Sparks (Vice Chair); 5 members
Education K-16 — Brandon Creighton (Chair), Donna Campbell (Vice Chair); 11 members (dissolved September 4, 2025)
Finance — Joan Huffman (Chair), Juan “Chuy” Hinojosa (Vice Chair); 15 members
Health and Human Services — Lois Kolkhorst (Chair), Charles Perry (Vice Chair); 9 members
Jurisprudence — Bryan Hughes (Chair), Nathan Johnson (Vice Chair); 5 members (dissolved September 4, 2025)
Local Government — Paul Bettencourt (Chair), Mayes Middleton (Vice Chair); 7 members
Natural Resources — Brian Birdwell (Chair), Judith Zaffirini (Vice Chair); 9 members
Nominations — Donna Campbell (Chair), Brent Hagenbuch (Vice Chair); 9 members
State Affairs — Bryan Hughes (Chair), Angela Paxton (Vice Chair); 11 members
Transportation — Robert Nichols (Chair), Royce West (Vice Chair); 9 members
Veteran Affairs — Kelly Hancock (Chair), Tan Parker (Vice Chair); 7 members (dissolved September 4, 2025)
Water, Agriculture, and Rural Affairs — Charles Perry (Chair), Kelly Hancock (Vice Chair); 9 members

Several of these committees were dissolved on September 4, 2025, after the regular and called sessions concluded, and their subject matter moved into reconstituted committees or select panels for the interim.⁵ New standing committees on Education and Higher Education were created on the same date, splitting the work of the former Education K-16 panel.

Select, Special, and Investigating Committees

Beyond the standing lineup, the lieutenant governor creates select committees to work on specific policy areas, often during the interim between regular sessions. For the 89th Legislature these included:⁶

Select Committee on Homeland and Border Security, chaired by Phil King with Juan “Chuy” Hinojosa as vice chair. Established September 4, 2025, it took over and expanded the jurisdiction of the dissolved Border Security Committee, with interim charges covering drone use along the border, security at land ports of entry, and fuel-related crimes and public corruption.⁷
Select Committee on Religious Liberty, chaired by Phil King with Angela Paxton as vice chair. Members were appointed March 23, 2026, and the panel monitors implementation of SB 10 (Ten Commandments display in public school classrooms) and SB 11 (prayer and Bible reading in public schools).⁸
Select Committee on Veteran Affairs, chaired by Brent Hagenbuch, continuing the work of the dissolved standing Veteran Affairs Committee.
Select Committee on Disaster Preparedness and Flooding.
Select Committee on Civil Discourse and Freedom of Speech in Higher Education.
Special Committee on Congressional Redistricting.
General Investigating Committee on the July 2025 Flooding Events.

Lt. Gov. Patrick has indicated that select committees appointed during the 2026 interim will automatically become permanent standing committees when the 90th Legislature convenes in January 2027.⁹

Who Controls the Committees

The lieutenant governor’s grip on the committee system is why the office is widely described as the most powerful position in Texas government. The authority to pick every chair, every member, and the committee that receives each bill lets the lieutenant governor route legislation toward friendly panels or park it where it will not move.² The office also controls which senators are recognized to speak during floor debate and chairs the Legislative Budget Board.¹

These powers are not written into the Texas Constitution. They come from the Senate’s own rules, which senators adopt by majority vote at the opening of each session. Senators could strip them away, but no Senate has done so.² Lt. Gov. Patrick used the authority visibly in March 2026, when five senators (including four committee chairs) left the chamber and he unilaterally appointed new chairs, filled vacancies, and created new interim select committees.⁹

What Committees Do Between Sessions

Senate committees do not shut down between regular sessions. The lieutenant governor issues “interim charges” directing each committee to study specific policy questions and monitor how recently passed laws are being implemented. The resulting reports shape the next session’s agenda. Lt. Gov. Patrick released the 2026 interim charges on March 27, 2026, covering all standing and select committees in preparation for the 90th Legislature.¹⁰

The 2026 charges include studying the Texas electric grid and ERCOT operations (Business and Commerce); evaluating property tax relief options, including reducing the homestead freeze age from 65 to 55 (Local Government and Finance); assessing the projected $3.3 billion cost of data center tax exemptions for the 2028–29 biennium (Finance); examining AI’s impact on the workforce (Economic Development); and studying wildfire prevention and renewable energy facility decommissioning (Natural Resources).¹¹

A parallel form of oversight runs through the Sunset Advisory Commission, which includes five senators, five House members appointed by the lieutenant governor and speaker respectively, and two public members. The commission reviews roughly 20 to 30 state agencies every two years and recommends whether each should continue, be reformed, or be abolished. During the 89th session, the Legislature adopted 76 percent of the commission’s recommendations and abolished the Texas Lottery Commission through SB 3070, transferring its functions to the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation.¹²

Attending or Testifying at a Committee Hearing

You can track hearing schedules through Texas Legislature Online, which allows searches by date, by committee, and by bill, and offers email alerts when notices are posted or minutes published.¹³ Hearings are broadcast live on the Senate’s website, and archived audio and video are available for past proceedings.¹⁴

To testify, register at kiosks in the Capitol extension hallways starting at 8:00 a.m. on the day of the hearing. You can sign up for oral testimony, submit written testimony, or simply register a position for or against a bill; those who only want to register a position can also do so through an online portal. Oral testimony is typically limited to two minutes. Written testimony requires 18 physical copies for committee staff plus an electronic copy. If you cannot attend in person, you can contact committee members directly with your input.¹⁵ If you need accommodations such as an interpreter or an assistive listening device, contact the Senate Committee Coordinator at least 72 hours before the hearing.¹³

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Office of the Lieutenant Governor. 2026 Interim Charges
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