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Transportation Policymakers in the 85th Texas Legislature

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Leadership in both houses of the Texas Legislature have made their appointments to the committees that will examine legislation and shape transportation policy in Texas for the next two years. In the Senate, members of the Senate Transportation Committee and the Article VII Working Group of the Senate Finance Committee have, respectively, already begun deliberating substantive legislation and appropriations. Their counterparts in the House are the House Transportation Committee and the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Articles VI, VII, and VIII. They are joined this session by a new committee, the House Select Committee on Texas Ports, Innovation and Infrastructure.

These are not the only committees that will review mobility-related legislation; the breadth of this topic finds legislation in a wide variety of committees in both houses. For example, regulation of transportation network companies like Uber and Lyft will be handled in the Senate by the Business and Commerce Committee. In the House, legislation about infrastructure projects can be found in the Economic and Small Business Development Committee, and traffic safety bills are usually referred to the Homeland Security and Public Safety Committee.

The members of the transportation and finance/appropriations subcommittees will see the most mobility-related legislation, and are, therefore–in addition to the leadership of both houses and the governor–significant policymakers in this area. Below you will find the committee members with links to their biographies, maps of their districts, and their Twitter accounts (when available). At the end is a link to TxDOT’s interactive maps of highway construction projects by district.

Governor Greg Abbott • @GovAbbott

Lt. Governor Dan Patrick • @DanPatrick

Speaker of the House Joe Straus • @SpeakerStraus

Senate Transportation Committee | Bills Referred to Committee

Senate Finance Committee, Senator Jane Nelson, Chair • SD12 • @SenJaneNelson

Working Group on Articles VI, VII, & VIII

House Transportation Committee Bills Referred to Committee

House Select Committee on Texas Ports, Innovation & Infrastructure Bills Referred to Committee

House Appropriations Committee, Representative John Zerwas, Chair

Subcommittee on Articles VI, VII, & VIII

Interactive Maps – Highway Construction Projects by Legislative District

Twitter accounts courtesy Eliza Vielma of ESV Creative.

Steven Polunsky is a TTI research scientist. Questions or comments: [email protected]