The Texas Constitution sets some clear guidelines on what kind of legislative activity can take place and when. In the first 60 days of the legislative session, any member can file a bill on any subject. No votes can take place, however, except on bills deemed an "emergency" priority by the governor.

After the 60-day mark, legislators can only file "local" or emergency bills. The bill filing deadline for the 88th Legislative Session, and when regular voting can begin, will be March 10.

Before the session even starts, however, incumbent members can "prefile" legislation. The prefiling period begins the Monday after the November general election.

The prefiled legislation is not an indication of what issues will be most prevalent in the session. Rather, it can be an indicator of the priorities of individual members. It is also a place where ceremonial and honorarium resolutions sometimes begin.

Over 1,200 House bills and 334 Senate bills were prefiled between Nov. 14 and Dec. 29. They are listed in filing order at here (House) and here (Senate). You can easily search for bills prefiled by your representative/senator by pressing the Ctrl key + F key and type his/her last name in the search box.

You might notice that the bills are in numbered order, but do not start at 1 for either chamber. The House Bills, for example, start at HB 21. The first 20, along with "significant" numbers such as HB 100, HB 200, etc. are reserved for the bills deemed the highest priority by leadership. The General Appropriations Act typically gets the designation of HB 1/SB 1.

In late November, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick outlined his legislative priorities for the 88th Legislative Session. While he does not have the ability to cast any votes in the Texas Senate, Patrick yields considerable power over the body. The Lt. Gov. appoints senators to their committee memberships and presides over most of the day-to-day proceedings during the session.

Since Comptroller Hegar's announcement of the expected $27 billion surplus, many have weighed in how to allocate those funds. In his announcement of his priorities, Patrick advocated to first provide property tax relief with these funds through an increase in the homestead exemption.

His other listed priorities included:

Of his priorities, the ones relating to higher education are of the most interest to the Texas A&M Advocacy Network.

In his address, Patrick signaled his support for a new endowment to benefit the state's larger public universities other than Texas A&M and the University of Texas. He did not provide specifics of how he envisions this new endowment to be structured, but was clear it would be separate from the Permanent University Fund (PUF), the multibillion-dollar endowment that exclusively serves the Texas A&M University System and the University of Texas System schools.

Patrick also expressed his support for scholarship programs to benefit college graduates that go into law enforcement or nursing after completing their degree. Noting a critical need for more nurses to serve our state's healthcare needs, he also expressed support for additional funding to hire and retain the faculty to teach nursing.

You can watch the full press conference of Patrick's presentation at this link. His remarks on education start around the 23:30 mark of the video.

Unlike Patrick, Gov. Greg Abbott has not formally declared a list of his priorities for the 88th Legislative Session. He will save that for his State of the State address, typically held in early February. The governor will also likely designate any "emergency" items at this time, on which the legislature can vote during the first 60 days.

Though he has not formally unveiled his full list of priorities, Abbott has announced some of his priorities during public remarks. These priorities have included property tax relief and border security. We can expect more information to be revealed in the governor's State of the State address.