House Democrats Six Day Filibuster - Attempt to Amend Senate Bills blocked

Steven F. Hotze M.D.
May 28, 2009

Capitol Update
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Austin, Texas

Our efforts to revise the Texas Medical Practice Act in the 2009 Texas Legislature have been blocked.  The struggle in this legislative session was one in a series of battles in our war to require transparency of the actions of the Texas Medical Board, ensure legal due process for physicians subject to complaints and to protect patients’ and physicians’ rights.  Although CSSB 2397, which contained many provisions from CSHB 3816, was set on the Major State Calendar in the Texas House, it did not come up for a vote prior to the Tuesday midnight deadline. 

Last Thursday, May 21st, the Democrats decided to prevent any action on the Voter ID bill which was also on the Major State Calendar.  The tactics they used were to extensively debate hundreds of bills for six days on the Local and Consent Calendar until the Tuesday midnight deadline.  Because of this, no bills on the Major State Calendar or General Calendar, of which there were hundreds and hundreds, were ever brought up for a House vote and effectively died this session.  CSSB 2397 was one of those bills.

When the House Democrats started to filibuster, known as chubbing, we realized that we needed to amend some provisions from CSHB 3816 onto bills that were already in the Senate.  HB 732, by Rep. Hartnett, was the most likely vehicle.  Rep. Hartnett agreed to have Sen. Dan Patrick co-sponsor this in the Senate.  Before he could do this the bill was intercepted and the chair of the Senate Health and Human Services Committee, Sen. Jane Nelson, passed the bill to Sen. Joan Huffman.  I met with Sen. Huffman personally and requested that she place the following amendments on her bill:

Section One: Seven (7) year Statute of Limitation on complaints.
Section Two: Elimination of confidentiality of complainant with exceptions for patients, employees or subordinates.
Section Three: Elimination of anonymous complaints; requires insurance companies to notify a physician if files a complaint against him
Section Four: Allows physicians 45 days to respond to the TMB after receiving a complaint; members of the TMB expert witness panel must be actively practicing medicine.

Despite appeals made by Lt. Governor Dewhurst, Rep. Hartnett and numerous co-authors of HB 3816 in the House, Senator Huffman declined to allow us to offer any amendments.

The TMA, their in-house governmental affairs team and army of hired-gun lobbyists worked against us every step of the way.  They are a formidable enemy.  The health insurance companies also opposed our efforts behind the scenes.  One health insurance lobbyist told one of our insiders that “we use confidential complaints to go after doctors.”  There appears to be an unholy alliance between the TMA, Texas Medical Board (TMB) and health insurance companies.

We then turned our attention to another bill, HB 2845, sponsored by Rep. Riddle and co-sponsored by Sen. Robert Nichols in the Senate.  Lt. Governor Dewhurst was a great ally in our efforts and set up a meeting with Senator Nichols, me and the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons’ (AAPS) lobbyists, Allen Blakemore and Stephen Raines, which occurred Monday night at 9:45pm. At that meeting Senator Nichols reviewed our amendments for thirty minutes. Sen. Nichols said he supported the amendments but said he would have to find out if they were germane to the bill itself.

At 5: 30 pm on Tuesday, May 26th, we had a meeting with Lt. Gov. Dewhurst, Sen. Nichols and Karina Davis, Senate Parliamentarian in the Lt. Governor’s office. We were told that our amendments to SB 2845, co-sponsored by Sen. Nichols, were not germane. This means that we could not amend our language onto HB 2845.

Lt. Governor Dewhurst promised to order an interim hearing of the Texas Medical Board chaired by Senator Nichols. Sen. Nichols was in full agreement with this proposal and animated when he agreed. We will be working with Lt. Gov. Dewhurst and Senator Nichols to set up an interim hearing. Lt. Gov. Dewhurst also promised to bring media attention to the need for substantial reforms at the TMB.  

The members of the 2009 Texas Legislature knew that we were here. We exposed the injustices of the TMB to the legislators. Strong relationships with numerous legislators were also developed.

We must continue to press the battle to its successful conclusion!