The Texas Tribune looks ahead to the 83rd Legislature, which contains 43 new members - in addition to 23 who were elected in 2010. This is an unusually inexperienced legislature, so there's no telling what it might do:
The new members aren’t stupid, and some are quite smart. But they are inexperienced, and that will become evident as they run into issues they prepared for during the campaigns — things like voter ID and women’s health and standardized testing in public schools — and issues they have never encountered, like the intricacies of tax exemptions and the state budget.
New members have new ideas, and many of them are elected by people who are tired of what has been happening in government and who want their new representatives to fundamentally change the way things are done.
It takes time. All a new member gets is a parking place, an office and a chair in the House. New members get a vote when things come up. They don’t have much to say about what comes up, when it comes up and what’s in it when it gets to the full Legislature. They don’t have the knowledge yet about which legislators are powerful, which ones are bullies, which ones are smart, which ones are honest and which ones are just decent human beings.
