Short answer
The Texas Legislature meets in regular sesh for 140 days, starting in January of odd-numbered years. The next one, the 90th Legislature, convenes January 12, 2027, and bill filing opens November 9, 2026.
A cannabis bill has to clear a committee and a floor vote in both the House and the Senate, then survive the governor, who can sign it, veto it, or let it become law without a signature. Outside the regular sesh, only the governor can call lawmakers back, and only for topics he picks.
(A note on vocabulary. The Legislature calls these "sessions." Around here we call them a sesh. Same thing.)
The calendar
The Texas Constitution sets a regular sesh of no more than 140 days, convening on the second Tuesday in January of odd-numbered years (Article III, Section 24). In even-numbered years the Legislature does not meet unless called into special sesh, which is why 2026 had hearings and rule changes but no new cannabis statutes.
| Date | What happens |
|---|---|
| Nov 3, 2026 | General election for federal, state and county offices |
| Nov 9, 2026 | Legislators and legislators-elect may start filing bills for the 90th Legislature |
| Jan 12, 2027 | 90th Legislature convenes at noon |
| Mar 12, 2027 | Last day to file most bills without special permission (the 60th day) |
| May 31, 2027 | Last day of the regular sesh (the 140th day) |
The filing and convening dates come from the Texas Legislative Council's dates of interest. Bill numbers get assigned when bills are filed, so watch for cannabis bills starting the second week of November 2026. Filing a bill is easy. Passing one is the hard part.
Special sesh
Only the governor can call a special (or "called") sesh. Each one lasts up to 30 days, and lawmakers can pass bills only on subjects the governor puts on the call. In 2025 the governor called two special seshes after vetoing the hemp ban, putting hemp regulation on both agendas. The Senate passed a ban each time and the House did not take it up, so they ended without a hemp law. Those details are in the Legislature tracker.
The path of a bill
- Filed. A member files the bill in their chamber and it gets a number (HB for House, SB for Senate).
- Referred to committee. The Speaker refers House bills and the Lieutenant Governor refers Senate bills. That choice matters: a bill sent to an unfriendly committee can quietly die.
- Committee hearing and vote. The chair decides whether the bill gets a hearing at all. Public testimony happens here. If the committee votes it out, it gets a committee report.
- Calendars and the floor. In the House, a calendars committee decides when bills reach the floor. Bills get second reading (debate and amendments) and third reading (final passage).
- The other chamber. The whole process repeats in the other chamber.
- Differences. If the second chamber changes the bill, the first can agree or ask for a conference committee. A conference report then needs a vote in both chambers.
- To the governor.
Deadlines stack up near the end of the sesh, and bills that miss a step simply run out of time. That is the most common way cannabis bills die in Texas: not voted down, just never voted on.
Why the Senate matters so much
The Senate has 31 members and the House has 150. In the Senate, bringing a bill up for debate takes a supermajority vote under Senate rules, and the Lieutenant Governor, who presides, has a lot of control over which bills move. Over the last several regular seshes the Texas House has passed bills to reduce penalties for small possession (for example HB 63 in 2019, bill history) that did not pass the Senate. In 2025 the dynamic flipped on hemp: the Senate pushed bans and the House did not go along in special sesh. Any serious change needs both chambers on board.
The governor's role
Under Article IV, Section 14 of the Texas Constitution, the governor can sign a bill, veto it, or do nothing. During the sesh he has 10 days (not counting Sundays) to act. For bills that reach him in the last 10 days or after the Legislature adjourns, he has 20 days after adjournment. A bill he does not act on becomes law without his signature, so there is no pocket veto. The Legislature can override a veto with a two-thirds vote in both chambers, but only if it is still in sesh, which is why vetoes issued after adjournment, like the June 2025 veto of SB 3 (proclamation), are effectively final.
The governor also signs executive orders. Those cannot rewrite statutes, but they can direct state agencies to act within the authority they already have, as GA-56 did for hemp in 2025.
Effective dates
A new law takes effect on the 91st day after the sesh ends unless the bill says otherwise. Many bills set September 1 of that year. A bill can take effect immediately if it passes each chamber by a two-thirds vote. HB 46, the 2025 medical expansion, took effect September 1, 2025, with rules due from DPS and the health agency by October 1. Always read the effective date section at the bottom of the bill.
Constitutional amendments
Texas has no statewide citizen initiative, so voters cannot put legalization on the statewide ballot by petition the way voters did in many other states. The Legislature can propose a constitutional amendment with a two-thirds vote of each chamber, and then voters decide (Article XVII). The governor has no veto over a proposed amendment. Cannabis amendments have been filed in past seshes. None has passed the Legislature. City charter amendments, like Houston's Prop A, are a different and much more local process.
How to follow along
Every filed bill, its text, analyses, committee actions and votes are on Texas Legislature Online. Search by bill number or keyword ("marihuana," the statute's spelling, finds more than "marijuana"). We log the cannabis bills that move in the tracker, and we do not log every bill that is merely filed.