Lieutenant Governor and Speaker of the House
The Lt. Governor is elected independently by the citizenry, serves as a president of the Senate, but is not a member of it. The Lt Governor rarely performs any executive functions and is chiefly a legislative official. He is the second-highest executive office in the government of Texas because it occupant controls the work of Texas Senate and controls the budgeting process as a Leader of the Legislative Budget Board. By the rules of the Senate, the Lt. Governor establishes all special and standing committees, appoints all chairpersons and members, and assigns all Senate legislation to the committee of his choice. The Lt. Governor also decides all questions of parliamentary procedure in the Senate. Their term of office is four years with no term limit. The Lt. Governor is paid as Legislation, 7,200 a year plus a per diem. The constitution provides an official mansion, and other benefits include travel and operating budget, a car, the use of state-owned aircraft, bodyguards furnished by the Texas Department of Public Safety, and offices and professional staff.
The Speaker of the Texas House of Representatives is an elected member of the House who is formally chosen as a speaker by a majority vote of the house membership at the opening of the legislative session. The speaker is the presiding officer of the House of Representatives. The Texas Constitution requires the House of Representatives, each time a new legislature convenes, to choose one of its own members to serve as speaker. As presiding officer, he must go recite it to the speaker, maintain order during floor debate, recognizing legislators who wish to speak and ruling on procedural matters. The constitution also requires the speaker to sign all bills and joint resolutions passed by the legislature. As a member of the House of Representatives, the speaker may vote on all questions before the house. The other duties and responsibilities of the speaker are determined by the members of the house in the House Rules of Procedure, which are adopted by a majority vote of the members at the beginning of each regular session of the legislature. The members give the speaker the authority to appoint the membership of each standing committee, subject to rules on seniority, and to designate the chair and vice chair for each committee. Under the rules, the speaker is responsible for referring all proposed legislation to committee, subject to the committee jurisdictions set forth in the rules. The rules also allow the speaker to appoint conference committees, to create select committees, and to direct committees to conduct interim studies when the legislature is not in session. The Texas H.R. has 150 members.