Who Represents Me?
It’s easy to find out who your representatives are! Type in your address here to find out who represents you locally, at the Texas Capitol, and in Congress.
How to Find and Track Legislation
The Texas Legislature keeps information about bills, committees, members, hearings, and more on its Texas Legislature Online website. Referred to as TLO, this site is available here.
You can search for bills or keywords by legislative session, check calendars for committee hearings, and set alerts for bills or committee hearings. See “My TLO” in the top row of tabs to create alerts.
How to Testify in Person
To testify at a hearing in the Texas House, you’ll need to register ahead of time, either at a kiosk or on your personal device. This page provides a helpful guide to the registration system within the Capitol. To make things easier, you should know the number of the bill you want to discuss, the committee where it will be heard, and the location of the hearing (which you can find on TLO).
On the Senate side, registering to testify may happen via a kiosk or a written system at the committee hearing. Again, you should come prepared with information about the bill you want to provide testimony on.
NOTE: Sometimes the committee may be hearing multiple bills or testimony may last long periods of time, so you may need to plan to spend your day at the Capitol.
How to Submit Written Testimony
When the legislature is in session and committees are meeting, you can submit written testimony to committee members on the bills they are hearing each day. On the notice for each committee hearing, it will specify how many copies of written testimony to make and who to submit them to. You can track committee meetings and sign up for hearing alerts on this page on TLO.
Justice 101
As part of our “Justice Week” in 2021, the TCJE team recorded a “Justice 101” webinar as a guide to community engagement at the Texas Legislature. Check it out!
TCJE Blog: A Beginner’s Guide to the Texas Legislature
During the 2021 legislative session and following interim, we published a short series on our blog called “A Beginner’s Guide to the Texas Legislature.” Click to read our guides about the overall legislative process, how things work towards the end of session, and interim hearings.
Join a Coalition
Looking for more opportunities to get involved? If you’ve been impacted by the criminal legal system, you may want to join one of our coalitions! Each group has a page at the links below with information on who their participants are and how to get involved.
Statewide Leadership Council | Texas Women’s Justice Coalition | Finish the 5
Volunteer to Take Action
Fill out our volunteer interest form to be the first to know about opportunities to take action, from testifying to advocating on social media!
Keep In Touch!
The best way to stay up to date with TCJE is to follow us on social media or get our e-alerts! You can follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok, or subscribe to our e-newsletters.
We’ll see you at the Capitol!