Senator Eliot Shapleigh - El Paso, Texas

As senators worked feverishly to keep dozens of House bills from dying as a midnight deadline approached, legislative leaders expressed new confidence Wednesday that an impasse on windstorm insurance can be broken to avoid a special legislative session.

Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst said he is actively seeking a bill in the coming days that can be used to revive the insurance measure covering coastal areas that died in the House on Tuesday.

"There are storms out in the Gulf of Mexico ... and we don't want to get hit with a one, or two, or three, or four, or five billion-dollar storm and not have any coverage," Dewhurst said, saying it was high on his priority list.

Calling it "regrettable" that the House delayed consideration of a Senate-passed voter identification bill until late in the session, Dewhurst said the House slowdown over legislation requiring voters to show more identification at the polls has left him "a little frustrated."

"We knew there was going to be a difference of opinion, so we took it up early," he told reporters. "Obviously, I'm disappointed."

While voicing his unswerving support for the voter ID measure, Dewhurst declined to say if he thought Gov. Rick Perry should make it the topic of a special legislative session.

House leaders said that even if the Senate finds a bill upon which to tack the windstorm program, it may not ensure that the House will go along before the session ends Monday.

"A lot of issues could sink it," said Rep. John Smithee, R-Amarillo, chairman of the House Committee on Insurance, listing insurance rates and funding methods as possible stumbling blocks.

Last week, Perry hinted that he would call lawmakers back into a special session to deal with the windstorm insurance issue if they fail to address it in the current session. That implied threat has driven continued negotiations between Senate and House leaders.

House Speaker Joe Straus said he knew all along the ID measure would divide the House, which has 76 Republicans and 74 Democrats.

The House fielded the Senate version of the voter ID measure on March 19. But it didn't emerge from the House Committee on Elections until May 11, after Chairman Todd Smith, R-Euless, gave up on fashioning a version palatable to most House Republicans and a swath of Democrats.

Asked if he'd plan to get an ID proposal moving earlier in the 2011 session, Straus replied: "It would be presumptuous to predict what the issues will be next session ... who knows what the world will look like?"

Senate speeds up

With several major issues yet to be resolved, the Senate on Wednesday approved a variety of measures: a $2.4 billion supplemental appropriations bill that includes a one-time, $800 bonus for state employees who make less than $100,000 a year, a two-year extension for the embattled Texas Youth Commission and a ban on anyone up to age 18 from going to tanning parlors without their parents' permission (youths under age 16½ could not go at all).

Also in late action Wednesday, the Senate:

• Approved a resolution ratifying a settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice over abuse allegations at state schools. Earlier in the day, the Senate approved $48.1 million for reforms to curb future abuses of state school residents.

• Approved legislation exempting companies making less than $1 million in annual revenue from paying the state's margins tax, taking about 40,000 businesses off the tax rolls. It amounts to a $172 million tax cut over the next two years.

• Used a House bill concerning newborn screening to revive a measure aimed at expanding the Children's Health Insurance Program. The CHIP amendment allows some families with incomes above current limits to buy into the insurance program. The measure now returns to the House.

In the Senate, the presiding officer continued gaveling bills late into the night as one measure after another was approved without debate.

With 126 bills on its Wednesday calendar, senators were expected to approve a majority on the last day that they could consider House bills.

Because the House stalled its bill-passing last weekend, hundreds of Senate bills died in the House at midnight Tuesday.

That meant that the only way to get much of the state's important business passed into law was to tack items onto House bills still pending in the Senate.

Among the bills most loaded-up was one that continues the operations of the Texas Department of Public Safety. It was approved after 25 amendments were attached, most of them other bills that died in the House.

The Senate-passed version of House Bill 2730 would mandate additional civilian management in the agency's driver-licensing division, make the Division of Emergency Management answerable to the agency's governing board rather than the governor and create a new Office of Inspector General to investigate complaints of wrongdoing.

The measure would push ongoing initiatives to streamline and modernize an agency that has faced harsh criticism for more than a year — because of security lapses that came to light after an arsonist burned the historic Governor's Mansion and over an outmoded operational structure.

Sen. Royce West, D-Dallas, added an amendment to the DPS bill that would keep confidential criminal history background information on public school employees, a move that has been decried by open-records advocates.

Straus' future plans

Much of the day's political interest came at mid-afternoon when Straus, who succeeded Rep. Tom Craddick as speaker in January, filed paperwork to seek a second two-year term leading the House.

Straus' filing with the Texas Ethics Commission means he can collect pledge cards from colleagues toward sewing up the speakership well before the 2011 session, barring a dramatic turn in the November 2010 elections giving Democrats a House majority.

Major legislation Wednesday- Passed the Senate

State schools resolution:Ratifies a settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice over abuse allegations at state schools.

TYC sunset: Continues the agency for at least two more years.

Children's health insurance: Allows some families with incomes above current limits to buy into the Children's Health Insurance Program.

Small business tax cut: Exempts companies making less than $1 million in annual revenue from paying the state's margins tax.

Major legislation Wednesday-Passed the House

Property-tax exemption for disabled veterans