How to testify before the Texas legislature

This page covers what's specific to Texas. For the general steps of signing up and speaking, see the general guide.

How Texas does it

Texas requires in-person action to testify, and the House and Senate handle sign-up differently. The House uses an electronic witness registration system: touch-screen kiosks in the Capitol Extension, or a mobile version reachable over the Capitol's public Wi-Fi. You can create a profile online in advance, but you still have to register for the specific bill and hearing on-site. The Senate has no advance online registration at all. You fill out a paper Witness Registration Card at the hearing room door and hand it to the committee clerk along with any printed testimony.

Neither chamber offers live remote video testimony as a routine option. The House allows written comments to be submitted online through a link posted in the committee notice, open until the hearing closes. The Senate does not accept electronic written comments. Senate testimony, spoken or written, is an in-person process, though you can still contact committee member offices directly if you can't travel to Austin.

Deadlines and numbers

• Registration: opens as early as 1 hour before the hearing, at the clerk's discretion
• Speaker time limit: no statewide fixed limit, set per hearing by the chair, roughly 2 minutes commonly recommended
• Written testimony copies: committees often request multiple paper copies. Check the hearing notice for the exact number
• Texas holds regular sessions only in odd-numbered years: 140 days starting the second Tuesday in January. There is no regular session in 2026. Any 2026 legislative activity requires a special session called by the Governor, capped at 30 days and limited to the topics named in the call

Where to go

• Bill number, hearing time, location, and any online comment link: capitol.texas.gov
• House witness registration: house.texas.gov/committees/witness-registration
• Senate hearings: in person at the hearing room door

Rules

Whether any 2025-enacted rule change formally authorized ongoing remote video testimony beyond the House's online written-comment link is unconfirmed. No evidence of live remote video testimony in either chamber was found as of mid-2026. Since Texas has no regular session in 2026, anything you want to testify on this year depends on whether the Governor calls a special session and what topics it covers. Route confirmation of a special session's scope to /engage.