Every Session bills are filed in the Texas House that range from the humorous to the inane. But of all the work lawmakers face this Session, none might be less relevant to modern life than re-desingating the official state dinosaur. Didn’t know we had one, did you?

HCR 116 is geared at correcting a mistake identifying our current selection for state dinosaur. How has the Lone Star State survived with a misidentified dinosaur?

After dinosaur remains were found in Glen Rose more than a decade ago, the pleurocoelus was named the official dinosaur of Texas, but it might have been a mistake.

Now, it appears those bones were a cousin of pleurocoelus, the paluxysaurus, a never-before-known dinosaur. So now our elected officials will spend valuable time this session examining the merit of a newly state approved dinosaur.

This once-in-an-epoch piece of legislation was authored by State Rep. Charlie Geren — one of only three pieces of legislation he’s introduced.

While taxpayers are hoping for a Session that will reverse a broken business tax or truly lower property tax bills, Geren has focused a third of his legislative efforts on renaming the state dinosaur. Hopefully taxpayers won’t go extinct in the meantime.

Daniel Greer

Daniel Greer is the Director of Innovation for Texas Scorecard.

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