Watching That Sausage Flow ...

The House is running through its calendar this afternoon, passing Senate bills at the rate of one a minute or so. I noticed that the chair keeps saying, "The question is on passage to engrossment of Senate Bill ____," and "The ayes have it. Senate Bill ___ is passed to engrossment."

ENGROSSMENT is the act of preparing a formal copy of a bill as passed, with amendments rolled in to the final form. If a bill passes one chamber and moves to the next, and is amended in that chamber so as to be different from the version that came over, then it is also engrossed in that chamber. In other words, H.B. 123 is engrossed in the House, goes over to the Senate, is amended, and then an engrossed version is prepared in the Senate. Eventually, those two versions are reconciled (or not) in a conference committee.

ENROLLMENT is the act of preparing the final copy of a bill, reflecting the content that passed in identical form in both chambers. At that point, the finalized (enrolled) copy is signed by the presiding officers of both chambers and sent to the Governor for his action.

Go here for definitions of engrossment and enrollment in the Texas legislative context. For a discussion of engrossment and enrollment in the (federal) Congressional context, see here.

So here's the question: if the version that passes the second chamber is identical to the one passing the first, has that bill "passed to enrollment?" In other words, if no changes have been made in the Senate to a House bill, isn't that bill "enrolled" when it passes the Senate?

I'd like to see the parliamentarians of the House and Senate address this one.

Do I know how to party, or what?