Perry's Lone Star State will usher in about 700 new laws when its fiscal year begins Thursday that include everything from legalizing "noodling," a type of fishing where people catch catfish with their bare hands, to raising the maximum speed limit on some state highways to 85 mph, the fastest in the country.

"The Texas legislature is often a circus of curious legislation. You can go to any session and pull out a few things that are unusual to say the least," said Jim Henson, the director of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin.