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House Bill 29 |
House Author: Thompson, Senfronia et al. |
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Effective: See below |
Senate Sponsor: Huffman et al. |
House Bill 29 amends the Business & Commerce Code, Civil Practice and Remedies Code, Code of Criminal Procedure, Education Code, Family Code, Government Code, Health and Safety Code, Penal Code, and Transportation Code to enact and revise provisions relating to, among other issues, prostitution and the trafficking of persons. The bill requires a sexually oriented business to post a notice in its restrooms regarding human trafficking and establishes a misdemeanor offense for the failure to post such a sign. The bill sets out provisions regarding the procedures for investigating civil racketeering related to the trafficking of persons and regarding a civil investigative demand for evidence in such an investigation and establishes a misdemeanor offense for the deliberate noncompliance with such a demand. The bill requires certain commercial driver's license training programs to include education and training on recognizing and preventing human trafficking. The bill cancels the expiration of the human trafficking prevention task force and revises its composition. The bill establishes that an actor engages in conduct constituting certain sexually related offenses involving a child regardless of whether the person knows the age of the child at the time of the offense and also increases the penalties for certain prostitution offenses.
House Bill 29 takes effect September 1, 2017, except that provisions subjecting persons to a criminal penalty in relation to the signage requirement for sexually oriented businesses take effect March 1, 2019.