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Senate Bill 191 |
Senate Author: Nelson |
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Effective: Vetoed |
House Sponsor: King, Susan |
Current law requires the Texas Medical Board, after receiving the administrative law judge's findings of fact and conclusions of law in a contested case under the Administrative Procedure Act, to determine the charges on the merits and authorizes the board to change a finding of fact or conclusion of law or vacate or modify an order of the administrative law judge under certain circumstances. Senate Bill 191 amends the Occupations Code to instead require the board to dispose the contested case after receiving such findings of fact and conclusions of law and prohibits the board from changing a finding of fact or conclusion of law or vacating or modifying such an order. The bill authorizes the board to obtain judicial review of any finding of fact or conclusion of law issued by the administrative law judge; establishes that, for each case, the board has the sole authority and discretion to determine the appropriate action or sanction; and prohibits the administrative law judge from making any recommendation regarding the appropriate action or sanction.
Reason given for veto: "I am vetoing Senate Bill 191 because I have serious concerns regarding overreliance on the State Office of Administrative Hearings (SOAH) in the disposition of contested case hearings at the Texas Medical Board. This provision is also included in House Bill 680.
"The board is charged with regulating the practice of medicine in Texas by, among other things, enforcing physicians' standards of conduct and imposing appropriate sanctions when those standards are violated. When the board is unable to resolve a case, it is referred to an administrative law judge (ALJ) at SOAH. Senate Bill 191 requires the board to accept an ALJ's findings of fact on whether a physician has committed a violation.
"This provision weakens the board's authority to oversee physicians, and vests that authority instead in the ALJ. This bill treats the Texas Medical Board differently from every other occupational licensing agency by mandating that the board accept the ALJ's findings.
"The responsibility for deciding whether a physician has violated a standard of conduct should belong to the multimember board, and not to a single ALJ. ALJs serve the important role of providing an independent forum for conducting adjudicative hearings to determine the facts, but their role is to assist agencies in reaching a proper decision, not to supplant them or relieve them of that duty."