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Senate Bill 757 |
Senate Author: Armbrister |
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Effective: Vetoed |
House Sponsor: Solomons |
Senate Bill 757 amends the Finance Code to set out procedures by which a county sheriff or city police chief may place a hold order on goods held by a pawnbroker and provides that a person who pledges misappropriated property with a pawnbroker or sells a pawnbroker such property commits a Class B misdemeanor. It also sets out procedures for providing data to law enforcement agencies by electronic means and requires pawnbrokers who generate computerized pawn and purchase tickets to transmit all reportable data or transaction data to the law enforcement agency electronically. The bill allows for the establishment of a repository for transaction data and charges for the use of the repository. It addresses requirements, confidentiality, fraudulent access, commissioner oversight, computer-related malfunctions and errors, and paper copies related to electronic data.
Reason Given for Veto: "Senate Bill No. 757 is fundamentally the same as House Bill No. 1839 from the Seventy-Eighth Legislative Session which I vetoed. The bill would reduce local control by mandating the use of private third-party providers in gathering information about pawnbroker transactions. The bill also would limit the type and extent of pawn transaction information available to local law enforcement.
"For example, the bill would require pawn transaction information to be submitted electronically if the pawnbroker generates computerized tickets. According to information collected by the Office of Consumer Credit Commissioner, approximately 90 percent of the pawn shops in Texas produce computerized tickets; therefore all of the pawn transaction information would be submitted electronically. Under the bill, local law enforcement would receive restricted transaction information, while a third-party provider would receive all transaction information. In order to continue receiving all transaction data, as they now do, law enforcement would have to purchase the information from a third-party provider.
"With this veto message, I hope to discourage legislators from further attempts to reduce law enforcement’s access to pawn transaction information."