By Willis                                              H.B. No. 317
                                 A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
    1-1                                AN ACT
    1-2  relating to a poll on judicial candidates conducted by a bar
    1-3  association.
    1-4        BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
    1-5        SECTION 1.  Subchapter H, Chapter 81, Government Code, is
    1-6  amended by adding Section 81.114 to read as follows:
    1-7        Sec. 81.114.  JUDICIAL CANDIDATES POLL.  (a)  An attorney may
    1-8  not participate in a poll conducted by the state bar or a local or
    1-9  county bar association on the competence and performance of
   1-10  judicial candidates unless the attorney has had professional
   1-11  interaction with a candidate evaluated by the attorney in the poll.
   1-12  The state bar shall adopt guidelines that define professional
   1-13  interaction between an attorney and a judicial candidate.  The
   1-14  guidelines adopted under this subsection must be included with each
   1-15  ballot distributed as part of a poll under this section.
   1-16        (b)  The form used in any poll conducted by the state bar or
   1-17  a local or county bar association on the competence and performance
   1-18  of judicial candidates shall contain a statement that any attorney
   1-19  responding to the poll may not vote on a judicial candidate with
   1-20  whom the attorney has not had a professional interaction.
   1-21        (c)  A poll conducted by the state bar or a local or county
   1-22  bar association may not include questions concerning the
   1-23  qualifications of a judicial candidate.
   1-24        SECTION 2.  This Act takes effect September 1, 1993, and
    2-1  applies only to a judicial candidates poll conducted by a bar
    2-2  association on or after that date.
    2-3        SECTION 3.  The importance of this legislation and the
    2-4  crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
    2-5  emergency   and   an   imperative   public   necessity   that   the
    2-6  constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
    2-7  days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended.