By:  Bomer                                             H.B. No. 641
       73R802 MLR-D
                                 A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
    1-1                                AN ACT
    1-2  relating to issuance of prisoner of war license plates.
    1-3        BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
    1-4        SECTION 1.  Sections 5g(a), (b), and (f), Chapter 88, General
    1-5  Laws, Acts of the 41st Legislature, 2nd Called Session, 1929
    1-6  (Article 6675a-5g, Vernon's Texas Civil Statutes), are amended to
    1-7  read as follows:
    1-8        (a)  Any person, other than a person discharged from the
    1-9  armed forces under conditions less than honorable, who was captured
   1-10  and incarcerated by an enemy of the United States during a period
   1-11  of conflict with the United States, or the surviving spouse of that
   1-12  person, as long as the surviving spouse remains unmarried, is
   1-13  entitled to register under this Section, for the person's own use,
   1-14  one (1) passenger car or light commercial vehicle having a
   1-15  manufacturer's rated carrying capacity of one (1) ton or less,
   1-16  without payment of the annual registration fee for the vehicle.
   1-17        (b)  The Department shall design and provide for the issuance
   1-18  of special license plates for persons entitled to register under
   1-19  this Section.  The license plates shall be designed to indicate
   1-20  that the recipient is, or the recipient's deceased spouse was, a
   1-21  former prisoner of war.
   1-22        (f)  <The surviving spouse of a deceased person who was
   1-23  issued license plates under this Section is entitled to continue to
   1-24  register one (1) motor vehicle under this Section for as long as
    2-1  the spouse remains unmarried.>  When a surviving <the> spouse
    2-2  applies to renew a registration under this Section, the County Tax
    2-3  Collector shall require the spouse to make a sworn statement that
    2-4  the spouse is unmarried.
    2-5        SECTION 2.  The importance of this legislation and the
    2-6  crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
    2-7  emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
    2-8  constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
    2-9  days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,
   2-10  and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its
   2-11  passage, and it is so enacted.