By:  Goodman                                           H.B. No. 793
       73R3324 JMM-D
                                 A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
    1-1                                AN ACT
    1-2  relating to persons who may bring an original suit affecting the
    1-3  parent-child relationship.
    1-4        BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
    1-5        SECTION 1.  Section 11.03(b), Family Code, is amended to read
    1-6  as follows:
    1-7        (b)  An original suit affecting the parent-child relationship
    1-8  seeking managing conservatorship may be brought by a grandparent or
    1-9  by any other person deemed by the court to have had substantial
   1-10  past contact with the child sufficient to warrant standing to do
   1-11  so, if there is satisfactory proof to the court that:
   1-12              (1)  the order sought is necessary because the child's
   1-13  present environment may endanger the child's physical health or
   1-14  significantly impair the child's emotional development <child's
   1-15  environment with the parent or parents, the managing conservator,
   1-16  or the custodian presents a serious and immediate question
   1-17  concerning the welfare of the child>; or
   1-18              (2)  both parents, the surviving parent, or the
   1-19  managing conservator or custodian either filed the petition or
   1-20  consented to the suit.
   1-21        SECTION 2.  This Act applies only to a suit filed on or after
   1-22  the effective date of this Act.  A suit filed before that date is
   1-23  governed by the law in effect on the date the suit was filed, and
   1-24  the former law is continued in effect for that purpose.
    2-1        SECTION 3.  The importance of this legislation and the
    2-2  crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
    2-3  emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
    2-4  constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
    2-5  days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,
    2-6  and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its
    2-7  passage, and it is so enacted.