By:  Dutton                                           H.B. No. 1412
       73R4251 JRD-D
                                 A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
    1-1                                AN ACT
    1-2  relating to restrictions on the ability of county civil service
    1-3  employees to run for certain elective offices.
    1-4        BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
    1-5        SECTION 1.  Section 158.009, Local Government Code, is
    1-6  amended by adding Subsection (d) to read as follows:
    1-7        (d)  The commission may not adopt or enforce a rule requiring
    1-8  a county employee to resign to run for an elective office of the
    1-9  county unless the employee is a subordinate to the current holder
   1-10  of that office.
   1-11        SECTION 2.  Section 158.035, Local Government Code, is
   1-12  amended by adding Subsection (c) to read as follows:
   1-13        (c)  The commission may not adopt or enforce a rule requiring
   1-14  a department employee, including a deputy sheriff, to resign to run
   1-15  for an elective office of the county unless the employee is running
   1-16  for sheriff of the county in which the employee is a department
   1-17  employee.
   1-18        SECTION 3.  The importance of this legislation and the
   1-19  crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
   1-20  emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
   1-21  constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
   1-22  days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,
   1-23  and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its
   1-24  passage, and it is so enacted.