By Swinford                                           H.B. No. 1577
                                 A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
    1-1                                AN ACT
    1-2  relating to meetings of the Texas State Seed and Plant Board under
    1-3  the Texas Open Meetings Act.
    1-4        BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
    1-5        SECTION 1.  Amend Section 2 of the Tex. Rev. Civ. Stat. Ann.,
    1-6  Art. 6252-17 by adding subsection (s) to read as follows:
    1-7        (s)  This Act does not prohibit the Texas State Seed and
    1-8  Plant Board, as defined by Sec. 62.002 of the Texas Agriculture
    1-9  Code, from holding an open or executive meeting by telephone
   1-10  conference call.  Each part of a meeting that is required to be
   1-11  open to the public and that is held by conference call must be
   1-12  available to be heard by the public at a meeting place designated
   1-13  by the Texas State Seed and Plant Board and must be tape recorded.
   1-14  The tape recording must be made available to the public.  A meeting
   1-15  held by conference call is subject to the same notice requirements
   1-16  that apply to other meetings.  For purposes of the notice, the
   1-17  designated place of the meeting by conference call is considered to
   1-18  be the offices of the Texas Department of Agriculture located in
   1-19  the Stephen F. Austin Building, Austin, Texas.  Telephone
   1-20  conference calls shall be restricted to special called meetings
   1-21  requiring immediate action when it is otherwise difficult or
   1-22  impossible to convene a quorum of the Texas State Seed and Plant
   1-23  Board in one location.
    2-1        SECTION 2.  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.