By:  Hirschi                                          H.B. No. 2549
       73R4513 JD-D
                                 A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
    1-1                                AN ACT
    1-2  relating to the application of the open meetings law to certain
    1-3  meetings of governmental bodies.
    1-4        BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
    1-5        SECTION 1.  Section 1(a), Chapter 271, Acts of the 60th
    1-6  Legislature, Regular Session, 1967 (Article 6252-17, Vernon's Texas
    1-7  Civil Statutes), is amended to read as follows:
    1-8        (a)  "Meeting" means:
    1-9              (1)  any deliberation between a quorum of members of a
   1-10  governmental body, or between a quorum of members of a governmental
   1-11  body and any other person, at which any public business or public
   1-12  policy over which the governmental body has supervision or control
   1-13  is discussed or considered, or at which any formal action is taken;
   1-14  or
   1-15              (2)  a gathering at which a quorum of members of a
   1-16  governmental body is present and at which the body receives
   1-17  information from, gives information to, asks questions of, or
   1-18  receives questions from any third person, including an employee of
   1-19  the governmental body, about the public business or public policy
   1-20  over which the body has supervision or control.
   1-21        It shall not be construed that the intent of this definition
   1-22  is to prohibit the gathering of members of the governmental body in
   1-23  numbers of a quorum or more for social functions unrelated to the
   1-24  public business which is conducted by the body or for attendance of
    2-1  regional, state, or national conventions or workshops as long as no
    2-2  formal action is taken and any discussion of public business is
    2-3  incidental to the functions, conventions, or workshops.
    2-4        SECTION 2.  Section 2(r), Chapter 271, Acts of the 60th
    2-5  Legislature, Regular Session, 1967 (Article 6252-17, Vernon's Texas
    2-6  Civil Statutes), as added by Section 2, Chapter 549, Acts of the
    2-7  70th Legislature, Regular Session, 1987, is repealed.
    2-8        SECTION 3.  The importance of this legislation and the
    2-9  crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
   2-10  emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
   2-11  constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
   2-12  days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,
   2-13  and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its
   2-14  passage, and it is so enacted.