By:  Shelley                                           S.B. No. 890
       73R5540 JD-F
                                 A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
    1-1                                AN ACT
    1-2  relating to the authority of the State Seed and Plant Board to hold
    1-3  board meetings telephonically.
    1-4        BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
    1-5        SECTION 1.  Chapter 62, Agriculture Code, is amended by
    1-6  adding Section 62.0021  to read as follows:
    1-7        Sec. 62.0021.  MEETING BY TELEPHONE CONFERENCE CALL.
    1-8  (a)  Notwithstanding Chapter 271, Acts of the 60th Legislature,
    1-9  Regular Session, 1967 (Article 6252-17, Vernon's Texas Civil
   1-10  Statutes), the board may hold an open or closed meeting by
   1-11  telephone conference call if immediate action is required and the
   1-12  convening at one location of a quorum of the board is inconvenient
   1-13  for any member of the board.
   1-14        (b)  The meeting is subject to the notice requirements
   1-15  applicable to other meetings.
   1-16        (c)  The notice of the meeting must specify as the location
   1-17  of the meeting the location where meetings of the board are usually
   1-18  held.
   1-19        (d)  Each part of the meeting that is required to be open to
   1-20  the public shall be audible to the public at the location specified
   1-21  in the notice of the meeting as the location of the meeting and
   1-22  shall be tape-recorded.  The tape recording shall be made available
   1-23  to the public.
   1-24        SECTION 2.  The importance of this legislation and the
    2-1  crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
    2-2  emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
    2-3  constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
    2-4  days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,
    2-5  and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its
    2-6  passage, and it is so enacted.