By:  Wentworth, et al.                                S.B. No. 1020
                                 A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
                                        AN ACT
    1-1  relating to the application of the open meetings law to certain
    1-2  meetings of governmental bodies.
    1-3        BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
    1-4        SECTION 1.  Subsection (a), Section 1, Chapter 271, Acts of
    1-5  the 60th Legislature, Regular Session, 1967 (Article 6252-17,
    1-6  Vernon's Texas Civil Statutes), is amended to read as follows:
    1-7        (a)  "Meeting" means:
    1-8              (1)  any deliberation between a quorum of members of a
    1-9  governmental body, or between a quorum of members of a governmental
   1-10  body and any other person, at which any public business or public
   1-11  policy over which the governmental body has supervision or control
   1-12  is discussed or considered, or at which any formal action is taken;
   1-13  or
   1-14              (2)  a gathering at which a quorum of members of a
   1-15  governmental body is present and at which the body receives
   1-16  information from, gives information to, asks questions of, or
   1-17  receives questions from any third person, including an employee of
   1-18  the governmental body, about the public business or public policy
   1-19  over which the body has supervision or control.
   1-20        It shall not be construed that the intent of this definition
   1-21  is to prohibit the gathering of members of the governmental body in
   1-22  numbers of a quorum or more for social functions unrelated to the
   1-23  public business which is conducted by the body or for attendance of
   1-24  regional, state, or national conventions or workshops as long as no
    2-1  formal action is taken and any discussion of public business is
    2-2  incidental to the functions, conventions, or workshops.
    2-3        SECTION 2.  Subsection (r), Section 2, Chapter 271, Acts of
    2-4  the 60th Legislature, Regular Session, 1967 (Article 6252-17,
    2-5  Vernon's Texas Civil Statutes), as added by Section 2, Chapter 549,
    2-6  Acts of the 70th Legislature, Regular Session, 1987, is repealed.
    2-7        SECTION 3.  The importance of this legislation and the
    2-8  crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
    2-9  emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
   2-10  constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
   2-11  days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,
   2-12  and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its
   2-13  passage, and it is so enacted.