By Greenberg, Hirschi                                   H.B. No. 36
       74R731 JD-F
                                 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 551.001(4), Government Code, is amended
    1-6  to read as follows:
    1-7              (4)  "Meeting" means:
    1-8                    (A)  a deliberation between a quorum of a
    1-9  governmental body, or between a quorum of a governmental body and
   1-10  another person, during which public business or public policy over
   1-11  which the governmental body has supervision or control is discussed
   1-12  or considered or during which the governmental body takes formal
   1-13  action; or
   1-14                    (B)  a gathering at which a quorum of members of
   1-15  a 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              The term does not include the gathering of a quorum of
   1-21  a governmental body at a social function unrelated to the public
   1-22  business that is conducted by the body, or the attendance by a
   1-23  quorum of a governmental body at a regional, state, or national
   1-24  convention or workshop, if formal action is not taken and any
    2-1  discussion of public business is incidental to the social function,
    2-2  convention, or workshop.  The term includes a session of a
    2-3  governmental body.
    2-4        SECTION 2.  Section 551.075, Government Code, is repealed.
    2-5        SECTION 3.  The importance of this legislation and the
    2-6  crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
    2-7  emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
    2-8  constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
    2-9  days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,
   2-10  and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its
   2-11  passage, and it is so enacted.