By Park                                                H.B. No. 188
       74R1335 CAS-D
                                 A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
    1-1                                AN ACT
    1-2  relating to the posting or reading of historic or political
    1-3  documents in public school buildings or at public school events.
    1-4        BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
    1-5        SECTION 1.  Subchapter Z, Chapter 21, Education Code, is
    1-6  amended by adding Section 21.940 to read as follows:
    1-7        Sec. 21.940.  POSTING OR READING OF HISTORIC OR POLITICAL
    1-8  DOCUMENTS.  (a)  The board of trustees of a school district may
    1-9  authorize or encourage a teacher or administrator to post in a
   1-10  public school building or read at a public school event:
   1-11              (1)  the national motto;
   1-12              (2)  the national anthem;
   1-13              (3)  the pledge of allegiance;
   1-14              (4)  the preamble to the state constitution;
   1-15              (5)  the Declaration of Independence;
   1-16              (6)  the Mayflower Compact;
   1-17              (7)  a writing, speech, document, or proclamation of a
   1-18  founding father or president of the United States;
   1-19              (8)  a United States Supreme Court decision;
   1-20              (9)  the United States Constitution;
   1-21              (10)  an organic document from the precolonial,
   1-22  colonial, revolutionary, federalist, or postfederalist era; or
   1-23              (11)  an act of the United States Congress, including
   1-24  the published text of the Congressional Record.
    2-1        (b)  The board of trustees may not censor the content of a
    2-2  document included under Subsection (a) on the basis of a religious
    2-3  reference in the document.
    2-4        (c)  The commissioner of education shall provide for the
    2-5  distribution of a copy of this section to each school district.
    2-6  The superintendent of each school district shall provide for the
    2-7  distribution of a copy of this section to each teacher and
    2-8  administrator in the district.
    2-9        SECTION 2.  The importance of this legislation and the
   2-10  crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
   2-11  emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
   2-12  constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
   2-13  days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,
   2-14  and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its
   2-15  passage, and it is so enacted.