By Craddick                                            H.B. No. 768
       74R588 MWV-D
                                 A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
    1-1                                AN ACT
    1-2  relating to statutory court judges and district judges exchanging
    1-3  benches and transferring cases.
    1-4        BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
    1-5        SECTION 1.  Section 74.121(b), Government Code, is amended to
    1-6  read as follows:
    1-7        (b)  In matters of concurrent jurisdiction, a judge of a
    1-8  statutory county court and a judge of a district court in a county
    1-9  may exchange benches and courtrooms with each other and may
   1-10  transfer cases between their dockets in the same manner that judges
   1-11  of district courts exchange benches and transfer cases under
   1-12  Section 24.303 <The judge of a statutory county court may transfer
   1-13  a case to the docket of the district court, except that a case may
   1-14  not be transferred without the consent of the judge of the court to
   1-15  which it is being transferred and may not be transferred unless it
   1-16  is within the jurisdiction of the court to which it is
   1-17  transferred>.
   1-18        SECTION 2.  This Act takes effect September 1, 1995.
   1-19        SECTION 3.  The importance of this legislation and the
   1-20  crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
   1-21  emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
   1-22  constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
   1-23  days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended.
   1-24                       COMMITTEE AMENDMENT NO. 1
    2-1        Amend House Bill 768 on page 1, line 7, by striking "In" and
    2-2  substituting "Subject to the agreement of all parties, in".
    2-3                                                             Thompson