By Hochberg                                            H.B. No. 998
       74R4944 KLL-D
                                 A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
    1-1                                AN ACT
    1-2  relating to loans made from the personal funds of a candidate or
    1-3  officeholder and to the disclosure required on political
    1-4  advertising.
    1-5        BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
    1-6        SECTION 1.  Subchapter B, Chapter 253, Election Code, is
    1-7  amended by adding Section 253.0351 to read as follows:
    1-8        Sec. 253.0351.  LOANS FROM PERSONAL FUNDS.  (a)  A candidate
    1-9  or officeholder who deposits personal funds in an amount that
   1-10  exceeds $50 per occasion in an account in a financial institution
   1-11  in which the person maintains only campaign and officeholder
   1-12  contributions may report the amount deposited as a loan and may
   1-13  reimburse his personal funds from political contributions in the
   1-14  amount of the reported loan.
   1-15        (b)  Section 253.035(h) applies if the person does not report
   1-16  an amount as a loan as authorized by Subsection (a).
   1-17        SECTION 2.  Section 253.035(h), Election Code, is amended to
   1-18  read as follows:
   1-19        (h)  Except as provided by Section 253.0351 or 253.042, a
   1-20  candidate or officeholder who makes political expenditures from his
   1-21  personal funds may reimburse his personal funds from political
   1-22  contributions in the amount of those expenditures only if:
   1-23              (1)  the expenditures from personal funds were fully
   1-24  reported as political expenditures, including the payees, dates,
    2-1  purposes, and amounts of the expenditures, in the report required
    2-2  to be filed under this title that covers the period in which the
    2-3  expenditures from personal funds were made; and
    2-4              (2)  the report on which the expenditures from personal
    2-5  funds are disclosed clearly designates those expenditures as having
    2-6  been made from the person's personal funds and that the
    2-7  expenditures are subject to reimbursement.
    2-8        SECTION 3.  Section 255.001, Election Code, is amended by
    2-9  adding Subsection (d) to read as follows:
   2-10        (d)  A person who, as a candidate or on behalf of a
   2-11  candidate, enters into a contract or other agreement described by
   2-12  this section does not violate this section by referring to the
   2-13  candidate's campaign if the name of the candidate is clearly stated
   2-14  and the disclosure is not misleading.
   2-15        SECTION 4.  This Act takes effect September 1, 1995.
   2-16        SECTION 5.  The importance of this legislation and the
   2-17  crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
   2-18  emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
   2-19  constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
   2-20  days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended.