By Coleman                                            H.B. No. 1044
                                 A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
    1-1                                AN ACT
    1-2  relating to allowing a political subdivision to create a program to
    1-3  assist historically underutilized businesses.
    1-4        BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
    1-5        SECTION 1.  Chapter 271, Local Government  Code, is amended
    1-6  by adding Subchapter F to read as follows:
    1-7    SUBCHAPTER F.  CREATION OF HISTORICALLY UNDERUTILIZED BUSINESS
    1-8                  PROGRAM BY A POLITICAL SUBDIVISION
    1-9        Sec. 271.111.  DEFINITION.  In this subchapter, "historically
   1-10  underutilized business" means any legal entity, including a
   1-11  corporation, sole proprietorship, partnership, joint venture, or
   1-12  other entity that is formed for the purpose of making a profit and
   1-13  in which at least 51 percent of all the ownership interests in the
   1-14  entity are owned by one or more persons who:
   1-15              (1)  are socially disadvantaged because of their
   1-16  identification as members of certain groups, including African
   1-17  Americans, Hispanic Americans, women, Asian Americans, and Native
   1-18  Americans, and have suffered the effects of discriminatory
   1-19  practices or similar insidious circumstances over which they have
   1-20  no control; and
   1-21              (2)  have a proportionate interest and demonstrate
   1-22  active participation in the control, operation, and management of
   1-23  the entity's affairs.
    2-1        Sec. 271.112.  PROGRAM.  A political subdivision of the state
    2-2  may establish a program to increase the participation of
    2-3  historically underutilized businesses in the process of awarding
    2-4  the political subdivision's contracts.  The program may:
    2-5              (1)  set goals for the award of contracts to
    2-6  historically underutilized businesses;
    2-7              (2)  include guidelines to inform historically
    2-8  underutilized businesses fully about the political subdivision's
    2-9  contract and procurement processes and the requirements for
   2-10  participation in those processes;
   2-11              (3)  require prime contractors, as part of their
   2-12  responses to requests for proposals or bids, to make a specific
   2-13  showing of how they intend:
   2-14                    (A)  to achieve goals for the use of historically
   2-15  underutilized businesses as subcontractors; and
   2-16                    (B)  to inform historically underutilized
   2-17  businesses fully about subcontracting opportunities;
   2-18              (4)  identify historically underutilized businesses in
   2-19  the political subdivision;
   2-20              (5)  identify barriers to historically underutilized
   2-21  businesses in the political subdivision's contracting and
   2-22  procurement process; and
   2-23              (6)  take any other reasonable steps allowed under law
   2-24  that are necessary to increase the participation of historically
   2-25  underutilized businesses in the political subdivision's contracting
    3-1  or procurement process.
    3-2        SECTION 2.  The importance of this legislation and the
    3-3  crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
    3-4  emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
    3-5  constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
    3-6  days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,
    3-7  and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its
    3-8  passage, and it is so enacted.