By Dutton                                             H.B. No. 1812
       74R6583 PAM-D
                                 A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
    1-1                                AN ACT
    1-2  relating to the authority of law enforcement personnel employed by
    1-3  certain mass transit authorities to enforce traffic laws.
    1-4        BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
    1-5        SECTION 1.  Section 13(c), Chapter 141, Acts of the 63rd
    1-6  Legislature, Regular Session, 1973 (Article 1118x, Vernon's Texas
    1-7  Civil Statutes), is amended to read as follows:
    1-8        (c)(1)  An authority may employ and commission its own peace
    1-9  officers with power to make arrests in all counties where the
   1-10  system is located when necessary to prevent or abate the commission
   1-11  of an offense against the laws of the state or a political
   1-12  subdivision of the state when the offense or threatened offense
   1-13  occurs on or involves the system of the authority, to make arrests
   1-14  in cases of an offense involving injury or detriment to the system,
   1-15  to enforce all traffic laws and investigate traffic accidents which
   1-16  involve or occur in the system except as provided by Subdivision
   1-17  (2) of this subsection, and to provide emergency and public safety
   1-18  services to the system or persons who use the system.
   1-19              (2)  A peace officer of an authority in which the
   1-20  principal city has a population of more than 1.5 million may not
   1-21  make an arrest, issue a citation, or otherwise enforce the
   1-22  following statute or ordinance in a municipality in whose
   1-23  jurisdiction the authority operates a vehicle for mass transit
   1-24  purposes, unless the governing body of the municipality has given
    2-1  its written approval to those actions of the peace officer:
    2-2                    (A)  the Uniform Act Regulating Traffic on
    2-3  Highways (Article 6701d, Vernon's Texas Civil Statutes); or
    2-4                    (B)  a municipal or county ordinance regulating
    2-5  traffic.
    2-6              (3)  Any person, for an authority in which the
    2-7  principal city has a population of more than 1.5 million according
    2-8  to the most recent decennial census, commissioned under this
    2-9  section must be a certified peace officer who meets the
   2-10  requirements of the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement Officer
   2-11  Standards and Education, who shall file with the authority the
   2-12  sworn oath required of peace officers, and who is vested with all
   2-13  the powers, privileges, and immunities of peace officers in all
   2-14  counties where the system is located, provides services, or is
   2-15  supported by a general sales and use tax.
   2-16        SECTION 2.  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,
   2-21  and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its
   2-22  passage, and it is so enacted.