By Conley                                             H.B. No. 2262
       74R6791 MLR-D
                                 A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
    1-1                                AN ACT
    1-2  relating to prohibiting the consideration of race or ethnicity as a
    1-3  primary factor in adoption or foster care placements.
    1-4        BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
    1-5        SECTION 1.  Section 41.028, Human Resources Code, is amended
    1-6  to read as follows:
    1-7        Sec. 41.028.  RACE OR ETHNICITY.  (a)  The Texas Department
    1-8  of Protective and Regulatory Services <department> may not make
    1-9  foster care placement decisions on the presumption that it is in
   1-10  the best interests of a child to be placed in foster care with a
   1-11  family of the child's same race or ethnicity <prohibit or delay the
   1-12  placement of a child in foster care or remove a child from foster
   1-13  care or otherwise discriminate on the basis of race or ethnicity of
   1-14  the child or the foster family>.
   1-15        (b)  Unless an independent psychological evaluation specific
   1-16  to a child indicates that placement or continued living with a
   1-17  family of a particular race or ethnicity would be detrimental to
   1-18  the child, the department may not:
   1-19              (1)  prohibit or delay placement of a child in foster
   1-20  care because the department is attempting to locate a family of
   1-21  similar race or ethnicity; or
   1-22              (2)  remove a child from foster care with a family that
   1-23  is of a different race or ethnicity.
   1-24        (c)  The department may not remove a child from foster care
    2-1  with a family that is of a different race or ethnicity for the sole
    2-2  reason that continued foster care with that family may:
    2-3              (1)  strengthen the emotional ties between the child
    2-4  and the family; or
    2-5              (2)  increase the potential of the family's desire to
    2-6  adopt the child because of the amount of time the child and the
    2-7  family are together.
    2-8        (d)  This section does not prevent or limit the department's
    2-9  recruitment of minority families as foster care or adoptive
   2-10  families.
   2-11        SECTION 2.  This Act takes effect September 1, 1995.
   2-12        SECTION 3.  The importance of this legislation and the
   2-13  crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
   2-14  emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
   2-15  constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
   2-16  days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended.