By Kuempel                                            H.B. No. 2286
       74R7103 DWS-F
                                 A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
    1-1                                AN ACT
    1-2  relating to the filing of a petition stating an essential need for
    1-3  operating a motor vehicle.
    1-4        BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
    1-5        SECTION 1.  Subsection (a), Section 23A, Chapter 173, Acts of
    1-6  the 47th Legislature, Regular Session, 1941 (Article 6687b,
    1-7  Vernon's Texas Civil Statutes), is amended to read as follows:
    1-8        (a)(1)  Any person whose license has been suspended for
    1-9  causes other than physical or mental disability or impairment, or
   1-10  other than a conviction under Article 6701l-1, Revised Statutes,
   1-11  may file with the clerk <judge> of the county court or district
   1-12  court having jurisdiction within the county of his residence, or
   1-13  with the clerk <judge> of the county court or district court having
   1-14  jurisdiction within the county where an offense occurred for which
   1-15  his license was suspended, a verified petition setting forth in
   1-16  detail an essential need for operating a motor vehicle.
   1-17              (2)  A person whose license has been suspended
   1-18  following a conviction under Article 6701l-1, Revised Statutes, and
   1-19  who has not been issued, in the 10 years preceding the date of
   1-20  filing, more than one occupational license following a conviction
   1-21  under Article 6701l-1, Revised Statutes, or Article 6701l-2,
   1-22  Revised Statutes, as Article 6701l-2 existed before January 1,
   1-23  1984, may file only with the clerk <judge> of the county court or
   1-24  district court in which the person was convicted a verified
    2-1  petition stating that the person was convicted in that court of an
    2-2  offense under Article 6701l-1, and setting forth in detail an
    2-3  essential need for operating a motor vehicle.
    2-4              (3)  The clerk of the court shall file the petition as
    2-5  in any other civil matter.
    2-6              (4)  The hearing on the petition may be ex parte in
    2-7  nature, except as provided by Subsection (e) of this section.
    2-8        SECTION 2.  This Act takes effect September 1, 1995.
    2-9        SECTION 3.  The importance of this legislation and the
   2-10  crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
   2-11  emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
   2-12  constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
   2-13  days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended.