By Culberson, Hunter of Taylor                        H.B. No. 2716
       74R5796 JSA-D
                                 A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
    1-1                                AN ACT
    1-2  relating to the authority of the Texas Higher Education
    1-3  Coordinating Board over certain public junior college programs.
    1-4        BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
    1-5        SECTION 1.  Subchapter C, Chapter 61, Education Code, is
    1-6  amended by adding Section 61.0625 to read as follows:
    1-7        Sec. 61.0625.  EXTENSION PROGRAM OF PUBLIC JUNIOR COLLEGE.
    1-8  (a)  Except as provided by Subsection (b), the board may not
    1-9  prohibit a public junior college from conducting a program or
   1-10  operating a campus outside the boundaries of the junior college
   1-11  district if the public junior college has conducted the program or
   1-12  operated the campus continuously at the same location or another
   1-13  location within five miles of that location since 1994.
   1-14        (b)  The board may prohibit a public junior college from
   1-15  conducting a program outside the boundaries of the junior college
   1-16  district if another institution of higher education provides
   1-17  substantially the same program at a location within five miles of
   1-18  the location at which the public junior college conducts the
   1-19  program.
   1-20        (c)  The board may not limit a campus or program that the
   1-21  public junior college has conducted or operated continuously at the
   1-22  same location or another location within five miles of that
   1-23  location since 1994 to an enrollment that is less than the
   1-24  enrollment at the campus or in the program at any time in 1994.
    2-1        SECTION 2.  The importance of this legislation and the
    2-2  crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
    2-3  emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
    2-4  constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
    2-5  days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,
    2-6  and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its
    2-7  passage, and it is so enacted.