By Harris of Tarrant                                   S.B. No. 116
       74R1585 MLR-D
                                 A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
    1-1                                AN ACT
    1-2  relating to the method of selection of municipal court of record
    1-3  judges in Arlington.
    1-4        BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
    1-5        SECTION 1.  Section 30.424, Government Code, is amended by
    1-6  amending Subsection (c) and adding Subsection (k) to read as
    1-7  follows:
    1-8        (c)  A municipal judge, including the chief judge, serves <is
    1-9  appointed by the governing body of the city> for a term of two
   1-10  years.  The governing body of the city shall appoint the municipal
   1-11  judge unless the method of selection of the judge is changed under
   1-12  Subsection (k) to an election method.
   1-13        (k)  The governing body of the city, on its own motion, may
   1-14  submit the question of election or appointment of municipal judges,
   1-15  including the chief judge, to the qualified voters of the city.
   1-16  The governing body shall submit the question to the voters if the
   1-17  governing body receives a petition requesting a referendum on the
   1-18  question.  The petition must be signed by a number of qualified
   1-19  voters equal to at least five percent of the total number of
   1-20  qualified voters who voted in the most recent municipal general
   1-21  election and must meet the requirements for a petition under
   1-22  Chapter 277, Election Code.  If a majority of the votes received at
   1-23  the election approve a change in the method of selection, the
   1-24  governing body of the city shall implement the change as soon as
    2-1  possible.  A change made under this subsection in the method of
    2-2  selection of the judges of the municipal courts of record may not
    2-3  be implemented in a manner that prevents a municipal judge from
    2-4  continuing to serve the term to which that judge was previously
    2-5  appointed or elected.
    2-6        SECTION 2.  The importance of this legislation and the
    2-7  crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
    2-8  emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
    2-9  constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
   2-10  days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,
   2-11  and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its
   2-12  passage, and it is so enacted.