By West                                                S.B. No. 189
       74R1443 JRD-D
                                 A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
    1-1                                AN ACT
    1-2  relating to the certification of historically underutilized
    1-3  businesses by the General Services Commission.
    1-4        BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
    1-5        SECTION 1.  Section 1.03(a), State Purchasing and General
    1-6  Services Act (Article 601b, Vernon's Texas Civil Statutes), is
    1-7  amended to read as follows:
    1-8        (a)  The commission shall certify businesses that are
    1-9  historically underutilized businesses.  The commission shall assign
   1-10  each certified historically underutilized business an
   1-11  identification number based on codes representing the state and
   1-12  county in which the business has its principal place of business,
   1-13  the sex and ethnicity of the business's principal owners, and the
   1-14  goods or services provided by the business and based on the
   1-15  business's federal employer identification number.  As part of its
   1-16  certification procedures, the commission may certify under this Act
   1-17  businesses certified as <approve a municipal program that
   1-18  certifies> historically underutilized businesses by the federal
   1-19  Small Business Administration, a state agency, a political
   1-20  subdivision, or a governmental certification designee under
   1-21  substantially the same definition prescribed by Section 1.02(3) of
   1-22  this Act <and may certify businesses certified by the municipality
   1-23  as historically underutilized businesses under this Act>.
   1-24        SECTION 2.  The importance of this legislation and the
    2-1  crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
    2-2  emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
    2-3  constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
    2-4  days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,
    2-5  and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its
    2-6  passage, and it is so enacted.