By:  Montford                                         S.B. No. 1689
                                 A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
                                        AN ACT
    1-1  relating to the appointment of certain officers and employees of
    1-2  the Department of Public Safety of the State of Texas.
    1-3        BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
    1-4        SECTION 1.  Subchapter A, Chapter 411, Government Code, is
    1-5  amended by adding Section 411.0071 to read as follows:
    1-6        Sec. 411.0071.  DIRECT APPOINTMENT TO KEY POSITIONS BY
    1-7  DIRECTOR.  (a)  The director may designate as a key position a
    1-8  position in the department that involves working directly with the
    1-9  director or working on a special assignment in the department.
   1-10        (b)  The director may directly appoint a person to a position
   1-11  designated as a key position under Subsection (a) under criteria
   1-12  determined solely by the director.  The director's appointment of a
   1-13  person to a key position or transfer of a person from a key
   1-14  position to another position for which the person is qualified is
   1-15  not subject to Section 411.007, 411.0075, or 411.0076.
   1-16        SECTION 2.  The importance of this legislation and the
   1-17  crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
   1-18  emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
   1-19  constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
   1-20  days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,
   1-21  and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its
   1-22  passage, and it is so enacted.