JWW H.B. 1115 75(R)BILL ANALYSIS PUBLIC SAFETY H.B. 1115 By: Oakley 4-16-97 Committee Report (Unamended) BACKGROUND During the 74th session of the Texas state legislature, Senator Montford authored Senate Bill 1504. S.B. 1504 authorized the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) to establish a statewide database of all outstanding arrest warrants issued for failure to appear for traffic law violations. Senator Montford's bill links city, county and state outstanding arrest warrants into one central database. As a result of the passage of S.B. 1504, DPS can obtain not only state warrants, but city and county warrant information on a person applying for a drivers' license renewal. The program is proving to be effective in getting fines collected for cities and counties. Failure to pay these fines results in denial of license renewal. Upon implementation of the program, it was discovered that certain offenses were inadvertently omitted. This bill addresses failure to appear situations that were not included in the current database information. PURPOSE This bill will provide for "bail jumping and failure to appear", "promise to appear", and "failure to present evidence of a course completion", to be included into the central database. RULEMAKING AUTHORITY It is the committee's opinion that this bill does not expressly grant any additional rulemaking authority to a state officer, department, agency or institution. SECTION BY SECTION ANALYSIS SECTION 1 Amends Section 1(5), Article 6687d, Revised Statutes, as follows: (5) Existing Subsection (5) becomes (5)(A). Expands the definition of "Traffic law" to include license status and registration of motor vehicles being operated in a public place. (B) This subsection is added to include an offense under Section 38.10, Penal Code, which addresses bail jumping and failure to appear. (C) This subsection is added to include offenses under Sections 543.009 or 543.107(b), Transportation Code. These refer to a written promise to appear and failure to present evidence of a course completion. SECTION 2 This Act applies only to an offense occurring on or after the effective date. SECTION 3 Effective Date: September 1, 1997. SECTION 4 Emergency Clause.