By Rabuck                                        H.B. No. 579

      75R3784 CAG-D                           

                                A BILL TO BE ENTITLED

 1-1                                   AN ACT

 1-2     relating to the voting rights of residents of a municipality's

 1-3     extraterritorial jurisdiction.

 1-4           BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:

 1-5           SECTION 1.  Section 42.904, Local Government Code, is

 1-6     transferred to Subchapter A, Chapter 42, Local Government Code, is

 1-7     redesignated as Section 42.002, and is amended to read as follows:

 1-8           Sec. 42.002 [42.904].  EXTRATERRITORIAL JURISDICTION AND

 1-9     VOTING RIGHTS [IN CERTAIN MUNICIPALITIES].  (a)  A [This section

1-10     applies only to a municipality that has disannexed territory under

1-11     Section 43.133 that it had previously annexed for limited purposes

1-12     and that has extended rules to its extraterritorial jurisdiction

1-13     under Section 212.003.]

1-14           [(b)  The] municipality shall allow all qualified voters

1-15     residing in the municipality's extraterritorial jurisdiction to

1-16     vote on any proposition that is submitted to the voters of the

1-17     municipality [and that involves:]

1-18                 [(1)  an adoption of or change to an ordinance or

1-19     charter provision that would apply to the municipality's

1-20     extraterritorial jurisdiction; or]

1-21                 [(2)  a nonbinding referendum that, if binding, would

1-22     apply to the municipality's extraterritorial jurisdiction].

1-23           (b)  A municipality shall  allow all qualified voters

1-24     residing in the municipality's extraterritorial jurisdiction to

 2-1     vote in any election for municipal elective office.  If the

 2-2     governing body of the municipality consists, in whole or part, of

 2-3     persons who are elected from single-member districts or wards that

 2-4     contain only a portion of the municipality, the municipality shall

 2-5     apportion the qualified voters residing in the extraterritorial

 2-6     jurisdiction to a district or ward.

 2-7           SECTION 2.  This Act takes effect January 1, 1998.

 2-8           SECTION 3.  The importance of this legislation and the

 2-9     crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an

2-10     emergency and an imperative public necessity that the

2-11     constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several

2-12     days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended.