AN ACT
1-1 relating to administration of vital statistics records.
1-2 BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
1-3 SECTION 1. Subsection (d), Section 191.025, Health and
1-4 Safety Code, is amended to read as follows:
1-5 (d) Information required on a certificate must be written
1-6 legibly in durable blue or black ink or may be filed and registered
1-7 by photographic, electronic, or other means as prescribed by the
1-8 state registrar.
1-9 SECTION 2. Section 191.026, Health and Safety Code, is
1-10 amended by amending Subsection (c) and adding Subsection (e) to
1-11 read as follows:
1-12 (c) The local registrar shall copy in the record book
1-13 required under Section 191.025 each certificate that the local
1-14 registrar registers, unless the local registrar keeps duplicates
1-15 under Subsection (d) or makes photographic duplications as
1-16 authorized by Chapter 181 or 201, Local Government Code. Except as
1-17 provided by Subsection (e), the [The] copies shall be permanently
1-18 preserved in the local registrar's office as the local record, in
1-19 the manner directed by the state registrar.
1-20 (e) The local registrar may, after the first anniversary of
1-21 the date of registration of a birth, death, or fetal death, destroy
1-22 the permanent record of the birth, death, or fetal death maintained
1-23 by the local registrar if:
2-1 (1) the local registrar has access to electronic
2-2 records of births, deaths, and fetal deaths maintained by the
2-3 bureau of vital statistics; and
2-4 (2) before destroying the records, the local registrar
2-5 certifies to the state registrar that each record maintained by the
2-6 local office that is to be destroyed has been verified against the
2-7 records contained in the bureau's database and that each record is
2-8 included in the database or otherwise accounted for.
2-9 SECTION 3. Section 191.035, Health and Safety Code, is
2-10 repealed.
2-11 SECTION 4. The importance of this legislation and the
2-12 crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
2-13 emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
2-14 constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
2-15 days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,
2-16 and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its
2-17 passage, and it is so enacted.
_______________________________ _______________________________
President of the Senate Speaker of the House
I hereby certify that S.B. No. 444 passed the Senate on
February 26, 1997, by the following vote: Yeas 30, Nays 0.
_______________________________
Secretary of the Senate
I hereby certify that S.B. No. 444 passed the House on
April 11, 1997, by the following vote: Yeas 132, Nays 0, two
present not voting.
_______________________________
Chief Clerk of the House
Approved:
_______________________________
Date
_______________________________
Governor