By Zaffirini S.B. No. 444
75R4140 DLF-F
A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
1-1 AN ACT
1-2 relating to administration of vital statistics records.
1-3 BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
1-4 SECTION 1. Section 191.025(d), Health and Safety Code, is
1-5 amended to read as follows:
1-6 (d) Information required on a certificate must be written
1-7 legibly in durable blue or black ink or may be filed and registered
1-8 by photographic, electronic, or other means as prescribed by the
1-9 state registrar.
1-10 SECTION 2. Section 191.026, Health and Safety Code, is
1-11 amended by amending Subsection (c) and adding Subsection (e) to
1-12 read as follows:
1-13 (c) The local registrar shall copy in the record book
1-14 required under Section 191.025 each certificate that the local
1-15 registrar registers, unless the local registrar keeps duplicates
1-16 under Subsection (d) or makes photographic duplications as
1-17 authorized by Chapter 181 or 201, Local Government Code. Except as
1-18 provided by Subsection (e), the [The] copies shall be permanently
1-19 preserved in the local registrar's office as the local record, in
1-20 the manner directed by the state registrar.
1-21 (e) The local registrar may, after the first anniversary of
1-22 the date of registration of a birth, death, or fetal death, destroy
1-23 the permanent record of the birth, death, or fetal death maintained
1-24 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2-10 repealed.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.