By:  Moncrief                                 S.B. No. 722

         97S0399/1                           

                                A BILL TO BE ENTITLED

                                       AN ACT

 1-1     relating to the refusal of registration of motor vehicles by a

 1-2     county assessor-collector of the Texas Department of Transportation

 1-3     under certain conditions.

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

 1-5           SECTION 1.  Subsections (a) and (c), Section 702.003,

 1-6     Transportation Code, are amended to read as follows:

 1-7           (a)  A county assessor-collector or the Texas Department of

 1-8     Transportation [department] may refuse to register a motor vehicle

 1-9     if the assessor-collector or the department receives under a

1-10     contract information from a municipality that the owner of the

1-11     vehicle either has three or more unpaid delinquent parking

1-12     citations or has an outstanding warrant from that municipality for

1-13     failure to appear or failure to pay a fine on a complaint that

1-14     involves the violation of a traffic law.

1-15           (c)  A municipality that has a contract under Subsection (b)

1-16     shall notify the county or the department regarding a person for

1-17     whom the county assessor-collector or the department has refused to

1-18     register a motor vehicle on:

1-19                 (1)  entry of a judgment against the person and the

1-20     person's payment to the court of the fine for the violation and of

1-21     all court costs;

1-22                 (2)  perfection of an appeal of the case for which the

1-23     arrest warrant was issued; [or]

 2-1                 (3)  dismissal of the charge for which the arrest

 2-2     warrant was issued; or

 2-3                 (4)  dismissal or the payment of parking citations for

 2-4     which registration had been refused.

 2-5           SECTION 2.  The importance of this legislation and the

 2-6     crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an

 2-7     emergency and an imperative public necessity that the

 2-8     constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several

 2-9     days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,

2-10     and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its

2-11     passage, and it is so enacted.