By McClendon                                           H.B. No. 127
         76R431 GWK-D                           
                                A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
 1-1                                   AN ACT
 1-2     relating to the participation of Texas Department of Criminal
 1-3     Justice inmates in community service projects performed by state
 1-4     agencies and local governments.
 1-5           BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
 1-6           SECTION 1.  Section 497.091(b), Government Code, is amended
 1-7     to read as follows:     
 1-8           (b)  The department shall seek contracts with agencies and
 1-9     local governments to provide inmate labor to those agencies and
1-10     governments, with the department giving priority to seeking
1-11     contracts for the use of inmate labor for service projects that
1-12     benefit the public.
1-13           SECTION 2.  The importance of this legislation and the
1-14     crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
1-15     emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
1-16     constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
1-17     days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,
1-18     and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its
1-19     passage, and it is so enacted.