By McClendon, et al.                                   H.B. No. 128
         76R430 GWK-D                          
                                A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
 1-1                                   AN ACT
 1-2     relating to participation of the Texas Department of Criminal
 1-3     Justice in certain food bank programs.
 1-4           BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
 1-5           SECTION 1.  Section 497.113, Government Code, is amended by
 1-6     adding Subsection (d) to read as follows:
 1-7           (d)  The department is encouraged to enter into agreements
 1-8     with nonprofit food banks.  An agreement under this subsection may
 1-9     provide that a food bank will supply seed and fertilizer to the
1-10     department and that the department will in turn provide to the food
1-11     bank agricultural products grown from the seed and with the
1-12     assistance of the fertilizer. For the purpose of this subsection,
1-13     "nonprofit food bank" means a nonprofit organization that solicits,
1-14     warehouses, and redistributes edible food to agencies that feed
1-15     needy families and individuals.
1-16           SECTION 2.  The importance of this legislation and the
1-17     crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
1-18     emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
1-19     constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
1-20     days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,
1-21     and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its
1-22     passage, and it is so enacted.