1-1     By:  Capelo (Senate Sponsor - Whitmire)                H.B. No. 788
 1-2           (In the Senate - Received from the House April 9, 1999;
 1-3     April 12, 1999, read first time and referred to Committee on
 1-4     Criminal Justice; April 30, 1999, reported favorably by the
 1-5     following vote:  Yeas 7, Nays 0; April 30, 1999, sent to printer.)
 1-6                            A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
 1-7                                   AN ACT
 1-8     relating to the electronic transmission of certain information to
 1-9     the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.
1-10           BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
1-11           SECTION 1.  Chapter 493, Government Code, is amended by
1-12     adding Section 493.021 to read as follows:
1-13           Sec. 493.021.  ELECTRONIC CREATION AND TRANSMISSION OF
1-14     DOCUMENTS.  (a)  If a statute requires the department to create a
1-15     document, the department through electronic means may create and
1-16     maintain the information that would otherwise be contained in a
1-17     paper document.  If a statute requires the department to provide a
1-18     receipt, signature, or seal as evidence of creating a document, the
1-19     department may develop and use an electronic identifier, and when
1-20     used by the department, the identifier has the same force and
1-21     effect as the use of a receipt, signature, or seal.
1-22           (b)  If a statute requires a person to submit a document to
1-23     the department, the department may accept the document in paper
1-24     form or may accept an electronic transmission of the information
1-25     otherwise contained in the paper document.
1-26           (c)  If a statute requires the department to provide a
1-27     receipt, signature, or seal as evidence of delivery of a document,
1-28     and if the department has received an electronic transmission in
1-29     lieu of accepting the document in paper form, the department may
1-30     transmit  electronically evidence of delivery.  The department may
1-31     use the electronic identifier developed under Subsection (a), and
1-32     when used by the department, the identifier has the same force and
1-33     effect as the use of a receipt, signature, or seal.
1-34           (d)  This section does not authorize the department to
1-35     require that a person submitting information to the department
1-36     submit the information electronically.
1-37           SECTION 2.  The importance of this legislation and the
1-38     crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
1-39     emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
1-40     constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
1-41     days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,
1-42     and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its
1-43     passage, and it is so enacted.
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