1-1     By:  Maxey (Senate Sponsor - Zaffirini)                H.B. No. 985
 1-2           (In the Senate - Received from the House March 29, 1999;
 1-3     March 30, 1999, read first time and referred to Committee on State
 1-4     Affairs; April 12, 1999, rereferred to Committee on Human Services;
 1-5     May 6, 1999, reported favorably by the following vote:  Yeas 5,
 1-6     Nays 0; May 6, 1999, sent to printer.)
 1-7                            A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
 1-8                                   AN ACT
 1-9     relating to compliance by state agencies with strategic guidelines
1-10     in developing electronic benefits transfer systems.
1-11           BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
1-12           SECTION 1.  Section 531.045, Government Code, is amended by
1-13     adding Subsection (i) to read as follows:
1-14           (i)  A state agency that proposes to deliver public benefits
1-15     through electronic benefits transfers shall comply with any
1-16     strategic guidelines adopted by the task force relating to the
1-17     development and use of an electronic benefits transfer system.
1-18           SECTION 2.  The importance of this legislation and the
1-19     crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
1-20     emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
1-21     constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
1-22     days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,
1-23     and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its
1-24     passage, and it is so enacted.
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