1-1     By:  Uresti (Senate Sponsor - Madla)                  H.B. No. 1337
 1-2           (In the Senate - Received from the House May 10, 1999;
 1-3     May 10, 1999, read first time and referred to Committee on
 1-4     Jurisprudence; May 13, 1999, reported favorably by the following
 1-5     vote:  Yeas 3, Nays 0; May 13, 1999, sent to printer.)
 1-6                            A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
 1-7                                   AN ACT
 1-8     relating to evidence of domestic violence in the appointment of a
 1-9     managing conservator for a child.
1-10           BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
1-11           SECTION 1.  Section 153.004(a), Family Code, is amended to
1-12     read as follows:
1-13           (a)  In determining whether to appoint a party as a sole or
1-14     joint managing conservator, the court shall consider evidence of
1-15     the intentional use of abusive physical force by a party against
1-16     the party's spouse, a parent of the child, or [against] any person
1-17     younger than 18 years of age committed within a two-year period
1-18     preceding the filing of the suit or during the pendency of the
1-19     suit.
1-20           SECTION 2.  This Act takes effect September 1, 1999, and
1-21     applies only to a suit affecting the parent-child relationship
1-22     pending on or filed on or after that date.
1-23           SECTION 3.  The importance of this legislation and the
1-24     crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
1-25     emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
1-26     constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
1-27     days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended.
1-28                                  * * * * *