By Gutierrez                                          H.B. No. 1862
         76R6234 JRD-D                           
                                A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
 1-1                                   AN ACT
 1-2     relating to requiring that proposed real property transactions
 1-3     between governmental bodies must be deliberated in an open meeting.
 1-4           BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
 1-5           SECTION 1.  Section 551.072, Government Code, is amended to
 1-6     read as follows:
 1-7           Sec. 551.072.  DELIBERATION REGARDING REAL PROPERTY; CLOSED
 1-8     MEETING.  (a)  A governmental body may conduct a closed meeting to
 1-9     deliberate the purchase, exchange, lease, or value of real property
1-10     if deliberation in an open meeting would have a detrimental effect
1-11     on the position of the governmental body in negotiations with a
1-12     third person.
1-13           (b)  Subsection (a) does not apply if each party to the
1-14     proposed purchase, exchange, or lease is a governmental body.
1-15           SECTION 2.  This Act takes effect September 1, 1999.  The
1-16     change in law made by this Act applies only to a meeting conducted
1-17     on or after September 1, 1999.  A meeting conducted before
1-18     September 1, 1999, is covered by the law in effect when the meeting
1-19     was conducted, and the former law is continued in effect for that
1-20     purpose.  For purposes of this section, a meeting was conducted
1-21     before September 1, 1999, if any part of the meeting was conducted
1-22     before 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
 2-1     emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
 2-2     constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
 2-3     days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended.