By Krusee                                             H.B. No. 2138
         76R2036 DWS-D                           
                                A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
 1-1                                   AN ACT
 1-2     relating to the sales and use tax in certain metropolitan transit
 1-3     authorities.
 1-4           BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
 1-5           SECTION 1.  Subchapter I, Chapter 451, Transportation Code,
 1-6     is amended by adding Section 451.4051 to read as follows:
 1-7           Sec. 451.4051.  TAX RATE IN CERTAIN AUTHORITIES.  (a)  This
 1-8     section applies only to an authority in which the board has lowered
 1-9     the tax rate from the maximum permissible amount and subsequently
1-10     raised the tax rate back to the maximum permissible amount.
1-11           (b)  If on September 1, 1999, an authority to which this
1-12     section applies has in effect a sales and use tax of three-quarters
1-13     of one percent or one percent, the tax rate expires on December 1,
1-14     1999, unless the continuation of the rate is approved by a majority
1-15     of the votes recorded at an election called for that purpose on the
1-16     uniform election date in November 1999.
1-17           (c)  The ballots at an election held under this section shall
1-18     be printed to provide for voting for or against the following
1-19     proposition:  "The continuation of the local sales and use tax rate
1-20     of (percentage)."  Sections 451.411-451.413 apply to an election
1-21     under this section as if the election were held to increase or
1-22     decrease the tax rate.
1-23           (d)  If a tax rate expires under this section, the board may
1-24     set the tax rate at one-quarter of one percent or one-half of one
 2-1     percent.
 2-2           SECTION 2.  The importance of this legislation and the
 2-3     crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
 2-4     emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
 2-5     constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
 2-6     days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,
 2-7     and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its
 2-8     passage, and it is so enacted.