1-1     By:  Luna                                              S.B. No. 952
 1-2           (In the Senate - Filed March 5, 1999; March 8, 1999, read
 1-3     first time and referred to Committee on Jurisprudence;
 1-4     March 17, 1999, reported favorably by the following vote:  Yeas 4,
 1-5     Nays 0; March 17, 1999, sent to printer.)
 1-6                            A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
 1-7                                   AN ACT
 1-8     relating to the referral of cases to certain magistrates.
 1-9           BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
1-10           SECTION 1.  Subsection (a), Section 54.907, Government Code,
1-11     is amended to read as follows:
1-12           (a)  To refer one or more cases to a magistrate, a judge must
1-13     issue an order of referral specifying the magistrate's duties.  The
1-14     judge may issue a written order of referral or may read the order
1-15     of referral into the minutes of the court.
1-16           SECTION 2.  The importance of this legislation and the
1-17     crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
1-18     emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
1-19     constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
1-20     days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,
1-21     and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its
1-22     passage, and it is so enacted.
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