H.B. 3506 78(R) BILL ANALYSIS H.B. 3506 By: Marchant State Affairs Committee Report (Unamended) BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE The Texas Legislative Council is required by law (Section 323.007, Government Code) to carry out a complete nonsubstantive revision of the Texas statutes. The process involves reclassifying and rearranging the statutes in a more logical order, employing a numbering system and format that will accommodate future expansion of the law, eliminating repealed, invalid, duplicative, and other ineffective provisions, and improving the draftsmanship of the law if practicable--all toward promoting the stated purpose of making the statutes "more accessible, understandable, and usable" without altering the sense, meaning, or effect of the law. As part of the duties relating to continuing statutory revision, the council identifies duplicate official citations in enacted codes and proposes appropriate renumbering. Section 43, Article III, Texas Constitution, specifically recognized this type of bill as a "revision" for purposes of the legislature's obligation under that section to provide for the revising of laws. As such a revision, the bill is not subject to the constitutional rule prohibiting more than one subject in a single bill or the rule prohibiting amendments by reference. This bill has the purpose of renumbering sections and articles of codes that duplicate section and article numbers. RULEMAKING AUTHORITY It is the opinion of the committee that this bill does not expressly delegate any additional rulemaking authority to a state officer, department, agency, or institution but does codify that authority already delegated by previous law. ANALYSIS This bill renumbers and reletters provisions of enacted codes and changes references to eliminate duplicate citations, relocate misplaced provisions, and correct corresponding references. The bill provides that it is a nonsubstantive revision that does not affect other acts of the 78th Legislature. EFFECTIVE DATE September 1, 2003.