BILL ANALYSIS
By: Keffer, Bill
Committee Report (Substituted)
BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE
Currently the Health and Safety Code requires that persons charged with filing a birth certificate or record file these items no later then the fifth day after the date of birth. However, in the Jewish faith, a baby boy is not named until the eighth day after his birth.
C.S.H.B. 1604 would allow, for religious reasons of the parent, that a parent may request the person required to file the birth certificate or report to delay the filing until the parent contacts them with the name of the child. The report must be filed no later then fifteen days after the day the child is born.
RULEMAKING AUTHORITY
It is the committee's opinion that this bill does not expressly grant any additional rulemaking authority to a state officer, department, agency, or institution.
ANALYSIS
Amends Section 192.003, Health and Safety Code by amending Subsection (d) and adding Subsection (e) to allow for a parent to request a person required to file a birth certificate or report to delay the filing, for religious reasons, until the parent contacts that person with the name of the child. The parent must contact the person responsible for the birth certificate and report, and the report must be filed no later then the fifteenth day after the child's birth.
EFFECTIVE DATE
Upon passage, or, if the act does not receive the necessary vote, the Act takes effect August 29, 2005.
COMPARISON OF ORIGINAL TO SUBSTITUTE
The committee substitute changes Section 1 (e) to clarify that that the parent must contact the person required to file the record as soon as the child is named. The substitute also clarifies that the person required to file the birth certificate or report the birth must make the report no later then the fifteenth day after the date of the child's birth.
Section 2 changes the effective date on this Act, if this bill receives 2/3 vote, it will be effective immediately.