BILL ANALYSIS

H.B. 3443

By: Jackson, Jim

Judiciary & Civil Jurisprudence

Committee Report (Unamended)

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE

Certain county judges in heavily populated counties appoint magistrates to hear truancy cases and then adopt, modify, or reject the magistrate's recommendations within a certain period of time.  The goal of H.B. 3443 is to make improvements to this system by providing that the recommendations are automatically adopted if the appointing judge takes no action by the third working day after the date the judge receives the recommendations and by extending the same judicial immunity to the magistrate that is extended to a district judge.

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

H.B. 3443 amends the Government Code, in provisions applicable to a magistrate of a constitutional county court in a county with a population of two million or more who is appointed to hear certain matters  relating to the failure to attend school, to specify that if a judge does not adopt, modify, or reject a magistrate's recommendations transmitted to the judge at the conclusion of a hearing on or before the third working day after the date the judge receives the recommendations, the recommendations of the magistrate are adopted by the judge. The bill specifies that a magistrate appointed under these provisions has the same judicial immunity as a district judge.

EFFECTIVE DATE

September 1, 2011.