HBA-DMD, TYH H.B. 1140 76(R) BILL ANALYSIS Office of House Bill AnalysisH.B. 1140 By: Thompson Elections 10/19/1999 Enrolled BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Prior to the 76th Legislature, clerks were required to send a certified copy of each felony judgment of conviction to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) as well as an abstract of final felony conviction to the voter registrar in the felon's county of residence. This duplicated reporting performed by TDCJ, which was also required to send felony information to voter registrars of Texas. Additionally, some district clerks entered felony conviction data into their local jury pool and voter registration system, and reported this information to the Department of Public Safety, which stored the information in a statewide data bank. Thus the filing of abstracts of judgment on a local level could have been repetitive. H.B. 1140 removes the requirement that the clerk prepare an abstract of each final judgment in the month in which a person 18 years of age or older who is a resident of the state is convicted of a felony. RULEMAKING AUTHORITY It is the opinion of the Office of House Bill Analysis that this bill does not expressly delegate any additional rulemaking authority to a state officer, department, agency, or institution. SECTION BY SECTION ANALYSIS SECTION 1. Amends Section 16.003, Election Code, as follows: Sec. 16.003. FELONY CONVICTION. (a) Removes the requirement that the clerk of each court having felony jurisdiction prepare an abstract of each final judgment of a court served by the clerk occurring in the month in which a person 18 years of age or older who is a resident of the state is convicted of a felony. The effect of this change is to require the institutional division of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (institutional division) to prepare an abstract of each final judgment received by the institutional division in the month in which a person 18 years of age or older who is a resident of the state is convicted of a felony. Makes conforming changes. SECTION 2.Effective date: September 1, 1999. SECTION 3.Emergency clause.