The Texas Legislature's House Special Investigating Committee in Regard to Funds from Racing Law was created by a House Simple Resolution (later known as #57) during the Regular Session of the 44th Legislature in 1935 for the purpose of enforcing legislation passed during the last legislative session. The First Called Session of the 43rd Legislature enacted the Racing Law of Texas (House Bill 12) to provide that taxes derived under its provisions should be: distributed to maintain the Texas Racing Commission; paid into the available Public School Free School Fund; paid into the jack and stallion fund; used to maintain the State Department of Agriculture; and, if anything was left, divided into equal parts and given to each of the counties of Texas. In 1934 an accumulated excess of $183,259.77 was to be divided among the Texas counties but the State Treasurer failed to pay out the funds. Due to the strained economics of the Depression, the Legislature was particularly interested in seeing that the counties, which badly needed the funds, received the monies due them. Toward that end, Representative Lemans offered a resolution on February 11, 1935 to confer with the State Treasurer about the problem. The resolution was approved that day and on the 12th Representatives McKee, Canon, and Lemens were appointed to the committee.
On February 20 Representative McKee offered House Concurrent Resolution 37, clarifying a point regarding the date at which the monies were to be distributed; the resolution was immediately adopted. Then, on March 19th, Representative Lemens offered a Simple Resolution (#100) stating that the committee had been working steadily to determine the exact amount of money to distribute but had been retarded by the lack of the State Auditor and Efficiency Expert's report on the Racing Commission. Therefore, the resolution asked that the Auditor report to the Legislature on the Racing Commission no later than April 1st. This resolution also passed immediately.
The committee submitted its final report on April 23, 1935 stating that the problem had been resolved and $439.03 had been distributed to each county. The report was filed on May 11, 1935.
From the guide to the Report, 1935 Apr. 23, (Repository Unknown)
