State Rep. Four Price has introduced a bill in the Texas House of Representatives that cleans up a glaring loophole in the state election law.

The Amarillo Republican is onto something.

House Bill 728 would disqualify anyone who’s been placed on “deferred adjudication” for a felony. Price wants to add that provision to an existing law. It’s simple, straightforward … and correct.

Price is reacting to a strange story out of Skellytown, a tiny community in the Panhandle that elected a city councilman who had been placed on the state’s sex offender registry and who also had completed a deferred adjudication sentence. Under state law, Warren “Red” Mills, the town’s former mayor – who was forced to quit that office at the time of the offense – is not considered a felon. But he was elected to a city council post even though he had this particular blot on his record.

He had been placed on probation for sex crimes allegedly involving minors. That didn’t seem to dissuade voters from putting him into office.

Price thinks a sentence of deferred adjudication for a felony should disqualify someone from seeking, let alone holding, public office.

Deferred adjudication is a sometimes-strange sentence. If someone completes the sentence – which usually involves probation – his or her record does not carry a conviction. However, the state does keep a record of the sentence. Price’s amendment to the law would declare that such a sentence for a felony should matter more than it currently does.

In the case of Warren Mills, the successful completion of the sentence does not remove him from the state’s sex offender registry, which makes this particular case even more weird.

The law needs fixing. Four Price has come up with a way to repair it.