Representative Jeremy Gillam
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And by way of that, please, if you have not picked up your jersey or T-shirt and you're a non-playing member, go see Ms. Kay and Kyla. They have yours ready for you. And please come on and cheer us on for victory tonight over the Senate. They're already putting out a lot of tweets and e-mails, and I think we need to put them in their proper place. Representative Meeks,
announcements? Representative Gilliam, you recognize for an announcement. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Colleagues, two quick important announcements about the game tonight. For non-playing members, there's going to be a legislative reception in the Legends Room at the Stevens Center beginning at 5.30. We do encourage you to wear your T-shirts, your jerseys. If you're a non-playing member, just to help cheer us on for tonight's ballgame.
that actually would state the purpose of a percentage cap that would have been in the bill for lifetime alimony as opposed to just normal awarded short-term alimony. And it also provides a schedule in there with a threshold for length of marriage that I believe this new language improves upon the bill, actually makes much better policy than what I had previously, and I would appreciate you to add this to the bill and help me make it a better bill. Thank you.
to explain the amendment. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Colleagues, what I have to present to you today is an amendment to House Bill 1962 that will clarify one key piece of information that was neglectfully omitted in the actual bill that was before you on the calendar
We really encourage you to show up and support your other House members.
me recognize for an announcement. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Those on the basketball team, we'll be having a shoot-around tonight, 5 o'clock at the Stevens Center Arena, which is where we'll be playing at tomorrow night, 7 o'clock. Do not forget, attendance is highly required for tomorrow night.
surrounding areas as well and did reach out to them. J.D. Gingrich, I reached out to him now they were there for the interim studies as well and participated in a large part from an observing standpoint but they did were able to offer feedback to us from from the court side of things as well
valuable input because they had dealt with it a considerable amount of time. But we did have a lot of testimony. The Trial Lawyer Association was gracious enough to provide us with several individuals who dealt with this, and they came and spoke before us and offered their input and a lot of their notes came into this product as
that on my own and talking with my judges back in Wyatt County and also in my
And we had testimony at great length from people who actually did this for a living in the interim study. And their input was given through that process and helped with this finished product. At the time, on Senate Judiciary, we did not have anybody on House Judiciary at the time, that dealt with these issues day in, day out. We had attorneys that had taken the cases, but it wasn't their niche, so to speak. On the Senate side, though, we did have a few at the time that were on the last committee that were able to offer, I think,
little background on those interim studies. What happened, I had gone to the trial courts representatives that we have, their liaisons to us in judiciary, and reached out to several in the legal community.
on this. But the general guidelines that I believe that my understanding of talking to the Office of Administrative Courts and J.D. Gingrich and those folks would be that they would use issues such as duration, you know, amount of time that's being spent at the location you know, and looking at some of those issues from a common sense standpoint was the feedback I got from the courts. Thank you. Okay, Representative Julian, you're recognized?
when Judiciary met jointly. Senator Luker brought that up as well. We wanted to leave some discretion in this, and that was one thing that most of the committee felt like, even our current members felt like that we wanted to not take this down the road to where the judges had no options at all
great question. That's one we wrestled with in our November meeting that we had with the interim study
of rebuild their life. And so, given that in mind, we also include a percentage in this bill as well that uses the family support chart. And so, that's basically what I have before you today. Like I said, I'll be happy to answer any questions if the committee has any at this time. All right, committee, do you have any
one of the other things that we also looked at was the percentage of your net income that goes towards alimony, you know, and there's some different philosophies out there as far as why alimony is awarded, but the general one that we found through the interim study was that it was rehabilitative. It was meant to give an option for the spouse that might not be the breadwinner of the family or the provider a chance to get back on their feet, his or her feet, and be able to kind
that we tried to deal with in this particular bill and that was one the issue of cohabitation under current law if you were to get divorced your spouse could cohabitate and never lose their alimony let somebody else pay the bills but then they actually got your money your your alimony check and then would never actually have to use it for the intended purpose because they were cohabitating with somebody else or as Representative Branscom referred to it shacking up so we tried we addressed this that particular issue in this bill
practiced in this field and so representative Broadway was was gracious enough to offer input on this bill as well and so what I have before you today is House Bill 1962 and what our goal was was to not necessarily reinvent the wheel on this but just to provide some what we felt like were prudent and modest guidelines that could be used when alimony was afforded or awarded excuse me and so what we mainly tried to deal with there's a couple of issues
brought this issue to us during the last session and the same legal team that Representative Branscom uses is also my legal team and so we decided to go through the interim study route to really make sure that we did this the proper way we didn't want to rush into this and so we spent the last couple of years doing an interim study on this and then as the good Lord would have it we got a new team a new team member on judiciary this time who actually
constituents of several of us on Judiciary Committee that had approached us during last session about doing something with the alimony situation in Arkansas now it's not just give it out every day I don't want to mislead anybody think this is just a something the judges are doing just arbitrarily every day but when it is when alimony is given there are occasions in which sometimes it exceeds what many people felt like might be prudent so they
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