Judiciary Committee - Senate
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Bills discussed (61)
| Bill | Title | Sponsor | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
|
HB1937
Act 868
· 12 mentions in agenda, chapter, transcript
Matched: “…Bentley CONCERNING THE ISSUANCE OF AN ORDER OF PROTECTION. HB1937 Dalby CONCERNING THE TRANSITION FROM LOCAL DISTRICT COURTS…”
|
CONCERNING THE TRANSITION FROM LOCAL DISTRICT COURTS TO STATE DISTRICT COURTS. | Dalby | Notification that HB1937 is now Act 868 |
|
HB1609
Act 1014
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “HB1609 Gazaway TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING THE OFFENSE OF POSSESSI…”
|
TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING THE OFFENSE OF POSSESSION OF DRUG PARAPHERNALIA. | Gazaway | Notification that HB1609 is now Act 1014 |
|
HB1612
Act 904
· 2 mentions in agenda, chapter
Matched: “…PECIALTY COURT IN THE STATE'S DISTRICT COURTS. Page 2 of 4 HB1612 Maddox TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING CHILD SUPPORT AND THE CE…”
|
TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING CHILD SUPPORT AND THE CENTRALIZED CLEARINGHOUSE. | Maddox | Notification that HB1612 is now Act 904 |
|
HB1634
Act 842
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “HB1634 Petty TO INCLUDE ACTS COMMITTED BY A VICTIM OF HUMAN TRAFFI…”
|
TO INCLUDE ACTS COMMITTED BY A VICTIM OF HUMAN TRAFFICKING UNDER THE STATE'S RAPE SHIELD … | Petty | Notification that HB1634 is now Act 842 |
|
HB1673
Act 1037
· 2 mentions in agenda, chapter
Matched: “…TION, TAMPERING WITH EVIDENCE, JURY TAMPERING, AND BRIBERY. HB1673 Petty CONCERNING THE ISSUANCE OF A NO CONTACT ORDER. SB517…”
|
CONCERNING THE ISSUANCE OF A NO CONTACT ORDER. | Petty | Notification that HB1673 is now Act 1037 |
|
HB1686
· 2 mentions in agenda, chapter
Matched: “…PLACEMENT AGENCY IS NOT USED; AND TO DECLARE AN EMERGENCY. HB1686 A. Collins TO AMEND THE DEFINITION OF "MARITAL PROPERTY" FO…”
|
TO AMEND THE DEFINITION OF "MARITAL PROPERTY" FOR PURPOSES OF DIVISION OF PROPERTY IN AN … | A. Collins | Died on House at Sine Die Adjournment |
|
HB1695
Act 1020
· 2 mentions in agenda, chapter
Matched: “…TIM OF HUMAN TRAFFICKING UNDER THE STATE'S RAPE SHIELD LAW. HB1695 Scott TO PROTECT CHILDREN WHO ARE BEING TRAFFICKED FROM BEI…”
|
TO PROTECT CHILDREN WHO ARE BEING TRAFFICKED FROM BEING PROSECUTED FOR PROSTITUTION. | Scott | Notification that HB1695 is now Act 1020 |
|
HB1708
Act 849
· 2 mentions in agenda, chapter
Matched: “…RE BEING TRAFFICKED FROM BEING PROSECUTED FOR PROSTITUTION. HB1708 V. Flowers TO END CHILD MARRIAGE; AND TO AMEND THE LAW CONC…”
|
TO END CHILD MARRIAGE; AND TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING THE MINIMUM AGE REQUIREMENT FOR … | V. Flowers | Notification that HB1708 is now Act 849 |
|
HB1732
· 2 mentions in agenda, chapter
Matched: “…INT CUSTODY AND THE MODIFICATION OF A CHILD CUSTODY DECREE. HB1732 Womack TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING GARNISHMENT AGAINST THE…”
|
TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING GARNISHMENT AGAINST THE STATE OR A SUBDIVISION OF THE STATE; … | Womack | Sine Die adjournment |
|
HB1759
Act 906
· 2 mentions in agenda, chapter
Matched: “…Rushing CONCERNING THE OFFENSE OF HARASSING COMMUNICATIONS. HB1759 Hawks TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING JOINT CUSTODY AND THE MOD…”
|
TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING JOINT CUSTODY AND THE MODIFICATION OF A CHILD CUSTODY DECREE. | Hawks | Notification that HB1759 is now Act 906 |
|
HB1762
Act 833
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “HB1762 Crawford TO AMEND THE QUALIFICATIONS OF A GUARDIAN.”
|
TO AMEND THE QUALIFICATIONS OF A GUARDIAN. | Crawford | Notification that HB1762 is now Act 833 |
|
HB1765
Act 1021
· 2 mentions in agenda, chapter
Matched: “…HE LAW CONCERNING THE MINIMUM AGE REQUIREMENT FOR MARRIAGE. HB1765 Maddox TO ESTABLISH THE DIRECTED TRUST ACT. HB1782 Capp CON…”
|
TO ESTABLISH THE UNIFORM DIRECTED TRUST ACT. | Maddox | Notification that HB1765 is now Act 1021 |
|
HB1789
Act 1022
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “HB1789 Penzo TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING THE OFFENSE OF TRAFFICKIN…”
|
TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING THE OFFENSE OF TRAFFICKING; AND TO CREATE AN OFFENSE FOR … | Penzo | Notification that HB1789 is now Act 1022 |
|
SB344
Act 806
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “SB344 B. Ballinger TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING THE FILING OF A ME…”
|
TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING THE FILING OF A MECHANIC'S OR MATERIALMAN'S LIEN. | B. Ballinger | Notification that SB344 is now Act 806 |
|
HB1235
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…IT TO A CHEMICAL TEST, OR POSSESSION OF ALCOHOL BY A MINOR. HB1235 Petty CONCERNING THE PAYMENT OF COSTS AND FEES ORDERED BY A…”
|
CONCERNING THE PAYMENT OF COSTS AND FEES ORDERED BY A COURT. | Petty | Sine Die adjournment |
|
HB1238
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…D TO ESTABLISH ITS OWN LAW Page 3 of 4 ENFORCEMENT AGENCY. HB1238 Petty CONCERNING THE TIME PERIOD APPLICABLE FOR AN APPLICAT…”
|
CONCERNING THE TIME PERIOD APPLICABLE FOR AN APPLICATION FOR DISCHARGE OF A SENTENCE. | Petty | Sine Die adjournment |
|
HB1488
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…DITIONAL CIRCUIT JUDGESHIPS FOR CERTAIN JUDICIAL DISTRICTS. HB1488 Penzo TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING THE ADOPTION PROCESS WHEN…”
|
TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING THE ADOPTION PROCESS WHEN A LICENSED CHILD PLACEMENT AGENCY IS … | Penzo | Sine Die adjournment |
|
HB1625
Act 962
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…TABLISHING RETROACTIVE APPLICABILITY FOR CERTAIN SENTENCES. HB1625 Gazaway TO CREATE THE OFFENSE OF ENCOURAGING THE SUICIDE OF…”
|
TO CREATE THE OFFENSE OF ENCOURAGING THE SUICIDE OF ANOTHER PERSON. | Gazaway | Notification that HB1625 is now Act 962 |
|
HB1633
Act 1017
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…CONCERNING THE OFFENSE OF POSSESSION OF DRUG PARAPHERNALIA. HB1633 Tosh TO AMEND THE LAW REGARDING WITNESS INTIMIDATION, RETAL…”
|
TO AMEND THE LAW REGARDING WITNESS INTIMIDATION, RETALIATION, TAMPERING WITH EVIDENCE, JURY TAMPERING, AND BRIBERY. | Tosh | Notification that HB1633 is now Act 1017 |
|
HB1733
Act 969
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…ISTRICT COURTS OF INDEPENDENCE, FULTON, AND IZARD COUNTIES. HB1733 Gazaway CONCERNING A THREAT TO COMMIT AN ACT OF MASS VIOLEN…”
|
CONCERNING A THREAT TO COMMIT AN ACT OF MASS VIOLENCE ON SCHOOL PROPERTY. | Gazaway | Notification that HB1733 is now Act 969 |
|
HB1734
Act 905
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…HREAT TO COMMIT AN ACT OF MASS VIOLENCE ON SCHOOL PROPERTY. HB1734 Gazaway CONCERNING THE AFFIRMATIVE DEFENSES TO A VIOLATION…”
|
CONCERNING THE AFFIRMATIVE DEFENSES TO A VIOLATION OF AN ORDER OF PROTECTION. | Gazaway | Notification that HB1734 is now Act 905 |
|
HB1755
Act 971
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…REFUNDS TO BE SUBJECT TO GARNISHMENT BY JUDGMENT CREDITORS. HB1755 Scott CONCERNING THE PUNITIVE ISOLATION OR SOLITARY CONFINE…”
|
CONCERNING THE PUNITIVE ISOLATION OR SOLITARY CONFINEMENT OF INDIVIDUALS WHO ARE UNDER EIGHTEEN (18) YEARS … | Scott | Notification that HB1755 is now Act 971 |
|
HB1802
Act 907
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…THE LAW CONCERNING ADOPTIONS; AND TO DECLARE AN EMERGENCY. HB1802 Lowery TO REVISE THE FAMILY SUPPORT CHART TO REFLECT PAYOR…”
|
TO REVISE THE FAMILY SUPPORT CHART TO REFLECT PAYOR AND RECIPIENT INCOME. | Lowery | Notification that HB1802 is now Act 907 |
|
HB1809
Act 1046
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…NT OF INDIVIDUALS WHO ARE UNDER EIGHTEEN (18) YEARS OF AGE. HB1809 Love TO CREATE AN ADDITIONAL TERM OF IMPRISONMENT FOR OFFEN…”
|
TO CREATE AN ADDITIONAL TERM OF IMPRISONMENT FOR OFFENSES THAT CONSTITUTE SERIOUS ACTS OF VIOLENCE … | Love | Notification that HB1809 is now Act 1046 |
|
HB1810
Act 1047
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…FAMILY SUPPORT CHART TO REFLECT PAYOR AND RECIPIENT INCOME. HB1810 Penzo TO PROVIDE FOR QUALIFIED SPOUSAL TRUSTS IN ARKANSAS.…”
|
TO PROVIDE FOR QUALIFIED SPOUSAL TRUSTS IN ARKANSAS. | Penzo | Notification that HB1810 is now Act 1047 |
|
HB1814
Act 1049
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…CONCERNING CHILD SUPPORT AND THE CENTRALIZED CLEARINGHOUSE. HB1814 Rushing CONCERNING THE OFFENSE OF HARASSING COMMUNICATIONS.…”
|
CONCERNING THE OFFENSE OF HARASSING COMMUNICATIONS. | Rushing | Notification that HB1814 is now Act 1049 |
|
HB1851
Act 908
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…IRMATIVE DEFENSES TO A VIOLATION OF AN ORDER OF PROTECTION. HB1851 Bentley CONCERNING THE ISSUANCE OF AN ORDER OF PROTECTION.…”
|
CONCERNING THE ISSUANCE OF AN ORDER OF PROTECTION. | Bentley | Notification that HB1851 is now Act 908 |
|
HB1866
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…NCE AGAINST A PERSON AT A CHURCH OR OTHER PLACE OF WORSHIP. HB1866 Petty CONCERNING EXECUTIVE CLEMENCY, PARDON, AND COMMUTATIO…”
|
CONCERNING EXECUTIVE CLEMENCY, PARDON, AND COMMUTATION OF SENTENCE. | Petty | Sine Die adjournment |
|
HB1880
Act 909
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…Penzo TO PROVIDE FOR QUALIFIED SPOUSAL TRUSTS IN ARKANSAS. HB1880 Dalby CONCERNING THE DISTRICT COURTS OF INDEPENDENCE, FULTO…”
|
CONCERNING THE DISTRICT COURTS OF INDEPENDENCE, FULTON, AND IZARD COUNTIES. | Dalby | Notification that HB1880 is now Act 909 |
|
SB12
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…MATERIALMAN'S LIEN. REGULAR AGENDA Number Sponsor Subtitle SB12 A. Clark TO AMEND THE DEFINITION OF "NEGLECT" AND THE LAW C…”
|
TO AMEND THE DEFINITION OF "NEGLECT" AND THE LAW CONCERNING CLOSURES OF CHILD MALTREATMENT INVESTIGATIONS; … | A. Clark | Sine Die adjournment |
|
SB13
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…PARENT, GUARDIAN, CUSTODIAN, OR FOSTER PARENT NONCRIMINAL. SB13 A. Clark CONCERNING DRUG TESTING UNDER THE CHILD MALTREATME…”
|
CONCERNING DRUG TESTING UNDER THE CHILD MALTREATMENT ACT; CONCERNING CHILD MALTREATMENT INVESTIGATION REPORTS; TO AMEND … | A. Clark | Sine Die adjournment |
|
SB139
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…NATURE OF RECORDS UNDER THE ARKANSAS JUVENILE CODE OF 1989. SB139 M. Johnson TO AMEND THE LAWS CONCERNING VENUE IN THE JUDICI…”
|
TO AMEND THE LAWS CONCERNING VENUE IN THE JUDICIARY; TO PROMOTE EFFICIENT VENUE TRANSFER; AND … | M. Johnson | Sine Die adjournment |
|
SB191
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…MOTE EFFICIENT VENUE TRANSFER; AND TO DECLARE AN EMERGENCY. SB191 Rapert TO CREATE THE COURT OR JURY FINDING OF GUILTY BUT WI…”
|
TO CREATE THE COURT OR JURY FINDING OF GUILTY BUT WITH A MENTAL ILLNESS; CONCERNING … | Rapert | Sine Die adjournment |
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SB198
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…ONCERNING THE PAYMENT OF COSTS AND FEES ORDERED BY A COURT. SB198 B. Ballinger REQUIRING THAT THE ARKANSAS COMMISSION ON LAW…”
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REQUIRING THAT THE ARKANSAS COMMISSION ON LAW ENFORCEMENT STANDARDS AND TRAINING CONDUCT A STUDY ON … | B. Ballinger | Sine Die adjournment |
|
SB230
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…609 Irvin TO CREATE THE OFFENSE OF CHILD LABOR TRAFFICKING. SB230 K. Hammer CREATING A STATUTORY CIVIL ACTION FOR INVASION OF…”
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CREATING A STATUTORY CIVIL ACTION FOR INVASION OF PRIVACY. | K. Hammer | Sine Die adjournment |
|
SB251
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…APPLICABLE FOR AN APPLICATION FOR DISCHARGE OF A SENTENCE. SB251 Irvin CONCERNING THE PAROLE OF A PERSON WHO WAS RELEASED OR…”
|
CONCERNING THE PAROLE OF A PERSON WHO WAS RELEASED OR IS SCHEDULED TO BE RELEASED … | Irvin | Sine Die adjournment |
|
SB254
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…RELEASED UNDER THE FAIR SENTENCING FOR MINORS ACT OF 2017. SB254 Irvin CONCERNING THE OFFENSE OF IMPROPER USE OF THE STATE S…”
|
CONCERNING THE OFFENSE OF IMPROPER USE OF THE STATE SEAL; AND TO PROHIBIT THE USE … | Irvin | Sine Die adjournment |
|
SB280
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…E THE OFFENSE OF ENCOURAGING THE SUICIDE OF ANOTHER PERSON. SB280 M. Pitsch TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING COMPENSATION AWARDED…”
|
TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING COMPENSATION AWARDED IN A CONDEMNATION ACTION. | M. Pitsch | Sine Die adjournment |
|
SB283
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…N AS "SARA'S LAW"; CONCERNING THE SENTENCING OF A JUVENILE. SB283 T. Garner TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING THE PARTITION AND SAL…”
|
TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING THE PARTITION AND SALE OF LAND; AND TO REPEAL THE … | T. Garner | Sine Die adjournment |
|
SB313
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…TO AMEND PROVISIONS OF THE LAW CONCERNING ALIMONY SUPPORT. SB313 Elliott REQUIRING THE PAROLE BOARD TO ISSUE AND RELEASE FIN…”
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REQUIRING THE PAROLE BOARD TO ISSUE AND RELEASE FINDINGS OF FACT WHEN IT DENIES PAROLE … | Elliott | Sine Die adjournment |
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SB352
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…AND CONCERNING CLAIMS OF INSANITY BY A CRIMINAL DEFENDANT. SB352 A. Clark TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING PROTECTIONS FOR CHILD…”
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TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING PROTECTIONS FOR CHILD WELFARE AGENCIES. | A. Clark | Sine Die adjournment |
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SB378
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…THE LAW CONCERNING PROTECTIONS FOR CHILD WELFARE AGENCIES. SB378 Elliott TO BE KNOWN AS THE "PAROLE EQUITY ACT. Notice: Sile…”
|
TO BE KNOWN AS THE "PAROLE EQUITY ACT. | Elliott | Sine Die adjournment |
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SB474
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…HE PENALTY FOR AN UNLAWFUL AUTOMATED TELEPHONE SOLICITATION SB474 T. Garner CREATING A CIVIL CAUSE OF ACTION AGAINST A PERSON…”
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CREATING A CIVIL CAUSE OF ACTION AGAINST A PERSON THAT ENGAGES IN TELEPHONE CALLER IDENTIFICATION … | T. Garner | Returned to the Senate. |
|
SB484
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…estrictions designating areas as 'Members and Staff Only'. SB484 B. Ballinger CONCERNING THE DEFENSE OF A PERSON WITH THE US…”
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CONCERNING THE DEFENSE OF A PERSON WITH THE USE OF PHYSICAL FORCE OR DEADLY FORCE. | B. Ballinger | Sine Die adjournment |
|
SB496
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…OF A PERSON WITH THE USE OF PHYSICAL FORCE OR DEADLY FORCE. SB496 B. Ballinger TO AMEND PROVISIONS OF THE LAW CONCERNING ALIM…”
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TO AMEND PROVISIONS OF THE LAW CONCERNING ALIMONY SUPPORT. | B. Ballinger | Sine Die adjournment |
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SB500
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…SE ON PAROLE OR TRANSFER FROM THE DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTION. SB500 G. Leding TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING THE CUSTODIAL INTERRO…”
|
TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING THE CUSTODIAL INTERROGATION OF MINORS. | G. Leding | Sine Die adjournment |
|
SB507
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…D THE LAW CONCERNING THE CUSTODIAL INTERROGATION OF MINORS. SB507 L. TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING THE CONSIDERATION OF THE Che…”
|
TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING THE CONSIDERATION OF THE PREFERENCE OF A CHILD IN A … | L. Chesterfield | Sine Die adjournment |
|
SB517
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…HB1673 Petty CONCERNING THE ISSUANCE OF A NO CONTACT ORDER. SB517 Bond CONCERNING LIFE SENTENCES IMPOSED FOR NONVIOLENT FELON…”
|
CONCERNING LIFE SENTENCES IMPOSED FOR NONVIOLENT FELONY OFFENSES INVOLVING A CONTROLLED SUBSTANCE; CONCERNING CRIMINAL SENTENCES; … | Bond | Sine Die adjournment |
|
SB545
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…THE CHAIR RE-REFERRED TO COMMITTEE Number Sponsor Subtitle SB545 Irvin TO ESTABLISH RECOVERY OF DAMAGES FOR NECESSARY MEDICA…”
|
TO ESTABLISH RECOVERY OF DAMAGES FOR NECESSARY MEDICAL CARE, TREATMENT, OR SERVICES RENDERED. | Irvin | Sine Die adjournment |
|
SB558
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…SITION FROM LOCAL DISTRICT COURTS TO STATE DISTRICT COURTS. SB558 G. TO REPEAL ARKANSAS CODE § 16-30-104 CONCERNING THE CONTR…”
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TO REPEAL ARKANSAS CODE § 16-30-104 CONCERNING THE CONTRACTUAL WAIVER OF A JURY TRIAL; TO … | G. Stubblefield | Sine Die adjournment |
|
SB570
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…RIZE THE CALCULATION OF ATTORNEY'S FEES ON AN HOURLY BASIS. SB570 Hester TO PROVIDE FOR ADDITIONAL CIRCUIT JUDGESHIPS FOR CER…”
|
TO PROVIDE FOR ADDITIONAL CIRCUIT JUDGESHIPS FOR CERTAIN JUDICIAL DISTRICTS. | Hester | Sine Die adjournment |
|
SB578
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…N THAT ENGAGES IN TELEPHONE CALLER IDENTIFICATION SPOOFING. SB578 A. Clark TO REMOVE A DRIVER'S LICENSE SUSPENSION OR REVOCAT…”
|
TO REMOVE A DRIVER'S LICENSE SUSPENSION OR REVOCATION AS AN AVAILABLE PENALTY FOR OFFENSES NOT … | A. Clark | Sine Die adjournment |
|
SB607
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…Irvin TO AMEND THE FAIR SENTENCING FOR MINORS ACT OF 2017. SB607 Irvin CONCERNING THE SENTENCING OF A JUVENILE OFFENDER. SB6…”
|
CONCERNING THE SENTENCING OF A JUVENILE OFFENDER. | Irvin | Sine Die adjournment |
|
SB608
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…L; AND TO PROHIBIT THE USE OF THE STATE SEAL IN A CAMPAIGN. SB608 Irvin TO AMEND THE FAIR SENTENCING FOR MINORS ACT OF 2017.…”
|
TO AMEND THE FAIR SENTENCING FOR MINORS ACT OF 2017. | Irvin | Sine Die adjournment |
|
SB609
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…PURPOSES OF DIVISION OF PROPERTY IN AN ACTION FOR DIVORCE. SB609 Irvin TO CREATE THE OFFENSE OF CHILD LABOR TRAFFICKING. SB2…”
|
TO CREATE THE OFFENSE OF CHILD LABOR TRAFFICKING. | Irvin | Sine Die adjournment |
|
SB610
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…607 Irvin CONCERNING THE SENTENCING OF A JUVENILE OFFENDER. SB610 Irvin TO BE KNOWN AS "SARA'S LAW"; CONCERNING THE SENTENCIN…”
|
TO BE KNOWN AS "SARA'S LAW"; CONCERNING THE SENTENCING OF A JUVENILE. | Irvin | Sine Die adjournment |
|
SB630
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…CREATING A STATUTORY CIVIL ACTION FOR INVASION OF PRIVACY. SB630 G. CONCERNING THE COMPENSATION OF A RETIRED JUDGE APPOINTED…”
|
CONCERNING THE COMPENSATION OF A RETIRED JUDGE APPOINTED TO TEMPORARY SERVICE; CONCERNING THE RECUSAL OF … | G. Stubblefield | Sine Die adjournment |
|
SB661
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…NG EXECUTIVE CLEMENCY, PARDON, AND COMMUTATION OF SENTENCE. SB661 Bond CONCERNING THE POSSESSION OF MARIJUANA BY A FIRST-TIME…”
|
CONCERNING THE POSSESSION OF MARIJUANA BY A FIRST-TIME OFFENDER; AND CONCERNING THE POSSESSION OF A … | Bond | Sine Die adjournment |
|
SB78
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…ECLARE AN EMERGENCY. DEFERRED BILLS Number Sponsor Subtitle SB78 L. CONCERNING THE FEE TO ATTEND A VICTIM IMPACT PANEL THAT…”
|
CONCERNING THE FEE TO ATTEND A VICTIM IMPACT PANEL THAT IS REQUIRED BY LAW OF … | L. Chesterfield | Sine Die adjournment |
|
SB88
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…D TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING INVESTIGATIVE DETERMINATIONS. SB88 A. Clark TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING PETITIONS TO REINSTATE…”
|
TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING PETITIONS TO REINSTATE PARENTAL RIGHTS. | A. Clark | Sine Die adjournment |
|
SB89
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…THE LAW CONCERNING PETITIONS TO REINSTATE PARENTAL RIGHTS. SB89 A. Clark TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING THE CLOSED AND CONFIDE…”
|
TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING THE CLOSED AND CONFIDENTIAL NATURE OF RECORDS UNDER THE ARKANSAS … | A. Clark | Sine Die adjournment |
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Chair sees a quorum. Senator Rice is in the back
here. He's on his way to his seat. We're going to try to take care of as much business as possible, giving preference to Senate bills since they have to come out of committee if that's going to happen, and then go to the Senate floor and then over to the House. And so I think we'll start with Senate bills, and then we'll try to get as many of the House members' bills out of here as possible.
The more work we can get done this morning means that we may be able to go home early tonight. So keep that in mind when you're running these bills. Any senators here to run bills this morning? I have a Senate bill and I'll ask Senator Stubblefield to take the
chair, please it is House Bill 1937
Speaker 6
1:09
and no, that's not it I don't have it well oh, okay Yeah, but hand
out these two. I need copies of those as well, and I need one. Or
Senator Gary Stubblefield
Unverified
1:53
Thank you. Thank you.
37. Thank you. Thank you. And good morning again, members. I'm going to ask Judge Parker Eldridge to come to the table with me. Okay, good. He's on the list to speak for it, but I'll just, we'll have him here. All right, Judge, if you would identify yourself
Speaker 17
3:13
for the record. Oh, yes, sir. Sorry. Judge Parker Eldridge with
the South Arkansas Canyon District Court. Okay. Senator Flowers, you're recognized. Thank you. Members, House Bill 1937 came out of
the House with 94 votes. What it does, it's a bill that seeks
to delay the state court district judges as recommended by
the DCRAB board, which is a district court. I don't know whether that ours for realignment resource or what, but the district courts across the state have been on a path to going from part-time judges paid by cities and counties to full-time state district court
judges. And so there's some that are still left out there. They've been slowly getting on board And judges have been authorized by
state law, by the laws that we create here, to have a district
court judge, maybe one or two in the districts, depending on the amount of cases and that kind of thing and where the circuits are. So this bill simply asked for a delay concerning the transition to state district courts for Cleburne and Stone Counties until 2025, as well the delay for Arkansas and Monroe Counties to 2025.
They were originally both of those districts set for creation of the state district courts or transition for 2021. But we're asking for a delay. Now, the D-CRAP board had a meeting and they decided and agreed and recommended that Cleburne and Stone counties be delayed at the request of a judge that was present. I'm a member of that D-CRAP board. And then I presented and requested that Monroe and Arkansas County,
they were trying to create one state district judge for Monroe and Arkansas County. Monroe and Arkansas County are in two separate and different circuit judicial districts. Monroe is in the First Circuit Judicial Districts. And what that means is that any case from a district court, which was formerly known, and y'all might know it better as a municipal court, any of those cases would be appealed over to the circuit court of that judicial district.
Well, Monroe is in the First Circuit Judicial District. And Arkansas is in the 11th Circuit Judicial District. And so to merge those two together would create, I think, some kind of schism that I don't believe is acceptable. I think it should be in the same circuit that the court
lies in. And so anyway, I was trying to get the board
to put Monroe with Cross and St. Francis County,
and that bill passed out of here. But Senator Stubblefield,
actually, you ran that bill for Senator Caldwell the other week. And the reason that I was given that they didn't want
Monroe in there with Cross and St. Francis because they had too many cases, but they got an extra judge for those two counties. But during the course of the meeting, it was mentioned that it may be a better fit for Monroe to go with Lee and Phillips County, which is in the same circuit judicial district.
And so there was no consideration of a delay for Arkansas Monroe, And I'm asking for the committee to approve that by a due pass for this bill. I think it's a simple bill. It's not going to cost the state any money. As a matter of fact, it saves the state money because once these state district court judges are put in place, that's $147,000 minimum salary and fringe benefits.
So right now, these district courts that are listed in this bill are being paid by the local city and counties that they hold court in. I'll be happy to answer any questions. Also, I have Judge Eldridge here. He's the district court judges on a part-time basis over there in Arkansas County. Now, I also have a letter from Circuit Judge David Henry. It hasn't been passed out.
But he requests the Judiciary Committee give favorable consideration to House Bill 1937, which will
delay the merger of Arkansas and Monroe counties into a state district court district. And he says this, of course, would involve the creation of district that crosses circuit court lines. And he believes, he says, I believe that more time to consider the effect of this bill would be beneficial. And it signs, sincerely, David G. Henry, who is the circuit judge
there at Stuttgart for the 11th Judicial District East.
And then I have a letter from Judge
Jeremy Becker, the North Arkansas County District Judge. And he's in support of this. He says, thank you for the opportunity. He writes this to Judge Eldridge. He writes, thank you for the opportunity to join your support for House Bill 1937, which will delay Arkansas County transitioning from a local district court to a state district court until January 1, 2025. He says,
is in the First Judicial Circuit Court with five circuit judges. I strongly believe that Arkansas County should be a one-judge state district court because of the caseload and because Arkansas County is a one-judge circuit court. I respectfully ask that House Bill 1937 be passed so that a better plan to transition Arkansas County to a state district court can be put in place. Thank you for your consideration and let me know if you have questions or concerns. And then the last letter of support for this
bill is from some attorneys at DeWitt, Arkansas, Boyd, and Bowie.
And they're also in support of House Bill 1937, which would delay the merger of Arkansas County and Monroe County for purposes of
a single state district judge. I'll be happy to answer any questions. Judge Eldridge, do you
Senator Gary Stubblefield
Unverified
10:50
have any comments you'd like to make? Thank
Speaker 17
10:55
you, Senator. Yes, again, support this bill and ask for a due pass. And just remind the committee this is a do-no-harm bill. Basically, no judge loses its position. This doesn't cost the state any money.
We're just asking for more time for this to be studied and looked at and try to figure out a way to handle things with this crossing judicial circuits and trying to make sure that
Speaker 27
11:18
we maintain the integrity of our courts and make sure things are properly done and we serve the people of Arkansas County
Senator Gary Stubblefield
Unverified
11:25
and Monroe's counties as best we can. Okay. All right, we have a question for Senator
Speaker 31
11:30
Ballinger. You recognize Senator Ballinger? So I guess my question is, thank you, Mr.
Speaker 33
11:34
Chairman. My question is, how does it, I mean, if before we're going to merge into one district judge,
how does it not cost the state money by
Speaker 34
11:43
maintaining that, even if it's just for a year, maintaining that? Because only when a
state, when the judge becomes recognized as a state district court judge, does the
state pay. Otherwise, they're paid for now by the local communities, the cities and the counties. It's my
Speaker 36
12:04
understanding that there's actually some sort of combination of pay. Is that correct? No.
It's not directly paid from... Not now. Not until it's a state district court judge. And then it becomes a combination. But most of it is paid for by the state. I
Speaker 41
12:20
guess my question is for the judge. Is there any state funds at all that go to
Speaker 17
12:26
district court judges? Well, there are, if you're a full-time state, as Senator Flowers is saying, but if you're, if you stay, if this bill goes through, we will maintain our part-time status and there will be no state funds going to those district judges that combine, that are in Monroe and Arkansas counties.
Speaker 33
12:41
Okay, so what is the, what, can you tell me what the caseload is of this, of this position, I mean, compared to, like,
Speaker 36
12:50
once it's merged, what the caseload would be compared to, say, district courts and other parts
Speaker 17
12:57
of the state? Well, they vary, Senator, but the caseloads, and I'd have to have the D-CRAB numbers. I'm sorry, I don't know exactly what the caseload of a combined Arkansas-Monroe counties would be. I do know that when D-CRAB was discussing this for letting Arkansas counties stay by itself as a one-judge circuit,
that those numbers were comparable to another bill that was approved with Little River and Seaver, but the caseloads were comparable. So we do meet that minimum threshold to maintain a district court borrower on our own. Okay. Has the Judicial
Speaker 41
13:27
Council, if they weighed in on this, do you know? Yes, sir.
Speaker 17
13:31
I'm part of the Legislative Committee for the district judges and taking no action. This is a legislative matter they're letting the committee go through. Okay. Thank you. Senator Bond, you have a question?
Senator Will Bond
Unverified
13:46
Yes. Listen, so there's a letter, I guess, that D-CRAB put out saying that the language in 1937 regarding Arkansas and Monroe counties was not presented to
D-CRAB and therefore no approval by D-CRAB to that apportion of the bill. I mentioned this to Senator Flowers before, and she may want to respond
to that. My concern is that, well, I'll follow up with questions. Explain that. Was it
presented to D-CRAB or not? I'm confused. The only thing I presented to
D.C.R.E.B. is a request that Monroe be aligned with Cross and St. Francis County
because they're in the same circuit judicial district. It didn't even come up about the delay, and I thought, you know, well, that was a reasonable request to have a district court in the same circuit judicial district where normal appeals would go. But it didn't happen. And these meetings were recent. A couple of weeks ago was the last time. They met twice. And during the conversation, one of the judges that called
being from one of the counties in, I think he was from St. Francis, suggested that the caseload was
too great in St. Francis and Cross to take on Monroe, but it should be considered a better fit maybe for Lee and Phillips County. And so by delaying the state district court creation in Monroe and Arkansas, it gives me time to
get those numbers and to also, one of the complaints was because they didn't have the judges, they didn't have the numbers and they didn't have any feedback from those particular judges over there in Lee and Phillips County.
So, no, this was not considered. The delay for Stone and Cleburne was considered. And that was, you know, done for a particular judge up there, but it was supposed to go into effect in 2021 as well. So to follow up,
Senator Will Bond
Unverified
16:14
and it has piqued my curiosity, Do we have any other district courts that go over the circuit court lines,
or would this be the only one that
I've got one more follow-up? I think it was mentioned that there is one, maybe two, I
don't know, that go over the circuit court lines. But if you look at any map, this is part of my district. It's part of Senator Dismang's district as well that we're talking about. And if you look at the lines, I mean, to me, it only makes sense that you're going to keep the
district court in the same circuit judicial district court district. So,
yeah, there are other district courts across circuit judicial district lines,
but when you can avoid that, I think every effort should be
Senator Will Bond
Unverified
17:06
made to avoid it. All right, my last follow-up. How long has it been the plan to combine Arkansas and Monroe counties?
Haven't this been in the works for quite a while? Well, you know, I haven't been on the Judiciary Committee a long time. I was on it a few sessions ago. But this has been ongoing, and we regularly see requests for delays in each of our sessions. So this is not something unusual or unheard of.
Senator Will Bond
Unverified
17:34
Is there an answer? I mean, I'm not pressing you, but somebody
might be here to say how long the plan has been to combine these counties. I think it's been for a while. I lived through the first round of this where everybody wanted to keep their district court, and we had a battle, and so that's my question. If the chair
will allow Kristen Clark to come forward, she
is the staff attorney for the D-CRAB board.
If you will recognize her, Mr. Chair, before you leave. Yes, ma'am. Senator
Larson. I have Kristen Clark. She is the staff attorney for the Decrep Board to answer Senator Bunn's question.
Senator Gary Stubblefield
Unverified
18:25
Okay, I have a question. First, Senator Distermain, we have a, I was just notified, we have
an amendment. It's coming over? Okay. All right.
You are. You're recognized. Thank you. You'll
Speaker 68
18:47
state your name. Chairman Stubblefield. My name is Kristen Clark. I'm a staff attorney with the Administrative Office of the Courts. I'm assigned specifically to the district courts, and I also serve as the staff attorney for the D-CRAB board. So to answer your question, Senator Bond, as you know and we've talked about, this has been an ongoing process for a number of years,
And there's been different versions of the map and different combinations of counties together to create these districts. It's my understanding that 2015 is the year that Arkansas and Monroe County were put together on the map. And prior to that, those thoughts about how to combine it and where they would go had not been solidified or finalized. So since 2015,
Senator Will Bond
Unverified
19:33
the plan has been to combine them, right?
Speaker 73
19:38
That's my understanding, and there wasn't any action during the 2017 session. Thank you.
Senator Gary Stubblefield
Unverified
19:42
All right. Any more questions from committee members? Is there anyone else? We have someone signed up to speak against it, Judge David Carruth. If you want to go to the end of the table, Judge Carruth. good morning and thank
Speaker 77
20:10
you for allowing me to speak this morning before the committee
i have my comments reduced to writing if the members would like to follow along all right if
Senator Gary Stubblefield
Unverified
20:18
you want to go ahead and just for the record identify yourself i know we know who you are
Speaker 77
20:23
i'm judge david caruth i serve in the clarendon and hollygrove departments of the monroe county district court okay thank you judge i will cover some of the things that have been asked and i can answer many of the questions that you're raising. Again, I want to thank you for the opportunity to speak against House Bill 1937. I speak today in opposition and will provide my reasons.
Senator Gary Stubblefield
Unverified
20:43
Judge, pardon me for interrupting. Could you pull your
mic over closer to you? Thank you.
Speaker 77
20:50
Is that better? Yes, that's better. I've been a practicing lawyer in Monroe County for over 30 years. During that time, I've served as a deputy prosecuting attorney, city attorney, public defender, and judge, in addition to having a vibrant small town practice. From these experiences I've become keenly aware of the political process and have witnessed the right way and wrong way to engage that process. House Bill 1937 provides a primer in both. My comments will address this bill in two
parts. You'll hear me refer to the Stone-Clebron County Park and the Monroe Arkansas County Park. Both are contained in House Bill 1937. Stone-Clebron County Park is the right way. The Monroe Arkansas County Park is the wrong way. Following the passage of Amendment 80 and 2000, Senator Bond, this body, the legislature, began pursuing procedures to implement that law. One of those actions came in 2007 with the passage of Act 663 and the formation of the District Court Resource Assessment Board, or DECRAP.
I will note at this point that Senator Flowers serves on that committee, on that board, and Senator Clark is an ex-officio member of that board. It is also important to note that D.C.R.A.P. is made up of more than district judges. Members include a county judge, a practicing attorney, a representative from the Arkansas Municipal League, two members of the Senate, two members of the House, a circuit judge, and a Supreme Court justice. You have been provided a letter from the Honorable David Stewart, Chair of D.C.R.A.P., dated March 29, 2019,
setting out in more detail the history and function of D.C.R.A.P. As you can see from his letter, the language in House Bill 1937, as has been noted, regarding Stone and Cleburne County, was presented and considered by D. Crabb in the time and manner required by law, in other words, the right way. The language regarding Monroe and Arkansas County was not, i.e., the wrong way. D. Crabb had never seen the Monroe-Arkansas County language and did not even know of its existence until after the bill was filed in the House.
You should also know that the following were not aware of the language of House Bill 1937 until after it was filed, and I have spoken to each of these individuals. Arkansas County Judge Eddie Best, Monroe County Judge Larry Taylor, St. Charles Mayor Robert Patrick, DeWitt Mayor James Black, Gillette Mayor Jared Holzhauer, Clarendon Mayor James Stinson, Brinkley Mayor Gary Hinnard, Brinkley District Judge John Martin, and or myself knew about the language until after it was filed last week. I am authorized to tell you that Judge Best, Mayor Patrick, Mayor Holzhauer, and Mayor Stinson are opposed to the Monroe-Arkansas County language in this bill.
So you are being asked to give a due pass recommendation to a bill containing language that has not been through the legal process required by the Arkansas legislature and language that is openly opposed by several of the jurisdictions it will affect, which begs the question, Does this committee wish to approve bypassing a process put in place by the legislature to provide sound recommendation regarding the district court system? Keep in mind that DECRAB has spent over 11 years investigating the district court system and making recommendations to this body. The bill merger with Arkansas and Monroe County was passed in 2015 and Act 1081 of 2015.
This work involved hours of meetings, taking testimony, looking at caseloads, demographics, geopolitical considerations, and the impacts to the circuit court system. Had D.C.R.A.B. not undertaken this work, it would have to have been done in this body, such as we are doing right now. There are more pressing reasons to not pass the language in 1937. Once implemented, the state district judge authorized in 2015 will assist the workload of the circuit courts both in Monroe and Arkansas counties. State district judges are authorized
to take felony pleas, conduct felony arraignments, hear uncontested divorces, in some cases take child support cases and visitation cases, and they have greatly expanded civil jurisdiction, all of which takes workload from the circuit courts and provides the communities access to judicial resources they do not now have. A due pass recommendation postpones that implementation. A delay in implementation, implementation expected by the local jurisdictions, will deny those Arkansas citizens access to these judicial resources. So in order to be consistent
with prior legislation and to follow processes put in place long ago by the legislature, the committee can consider three possibilities. Amend the bill to remove the Monroe, Arkansas County language and give the bill a due pass recommendation. Again, the Cleburne, Stone County language was fully vetted by DCRAP. Or you can refer the bill back to DCRAP for them to consider the Monroe-Arkansas County language and make a recommendation, or give the bill a do not pass recommendation. Because this bill contains language that is politically right
and language that is politically wrong, options one and two would be appropriate, as an appropriate way to address the matter as it is in keeping with well-established legislation. Option three is the least preferable as it punishes Stone and Cleveland County for addressing the matter in a proper way. I will also address statements made by Senator Flowers that the D-CRAB has looked at this. All that D-CRAB has looked at was the request to pull Arkansas County out. It has not looked at this language. I think that's become very clear.
I thank you for the opportunity to address you this morning, and I will be glad to take questions. I do have the numbers on caseload, so Senator Ballinger, if you
Senator Gary Stubblefield
Unverified
26:30
have those questions, I can give you those numbers. All right, committee members, you've heard an explanation of Judge Carruth. Any questions for the judge from committee members? Seeing none, is there anyone else in the audience that's signed up to speak for or against this bill?
senator flowers would you uh there is an amendment i understand no
you no uh senator uh i have no amendment and i'd like to respond to uh judge caro's uh comment i did not represent to this committee that the decret board had uh considered a delay for arkansas or monroe county I think my language was pretty clear about that.
What I had asked the D-CRAB to consider, and what was not done, was to take Monroe and place it in with St. Francis and Cross County. That was pretty clear. So any misrepresentation on what I said, you can look on the live stream archive and see. Now, I am a member of the D-CRAB board, and yes, he mentioned politics. So let me just say about politics and the D-CRAP board, and he also mentioned that this could be done by the process at D-CRAP, or it could be done by us.
Ultimately, it is up to us as legislators, okay? Now, politics. The Stone and the Cleburne County delay request was considered by the D-CRAP board. And to my surprise, I was concerned about why they wanted a delay. And it was
because the judge there simply wanted some more time because he's almost at retirement age and needs his insurance.
Well, I think I have a better reason for the delay for Arkansas and Monroe counties when you're talking about crossing over circuit judicial district lines. And I'm asking for a do pass. All right. Motion do pass. Committee members, we have a motion, a do pass
Senator Gary Stubblefield
Unverified
28:46
motion. Is there a second? Is there a second? Senator Flowers, I'm sorry.
Your bill failed. We have a lack of a second to the motion.
Speaker 87
29:11
I'd like to bring the bill back up later. All right. Thank you, ma'am.
Okay, any other Senators have any bills to run? Yes, you can run that.
Well, is this a Senate bill? House bills. Okay.
Well, let's get the Senators' House bills out first, and then we got several House members who have House bills to
run. So we'll start with Senator Letting, and then Senator Cooper, you have a comment?
Senator John Cooper
Unverified
30:39
Yeah, I'd just like to say that I have two that have been passed over through two meetings with people here to assist in those, so I'd like to
be able to get those in at some point. Okay, I think this is going to be fairly quick, because we've
considered this before. Senator Letting, what bill is this? House Bill 1708. Okay, you're
Senator Greg Leding
Unverified
31:05
recognized to present House Bill 17-08. Thank you, Madam Chair. Yes, committee, we discussed this bill Monday, maybe.
It's the bill that would end child marriage. We had, there were some concerns, or at least questions from the vice chair about law regarding emancipated teens. So it pulled the bill down so we could take a look at that code. That clarified a couple of things. and to my knowledge there was no real opposition from the committee at that time. You should have a couple of spreadsheets before you giving you some numbers about child marriages here in Arkansas the last decade or so, actually the last 20 years. But I really have nothing else to say about the bill.
Any questions by the committee? Seeing no questions by the committee, anybody signed up to speak for or against this bill? Seeing none. Oh, Mr. Calvert, you are signed up to speak for or against?
No, he's against. Okay, come to the table, please. I'm so
sorry. No problem. Please identify yourself, who you're with, and you may proceed.
Paul Calvert
Unverified
32:20
I'm Paul Calvert. I'm not with anybody other than
myself today. I do want to clarify, I think earlier in testimony, I think it was Monday, that it was mentioned that all that it did was reduce the age from 16 for girls up to 17. It also establishes a floor. So current law right now, if a young lady is pregnant, there is no state minimum statute for marriage.
If you look at the very second page on lines 20 through 25, you can see the current statute is that a judge can determine if a marriage would be appropriate if the girl is pregnant, but under the current statutory age. And so there is no floor right now. And this bill would actually establish a floor. And so I'm not really here to protest the bill based on the proposal for the minimum age for marriage.
And I believe marriage is very important, and it has a massive impact on our society. In fact, marriage is essentially the most basic social unit on earth. Marriage is the best context for raising children. In the beginning, God created the earth and brought life into existence. God recognized and declared that it is not good for man to be alone. Marriage was and is the answer to this problem of being alone. Again, my testimony today is not about establishing this new minimum age for marriage. My concern is that we are allowing and perhaps encouraging children to engage in sexual intercourse,
and then we want to turn around and tell them that it is illegal to get married even if they get pregnant. We make people wait until they're 21 before allowing them to buy alcohol, but from what I can tell, government apparently places little to no restrictions on children having sex with other children and making babies as soon as the children's reproductive systems are functional. Marriage is without question one of the most significant decisions that people will make in the course of their lives. On the other hand, unless you're a hardcore communist, I think almost all of us agree that a family with married parents is the best context for raising children.
When a young lady comes up pregnant with her boyfriend's child, I think marriage is generally the best way to rectify that situation and prevent the child from being born into illegitimacy. Currently, there's no statutory minimum age for marriage if the young lady is pregnant. There are a couple of tiers of accountability if people are under a certain age, but current law provides an opportunity for almost any child to be born into parents who are married, born to parents who are married, even if the parents are quite young, but that requires a judge's approval. If we continue to allow children to fornicate at very young ages, I think it is sending
a perverse message when we make it illegal for them to get married when they do get pregnant. If you want to amend this bill to establish a minimum age for sex at 16, then I think that would be a much more principled approach to changing the law about marriage. As it is currently written, I think this bill would further encourage abortion. if we make marriage illegal for these kids who are getting pregnant. And so I think for that reason, I think we need to vote this bill down.
Thank you, Mr. Calvert. We have a question from Senator Cooper. Thank you.
Senator John Cooper
Unverified
35:47
Thank you, Madam Chair. Actually, it's for the sponsor of the bill. Okay. Senator Letting.
Thank you, Mr. Calvert. Thank you, committee. Senator Letting, the statistics that you've given us on the page,
Senator Greg Leding
Unverified
36:02
where did those statistics come from? I got them from representative Vivian flowers, the house
Senator John Cooper
Unverified
36:09
sponsor of the bill. She could perhaps. Is it from official records?
Representative Vivian Flowers
Unverified
36:25
Identify yourself. Vivian flowers, state rep, district 17.
Senator John Cooper
Unverified
36:30
Does that, these statistics come from court records? Came from Department of
Representative Vivian Flowers
Unverified
36:34
Health, Vital Statistics. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Anyone else here to
speak for or against the bill? If not, Senator Letting, are you closed for your bill? Closed and I move to pass. Do
we have a second? I have a second. Was this amended?
It was not amended. Okay. We have a motion and a second. do pass. Any discussion? No discussion. All those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed, no. Ayes have it. Senator Lanning, you've passed your bill. Okay,
Senator Cooper, what bills do you have?
House bill 1634. You're
recognized, and Senator Cooper, if you want to have your guest introduce herself.
Speaker 127
38:04
John Cooper, State Senate, and I'll let her introduce herself. Madam Chairman, members of the committee, I'm Lori Kempuris, the Deputy Prosecutor Coordinator. And the bill that we have today is an Arkansas Prosecuting Attorney's Association bill. It's pretty simple, I think. It basically amends a statute to ensure that victims of human trafficking are included in the rape shield protections so that those victims have the same protections as other victims of sexual assault have.
And so the bill basically amends Arkansas Code 1642-101, and as you see there on page 1, line 23 and 24, it adds in a reference to the Human Trafficking Act of 2013. And then there's also language down on line 30 and 31 that just basically says evidence of a person's prior sexual conduct if the person is a victim of human trafficking will be protected under the rape shield statute.
I'll be happy to answer any questions. Any questions from the committee? Seeing none, are there any people signed up to speak for or against the bill? I see none. Senator Cooper, you want
Senator John Cooper
Unverified
39:32
to close for your bill? I think we're closed, Madam
Chair, and I move to do to pass. Second from Senator Stubblefield. Any discussion? All those in favor, say aye. Aye. All those opposed, no. You've passed your bill.
Senator John Cooper
Unverified
39:45
Thank you, Madam Chair. What next? And this will be House Bill 1609, And I'd like to invite Matt Durrett from the 4th Judicial District Prosecutor to join me at the table, please. Please identify
yourself, sir. Yes, ma'am. My name is Matt
Speaker 135
40:13
Durrett. I'm Prosecutor Attorney for the 4th Judicial District.
Speaker 136
40:17
That's Washington and Madison County. House Bill 1609 is a proposed bill from the Prosecution Attorneys Association. What it does is it amends the statute on possession of drug paraphernalia to add heroin and fentanyl to a Class D felony. Currently, it is methamphetamine or cocaine. So what we are proposing is adding heroin and fentanyl, making those possession of paraphernalia with the intent to inject, inhale, ingest, or otherwise introduce, making that a class D felony.
Currently it's a misdemeanor, and I'm sure everyone is aware, but if not, there's, we've seen a dramatic increase in heroin and fentanyl in all areas of the state. And currently the paraphernalia used to ingest those two controlled substances is a misdemeanor, and we're proposing making both those a felony. So it's kind of self-explanatory, but if there are any questions, I'd be happy to answer any.
Thank you. Any questions by the committee? Seeing none, anyone here signed to speak for the bill or against the bill? Seeing none, would you
Senator John Cooper
Unverified
41:39
like to close for your bill, Senator Cooper? Madam Chair, we're closed. I move to do
pass. You have a second from Senator Rice. Any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed, no. Ayes have it. Senator Cooper, you've passed your bill. Any other senators with, what do you have, Senator Ballinger?
While you're doing that, let's run Senator, I mean, Representative Collins has a bill he's already brought here once
before. What bill is that? House Bill 1686.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Am I recognized? Yours is 1636? 86. 86. Okay. Have your
individuals there introduce themselves if you want them to help you. Yes, ma'am. If you guys would just say your name.
Speaker 150
43:27
I'm Mackie Pierce. I'm a circuit judge in Pulaski and Perry Counties,
Speaker 151
43:33
the 6th Judicial District, 17th Division. We'll turn your mic
David Camps
Unverified
43:36
off when you finish, Judge. My name is David Camps. I'm a practicing attorney in Little Rock, Arkansas. You're the what? I'm a practicing attorney in
Little Rock, Arkansas. Okay, make sure your mic is close to you.
Representative Andrew Collins
Unverified
43:48
Yes, ma'am. Thank you. So this House Bill 1686 we brought last week, we had a chance to discuss it here in committee and then subsequently discuss with some of the members and try to get some people here who can help answer additional questions if there are any.
This is to amend the definition of marital property for purposes of division of property and divorce. And I'm actually going to turn it over here to Mr. Camps and just kind of let him reintroduce the issue briefly,
understanding that your time is limited and we're going to try to keep this as brief as we
David Camps
Unverified
44:24
can. And you've heard this before, so this will just be a refresher. Thank you. The bill is HB 1686 is a bill to amend. I can hardly hear you. This
bill amends Arkansas Codit annotated 912-315 to recognize the common law doctrine of active appreciation in the division of marital assets.
It is a response to a Supreme Court decision in 2016 called Moore v. Moore. Prior to the 2016 Supreme Court decision under Arkansas law, the Supreme Court had recognized that the active appreciation of a non-marital asset through the efforts, skill, and labor of a spouse during the course of the marriage was a marital asset, even if that asset had been non-marital. That was case law for approximately 30-plus years and seemed to work well.
In 2016, the Arkansas Supreme Court overturned the layman decision, which was in 1986, established the Act of Appreciation Rule, and did away with it. And it kind of left the valuation and division of assets in a divorce, particularly the value of a non-marital asset that appreciated during the course of the marriage in limbo. And so I'm here to speak on behalf of this bill.
Any questions by the committee? Seeing no questions, Judge Pierce, would you
like to make a comment briefly? Thank you, Madam Chair. As
Speaker 150
45:56
Mr. Camp stated, this simply clarifies, it gives us some basic rules by which
Speaker 160
46:01
we can operate, and everyone who comes into the court of equity in a divorce action will readily be able to understand that this is an issue that is subject to division. This is an issue that I have the authority to divide equitably in a divorce.
I'm not saying it couldn't be done, but I had rather have it up front and everyone know that that's the rule. It was, as Mr. Camps said, the rule for many years from the mid-80s, and that decision, more be more, changed that rule. Has it altered my landscape? Not tremendously, but I had rather have this where it's just clear and everyone, the practicing attorneys and the parties know that this is an issue for the court to deal with and make an equitable ruling.
And I think it's a good bill,
and I think it should pass. any questions by the committee members if not uh representative collins would you like to close for you
bill have one person signed up and speak against the bill uh sylvester smith thank you madam
Sylvester Smith
Unverified
47:10
vice chair and i'll be very brief because we did go through this uh
significantly before i just want to remind the uh members of the committee that justice ronda wood wrote a
very thoughtful opinion on this that changed the law and reverted it back to your original intention. I represent the National Federation of Independent Business, 3,900 small business owners. I could bring probably 100, 150 small business owners and fill the room that would beg you not to do this, and here's why. It treats small business owners who work in their business on a daily basis different than high net worth individuals. If I have $100,000 before I get married and I buy Facebook stock, that stock over the course of my marriage becomes worth one
million dollars. My spouse can't touch it. If this bill passes, then in that situation, my spouse still could not touch my Facebook stock. But if I take that same $100,000 and put it in a bakery and I wake up every morning, I go work in that bakery and I bake the donuts, we divorce, that bakery is now worth a million dollars. My wife can claim half of $900,000. And the only way a small business owner can come up with that money is to liquidate the business. And I'm especially concerned, and my board members are especially concerned, about the division of inherited
property. Because if you take my family, and I'm using myself, I don't want to put anybody else out here because this can be a sensitive issue. My grandfather started 30 years ago a small business cleaning septic tank service. Cleaning other people's things that come out of their body is not a sexy business. I think we all understand that. My father runs that business today, has for the past 10 years. My brother is hopeful that he'll run it next. Fast forward 40 years from now, my brother and I get divorced. If this bill passes, my brother takes that business from a
hundred thousand dollar business, makes it a million dollars, has grown nine hundred thousand dollars. Half is mine, half is his. My wife, my sweet wife leaves me. She doesn't get any of that because I didn't work in the business. My brother's wife leaves him. She gets half of his half just because he was there working every day. And so this bill, it discriminates against the smallest of the small business owners. It punishes them for making the choice to actively work and build a business. And it discriminates against them by treating them differently from high net worth
individuals who can just write checks and buy stocks and other things. And then it creates a challenge for business owners, male, female, or other, who decide that, hey, I'm going to start a business, I'm going to go work it every day. They now have to worry about this, whereas under current law, as is, they don't have to because that property is clearly identified as a non-marital asset. I have great respect for Judge Pierce. Frankly, he's one of my favorite judges. And if I have a divorce in his court right now and I have this issue under the current law,
where I have a lady who started a business before she got married. Business goes up that $800,000. The judge can't give her husband any of that business. But you know what he can do? He can give her husband the house, the whole house that they bought while they were married. He can give him all the cars. He can give him the retirement money. He can give him alimony. And so there are other ways that courts can address this to provide equity without discriminating against small business owners who make the sacrifice of working in their business every day. And so we, on behalf of NFIB and our 3,900 members, we beg you, you are the last line of defense against this anti-small business, anti-working bill.
And just let me close with this. This, for me, personally, is biblical. It's like the parable of the sons. One took the coin and planted it in the dirt, and the other went and worked. We don't punish work in Arkansas. Please don't punish work, and that's what this bill does.
I have a question. Senator Stubblefield, you're recognized for a question. Thank you, Madam Chair. Sylvester, what about farmers? How would this affect farmers? I thank you
Sylvester Smith
Unverified
51:06
for that, Senator. This would have a deeply negative impact on farmers, and I think the only reason the Farm Bureau probably isn't out in arms about this
is because it's gotten by them. And so you, I think, have a farm, and you leave a farm, your farm to your lovely daughter. If she decides to lease that farm out to me, and then she marries some Yahoo, and he doesn't have anything to do with that farm, they get divorced she keeps all the growth from it because she didn't work it but if she says i want to be like daddy i want to go work this farm every day and she makes it grow the yahoo that she divorces he gets half of the growth and you know and i know the only way to cash out a small business because you can't get a loan against it is to sell it and so you're going to have
generational property that may have been in a family a farm been a family 100 years ends up sold behind this and judge pierce said a point made a point that i really want you to reflect upon. In the two years that this has changed, he hadn't seen it much. And you won't see it much because there are other ways that judges can deal with this by doing things like assigning alimony and giving the other assets. And judges have free reign to do that. And so this would have a deeply negative impact on small farmers and small business owners, those that work, choose to make the sacrifice to work
the family farm. Senator Stumblefield, Senator Rice, you have a question.
Senator Terry Rice
Unverified
52:27
i would like to just ask the judge do you disagree with what that testimony has just
been given i do disagree can you can you expound on that i will
Speaker 160
52:48
thank you all right what mr smith is talking about that i can do is I can fashion a remedy that allows for an unequal distribution of marital assets to make
up for the inability to divide an appreciation of a non-marital asset. So I can do through the back door what I can't do through the front door. For some 30 plus years, the law was starting with the case I was involved in with Box v. Box and the layman decision if a wife or a husband married someone, and for example, my case, the wife got the husband to agree to remodel the house that was a shell home, a Jim Walter home, and they got a loan, remodeled the home, had a tragedy in
the family, and they ultimately got divorced. The appreciation and the increase in value on that home was subject to division, and the court awarded that. My client didn't like that advice. He fired me, got another attorney, went up on appeal, the court had divided it, and that was what happened. An unequal division is there. That would be available to the court even if we don't have this bill on the family farm, etc. You know, I've seen farms divorced, farmers divorced 30, 40 years. They get divorced. The wife worked in the home.
She never went in the field. She never drove a tractor. She never raised cattle. She didn't do anything but take care of children and take care of the home. Husband owned the farm his whole life. Family farm. I can make up an equitable remedy to avoid. I don't want to kill the goose that lays the golden egg that's their source of income. I can fashion a remedy that allows the wife to receive some benefit from her services as a homemaker that I can get an expert to come in and testify that's worth anywhere from $100,000 to $150,000 a year.
I can make that up. But why not make it up and why not fashion a remedy when we all know that the rule is there, that it is subject to division? we're not discriminating against anyone with this bill this bill doesn't discriminate it treats everybody the same whether you're high income high net worth or low income and low net worth it doesn't affect anybody any differently it treats everyone the same farmers aren't going to be at any greater danger if this bill passes than they were for the last 35 years when the law
was that this is subject to division. So nothing changes there. And the other thing is, just because that asset increases doesn't mean that the other spouse automatically gets one half. That doesn't necessarily follow. Can they? Certainly. Can they get less than that? Certainly. Again, every case is different. You cannot put domestic relations cases in a box and say, this is what's going to happen. Every case is treated differently. Every case is fact intensive, following the law. So
are all litigants going to have to, small businessmen going to have to sell their business? Not at all. In fact, that's the last thing I want to happen. But as you all know, if you're familiar with domestic relations and domestic practice, a lot of these businesses and a lot of these families that are ending up in divorce court are as a result of financial difficulties, and they are a bankruptcy or a sale of the business waiting to happen when they walk into court. So if the business sells, it's not necessarily a result of my order. It's a result
of the facts and the circumstances that they face that no court and no attorney can get them out of. The bottom line is there's simply not enough money to pay the bills and to keep the business going. So the last thing I want to do
Speaker 179
56:27
is force someone to sell their business. Senator Rice, do you have a follow-up? I'd just like to have a response from Mr. Smith,
and I'll be through. Okay, well, can you keep it just tailored to just that? Yes, yes, ma'am. Because
we have other people on the agenda, and we have other bills.
Sylvester Smith
Unverified
56:43
Yes, ma'am, I sure will. I appreciate the judge's response, and my response is this. Once the judge says— Judge Pierce, will you turn off your mic? Thank you. Once the judge says, Mr. Smith, your business has gone up $400,000, dollars, your
wife is owed $200,000 of it, he doesn't order me to sell the business, but he does order me to pay that $200,000. And I can tell you, most of the people that I represent, the only way they're going to be able to pay that $200,000 is to sell the business. And so I think Judge Pierce helped to make my point, which is that present law
allows him to fashion other remedies without taking this business that was a premarital asset and dividing it. Now, this is the key point here. The reason I say this is discriminatory, which he says it's not, is because it only works towards active income that was earned by working. It does not touch passive income. And so if you're my dad, you leave me and my brother your business, he works in it, I don't. His half of the business is subject to division under this law. Mine is not because I didn't work in it.
And so it punishes work, in my opinion. Okay. We have other individuals that are signed to speak for the bill.
We have a Heather May, Becky McHughes, Megan Chapelier, and
a David Camps. Are you all— David Camps. Okay, are these others in the room? Okay, will you come up
to the table, and we'll ask you to make your comments as brief as possible.
Identify yourselves one at a time, please. My
Heather May
Unverified
58:26
name is Heather May. I'm an attorney here in Little Rock, Arkansas, and I favor this bill. I think it reinstates the law to what it should be. I also am a small business owner. I own a small law firm here in Little Rock, and I appreciate Mr. Smith's comments. Fortunately for my husband, mine is all marital, but if I had owned this business prior to our marriage, I think it is fair for him to get his marital portion because I work a lot of hours
and have worked in this business for 18 years, and I think this
bill should pass. Questions from the committee? Okay, next we have Becky McCuse. Please identify
yourself, Ms. McCuse. If Ms. May will turn her mic off. Good
Speaker 185
59:17
afternoon. I'm Becky McCuse. I'm an attorney here in
Speaker 186
59:20
Little Rock, and I think this bill should pass. All it does is reinstate the law as it was before 2016,
when the Supreme Court took an issue not before them and made a decision, sua sponte, and overturned 30 years of case law. So all we are asking this committee to do is pass this bill as an equitable bill. It comes out of a court of equity, divorce does, and it will be equitable to the domestic engineer, whoever that might be.
That might be the husband or the wife. But whoever is at home running the Uber and all these other things that they do, they should be entitled to an appreciated value of the marital asset. Thank
you. Thank you. Questions for Attorney McHughes. Megan Chapelier. Identify yourself, please.
My name is Megan Chapelier. I'm
Kristen Stewart
Unverified
1:00:31
a practicing attorney in Little Rock, Arkansas.
I'd just like to reaffirm that I agree with everything that Judge Pierce, Mr. Camps, Ms. May, Mrs. McHughes, what they've all said, I'm for the passing of this bill. And just speaking to the fairness aspect of it, as legislators and as legal practitioners, we have the responsibility of assisting parties in determining what are marital assets and what is an equitable distribution of their marital assets. and fairness is and should be the prevailing guideline when determining what the equitable
distribution of those marital assets are and should be the prevailing guideline when determining what constitutes a marital asset and equity can only be achieved through the recognition of marriage as a joint undertaking and that in many ways it's akin to a partnership and it's only if this is clearly understood that it's far more than just economic factors and which party put in the most work that's involved in this partnership. This legal union that is marriage
is the support structure that allows for a spouse to invest their time, effort, and skill fruitfully into their property. And it's this union that allows for this to happen. And both spouses should be entitled to the growth of the value of that property that the union allowed to happen. Questions? Senator Bunn, you have a
question? Well, and it may not be
Senator Will Bond
Unverified
1:02:07
a good one. We've debated this bill once, so I want to keep it short. So what
happens if the bill doesn't pass,
the appreciation is a marital property. Say there's a divorce, appreciation is a marital property. Husband either sells the business, say you make an alimony award or some other award, husband sells a business or runs it in the ground or whatever, then ask for a, has a significant change in circumstances that reduces alimony, you're obligated to reduce it. And so it can create odd outcomes if you don't consider the appreciation of the business post-divorce. Does that make sense? Is that possible? Senator Bond,
Speaker 160
1:02:47
that makes perfect sense. I mean, obviously alimony
is a remedy, but alimony is subject to modification based upon a change of circumstances. So I know I have this business and I know what it's worth. And if I can equitably divide that, and not necessarily by selling the business, by maybe, again, making an increased award from another asset, a retirement account, offsetting funds and other things, it opens the door and it makes it clear on the front end. When these practitioners come in front of me, they don't have to worry about, well, is he going to make an unequal distribution? Because I don't have to announce that to the end. And then I have to justify that unequal distribution at that point. Whereas this
is equitable on that basis. And again, I'm not ever trying to sell the family business or ruin somebody by forcing them to do something. As Mr. Smith said, $400,000 award, I know that that party may not be able to pay that $400,000, but if there's another $200,000 asset that I can give that wife in lieu of that, then again, I make the playing field level. I've done an equitable award of marital assets to both parties, which I think that is my first obligation to do as a court of equity is to do equity. And so this is a fair bill. It was 35 years the law. Sua sponte the
Supreme Court decided nobody asked on their own. They changed 35 years of case law. It has created some turmoil with practitioners not knowing which way to go and how to deal with this. Again, I can fashion a remedy, but I'd like to be upfront about it rather than feeling someone leaving my courtroom me feel like i tricked them and i don't ever want that to happen thank
Speaker 192
1:04:19
you judge any other questions from the committee senator
stubbleville do you have a question i'm just curious how this
Speaker 160
1:04:31
would affect the jeff bezos case i apologize i
apologize senator i did not hear your question he was being funny judge you don't have to even ask Well, I'll
Speaker 197
1:04:45
laugh. I didn't hear the question, but I'll laugh.
Speaker 87
1:04:48
Laugh, laugh, laugh, laugh, laugh, laugh, laugh. Let's all laugh. Ha, ha, ha. Okay.
All right. You have a question? You have a joke? I have a motion at the proper time. Oh,
okay. Would you like to close for your bill, Representative Collins?
Representative Andrew Collins
Unverified
1:05:03
Well, thank you. I'll close briefly and just say, you know, again, I don't think that the concerns raised by Mr. Smith are of a serious issue because we're just going back to the way the law was for 30 years. If it was a serious issue, we would have seen it, and we would have seen action from the legislature to correct it. Not seeing that, I think we're going back to a sound standard,
and I'd appreciate a good vote. Senator Bunn,
you have a motion? Motion do pass. Okay, second? Second by Senator Letting. Any discussion? All those in favor, say aye.
Aye. Those opposed? No. Let's have a roll
Speaker 203
1:05:46
call. Senator Stubblefield? Aye. Senator Cooper? No. Senator Rice? No. Senator Bond? Yes. Senator Ballinger? No. Senator Letting? Aye.
The chair votes. Well, the chair,
well, it's four to three now, so it wouldn't make a difference how I voted. So, sorry, Representative Collins, you're welcome to bring your bill back.
Maybe make a motion to expunge later. But we appreciate all
those that came to give
Speaker 207
1:06:40
testimony. Thank you. Senator Cooper?
Madam Chair, I need to make a motion. We missed an amendment on the bill a while ago. I need to make a motion to expunge that vote, adopt the amendment, and re-vote the bill. Okay, what bill
was that? 1609. Okay. That was the one that the prosecutor came to the table on heroin and fentanyl being
Speaker 210
1:07:02
asked? Yes, it is. Heroin and fentanyl is what the amendment
does. Okay, so your motion is to expunge the vote by which the bill passed? Yes. And need a second on that?
Got a second? And all those in favor say aye. Aye. Those opposed, no. Ayes have it. The vote is expunged. Now we will. The amendment, it appears, we need to adopt it. So do we have a motion to adopt? Motion to adopt the amendment. Second. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Those opposed, no. Motion is adopted. Now, this is the bill, House Bill 1609 as amended. Do we have a motion?
Do pass. Do pass as amended. As amended. Second. And any discussion? None. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. All those opposed, no. Ayes have it. House Bill 1609 as amended passes. Thank you, Madam
Speaker 207
1:08:02
Chair. I apologize for missing that amendment. No
problem. Senator Rice, what do you have?
Speaker 179
1:08:20
Okay, House Bill 1612. And I have Mr. Allen McVeigh and others to assist. I'll let them identify themselves. If they would please identify themselves. Thank you, Madam Chair
Speaker 217
1:08:33
and members of the committee. I'm Alan McVeigh. I'm the Administrator for the Office of Child
Speaker 219
1:08:40
Support Enforcement. I'm Barbara Williams. I'm the Assistant Administrator
Speaker 179
1:08:46
and General Counsel. You may proceed, Senator Rice.
Senator Terry Rice
Unverified
1:08:50
Thank you, Madam Chair and Committee. House Bill 1612 is presented to request of DF&A of Office of Child Support Enforcement to bring Arkansas in conformity with federal regulation. This bill was amended in consultation with Administrative Office of the Court and has support from the Judicial Council. Arkansas case law currently holds that a non-custodial parent's lack of income due to incarceration will not relieve him or her of obligation to provide child support
in an initial order or provide the basis for the modification of an existing child support obligation. Federal requirements published in 2016 require each state's guidelines for setting child support awards prohibit incarceration from being treated as voluntary unemployment in establishing and modifying child support orders. States must implement this requirement as part of the approved state plan for Child Support Enforcement Program.
Failure to implement this requirement could eliminate federal funding for the Child Support Program and the TANF Block Grant. The federal portion of the budget for Office of Child Support Enforcement for the current fiscal year is approximately $37.5 million. This bill would bring Arkansas in compliance with federal regulation while leaving the—I've lost my place.
Well, maybe Mr. McVeigh can give it to us in a nutshell
Senator Terry Rice
Unverified
1:10:36
what this bill does. Leaving discretion with the circuit court, and that's where I was wanting to make that point I'd underline here. It does leave discretion with the court to consider the circumstances of the family of the incarcerated patient's resources when determining an appropriate support obligation when a parent is incarcerated. So, Madam Chair, I'd be happy to allow these two to answer any questions. In a nutshell, Mr. McVeigh,
so does a parent incarcerated still under a duty to
Speaker 217
1:11:16
pay child support? An incarcerated parent, it leaves the discretion at the court, so there remains a responsibility to pay child support, and they would have to request a review and modification, and it would be determined by the court as to whether that would change it.
This simply prohibits it from being treated as voluntary and makes it involuntary. And so when it
was treated as voluntary, it was kind of automatic that the duty of support continues even though you're incarcerated? Would you agree with that? Yes. Okay. All right. So this
leads it to the discretion of the judge. Yes, ma'am. Okay. Any questions by the
committee? Okay. Seeing none, is there anybody to speak for or against?
Seeing none. Ma'am, would you like to care to say anything or what? Not unless there are
any questions. Okay, no more questions. Senator Rice, would you like to close for your bill? Madam Chair, I'm closed and
would move to do pass. Okay. We had a second from Senator Cooper. Any discussion? Seeing none. All those in favor, say aye. Those opposed, no. Bill has passed. Thank you, Madam Chair and Committee. We had House Member Penzo in here.
Speaker 231
1:12:37
Is he gone? I'm actually running that bill for him. I think we're going to hold off on that bill. You're going to hold off on it. I
do have a concurrence on that bill. What bill is that? What bill is it? House Bill 1732. House Bill 1732. And then we'll get Representative Crawford next.
okay house bill 1732 you said mr ballinger is that
for house bill 1732 senate what are you running right
now house bill 1732 i will at the pleasure
Speaker 31
1:13:33
one, as long as I can get to the concurrence. So, if you're okay with me concurring... Which is a concurrence?
It is Senate Bill 344. It was a compromised amendment to satisfy the bar on the House side and removed any opposition to the bill. Okay, let's do the Senate
Bill 344 now, then. So, that is Senate
Speaker 31
1:13:54
Bill 344. I just explained what the amendment was on the House side, and it removed all the objections. This is the circuit clerk's bill dealing with the filing of a Terrellman's Lane.
Speaker 238
1:14:05
Has it been engrossed? It is engrossed in
the bill. Okay, so we just simply need to concur in the House Amendment.
Correct. And Senator Sebelfield's moves that we concur in
the House Amendment. Senator Cooper seconds. Any discussion? None. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Those opposed, no. Okay, the bill has
been concurred in as to the House Amendment. thank you madam chairman
Speaker 41
1:14:32
okay house bill 1732 by representative womack and what essentially this does
Speaker 31
1:14:39
is this opens up if you have are trying to collect a debt it opens up the tax returns as a possibility for garnishment and it real simple um you know basically one page bill just lines
Speaker 33
1:14:54
through the exception for Arkansas state tax returns. Well, wait
a minute. Now, we have a statute, and I remember Senator Hammer had a bill this session that included something to be taken out of taxes from the state of Arkansas that were due to be refunded to somebody. I forgot,
driver's license fees or something, court debts or something like that?
It may have. Okay, so in that bill that he had, we saw that there is a law that sets
out priorities for these refunds being intercepted by agencies and all. Correct. This does not look like
the same section of the code where that comes from. Yeah, it would not affect
Speaker 31
1:15:51
the priorities at all. All it does is just remove the prohibition of garnishing the state tax returns.
Speaker 242
1:16:00
So the priorities are still in place. This would just allow them
to get in line. Any questions from the committee? There is a fiscal impact, or
at least a legislative impact statement on here. And
Okay, please come to the...
And you're speaking against this
Chris Mcneil
Unverified
1:16:41
bill? Okay. Please identify yourself. Madam Chair, members of the committee, my name is Chris McNeil. I'm an attorney with the Office of Revenue Legal Counsel with the DF&A. Respectfully, the DF&A opposes this bill, and the simplest reason is that it requires the DF&A. I think Senator Ballinger described it accurately.
It's a simple bill, but the DF&A does not have the resources or the staff to actually do what this would require of us. Just to state quickly, the garnishment process is a means by which somebody who has obtained a judgment can, When somebody owes money to the defendant, they can get that money from them instead.
Since 1985, income tax refunds have been exempt from being garnished, and there are good reasons for that. Everything I'm going to say next is more or less an elaboration or explanation of why we don't have the resources to do this. Um, essentially every person, company, bank, credit card company who has obtained a judgment
in the last 10 years against somebody who might have an income tax refund can now serve the DF&A with a writ of garnishment, and the DF&A would have to respond to each one. For a sense of scale, just in this year with respect to the 2018 tax year, there have been more than 1.3 million income tax returns that we have received. And of those, more than 900,000
have sought a refund. That is a very large number. Madam Chair, you mentioned the issue with the set-off as it relates to reinstatement fees with the Office of Motor Vehicle. And I'm glad you mentioned that because it's relevant to the issue at hand. The state already has a process called the set-off, which allows another state agency that is owed a debt by somebody to submit to the DF&A a certification of that debt.
That system is automated, it lasts for a whole year, and it requires almost no agency staff resources, because once it's submitted into our computer system, it sits there until such time as a determination is made by the DF&A that a person is entitled to a refund.
That's an extremely important distinction from the garnishment process. Because when a plaintiff who has been awarded a judgment in a civil case serves a writ of garnishment upon some third party that they believe owes money to the defendant. In this case, the DF&A, that person called the garnishee has two duties.
The first is they have to disclose what it is they owe. And the answer to that question is a snapshot in time. So for all but about four days or five days of the year, the answer to that question would be zero. Because once the DF&A receives and processes somebody's income tax return,
and those refunds are processed fairly quickly. The reason that is important is because if you are somebody who is owed a debt, if you have received a judgment under this system, you would have every incentive to simply serve a brand new writ of garnishment upon the DF&A as often as you wanted to. You could serve a brand new one monthly, weekly, daily even, and an actual staff attorney with the DF&A would be responsible for interfacing with the court that issued that writ of garnishment and responding to it.
And then at that point, the garnishee is responsible for surrendering that income tax return, or refund, excuse me. Now, when this was discussed in House Judiciary, a member of the audience asserted that the DFNA already does garnish refunds When the Office of Child Support Enforcement requests one, I think it confused several members of the committee.
Let me just get out in front of that before it gets stated again. That is not true. The Office of Child Support Enforcement is a claimant agency, and they go through the set-off process that I just described. And that process involves very little resources, once again, and it's very easy for us to comply with. That is a distinct process from the garnishment process. And removing the exemption from garnishments, as this bill seeks to do, would simply require us to hire a substantial number of attorneys who probably would do almost nothing but respond to writs of garnishment from people,
from plaintiffs not just in this state, but all over the country in order to satisfy judgments that they have. So that's what I have. I'd be happy to answer any questions. Thank you. Very technical matter. Senator Cooper, you have a question. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Senator John Cooper
Unverified
1:24:06
On your impact statement, you said there's no revenue impact, but from what I've understood you to say, you're going through a process here of a lot of overhead impact.
Chris Mcneil
Unverified
1:24:18
The way I understood the impact statement, and I was not the person who wrote that specific part of it, but I think what we were intending to say is that it is impossible for us to determine the revenue impact, And the reason for that is because of the intermingling that would take place between, again, the set-off process and the garnishment process.
And those same funds could be subject to both, and we would have to decide who to give the money to. When you're talking about staffing,
Senator John Cooper
Unverified
1:24:57
you're talking about financial impact to the taxpayers. Yes. Thank you. Any other questions by
the committee members? Are you closed for your bill, Senator Ballinger? I would like to
Speaker 44
1:25:13
close for my bill. Go ahead. Okay, I would just say, you know, what
Speaker 33
1:25:19
essentially we have testified is that if there's a debt owed to the state,
that the state has found a way to make sure that they collect it. In this case, if it's a citizen, a taxpayer, they should also have the opportunity to get the funds from the state. I really do believe, I mean, if it were a situation that it would have taken and they could conclusively look at it and say it's going to take a whole bunch of new staff to do it, the revenue impact wouldn't
Speaker 31
1:25:46
be zero. You know, as legislators, we have to be able to depend on this. The Department of Finance Administration gave us those numbers. And so, you know, from my standpoint, I think that it's probably the least we could do for our citizens to provide a mechanism
Speaker 33
1:25:58
to collect their debt when this opportunity is available.
And having said that, I move to pass. Is there a second? There's a second. Any discussion? I have some
discussion. This impact statement does not give numbers. It says, in other words, it's impossible to
determine the impact. No further discussion. All those in favor of the motion, say aye.
Aye. Opposed? No. Bill fails. Thank you.
Okay. So, Representative Crawford, House Bill 1762.
Representative Crawford, you're recognized to present 1762. You have other individuals at the table with you. Please have them introduce
Speaker 258
1:27:17
themselves. Gerald Sherrum, Senior General Counsel, Department of Human
Speaker 260
1:27:31
Services. Representative Boyd. You may
Representative Cindy Crawford
Unverified
1:27:33
proceed, Representative Crawford. Thank you, Madam Chair. House Bill
1762 is a bill that was brought to me by a constituent who's an attorney in Sebastian County, Fort Smith.
This bill expands the guardianship of a person by giving the court the ability to decide on a case-by-case basis in a structured and safe way what is best for adults and children who need guardianship. There's no known opposition to this bill, which is a result of work with judges, the Department of Human Services, and constituents. And with that, I would like Mr. Sherham to share, please, with the edges.
Speaker 258
1:28:18
You recognize Mr. Sherham? Thank you, Madam Chair, committee. This bill is relatively short, and it does exactly what Representative Crawford described. It allows a court to grant guardianship of the person to adults and kids in certain circumstances. As you probably know, under current law, felons are not allowed at all to be a guardian of the person or the estate of anyone, except in a narrow exception for kids who are in foster care. And in that circumstance, it's got to follow the procedure prescribed by subsection B, which is not addressed in this bill.
So that procedure still exists. So it allows felons to be a guardian of the person for an adult, so long as the court reviews a certified copy of the felon's sentencing order and makes written findings that, notwithstanding the felony conviction, that person is otherwise qualified under the law. This bill also allows such a person to be a guardian of the person for a child, again, after the court reviews the sentencing order and decides that this person is qualified, same thing for adults. But also it has a second requirement for that person to be a relative or a fictive kin to that child.
Or, again, if the child is subject to a dependency neglect proceeding, which is a child in foster care, then it follows the existing procedure under 2865-203-B. It still does not allow a convicted and unpardoned felon to be a guardian of the estate for risks related to financial exploitation, especially for adults who are more likely to have assets. And I think that pretty well describes the bill. I'm happy to answer any questions.
Questions by the committee? So basically what
this bill does is allow somebody that's related or has a very close relationship with an adult or a minor, provided
they are not involved in any kind or accused of a dependent neglect of a child to be the guardian of
the person only. Is that right? Yes, this would allow them to be
Speaker 258
1:30:26
a guardian of the person only. And it really only deals with their criminal piece, right?
So if they are, you know, the court gets to decide on a case-by-case basis if they're appropriate based on that relationship and such things. And they
still have to do an accounting even for, under the guardianship of the person. Right, so they would still
Speaker 258
1:30:45
be required to do those reports that are required under existing law doesn't change any of that so the court would still be involved in the case as an ongoing manner for as long as the guardianship endures okay any other
questions by the committee uh senator stubblefield you recognize was the uh thank you madam chair
Senator Gary Stubblefield
Unverified
1:31:05
was the fictive kin line was that added as a result of the legislation that was passed a couple of years ago i'm
Speaker 258
1:31:15
not sure it was added as a result of that but we wanted to make sure we captured not just relatives, but for the case of kids, folks who have that good relationship with the family, that child, to make sure that whoever's important in that child's life could be a guardian for
Senator Gary Stubblefield
Unverified
1:31:29
that child. Right. I understand what fictive kin is.
Under, could you explain to me very briefly, under the O law, how is
Speaker 258
1:31:45
this handled? Under existing law, as it is right now, a convicted and unpardoned felon would not ever be allowed to be a guardian of the person or the estate for an adult or a child unless that child was in foster care and it went through that process. So there would have to be a home study, some deep regulatory involvement, and, of course, the court approval of that case. But under current law, it can't happen except in that narrow circumstance.
Okay. That's all I have, Madam Chair. Any
other questions by the committee? Seeing none, is there anyone here to speak for the bill, against the bill? Seeing none, what's the pleasure of the committee? Senator Cooper moves do pass. Do I have a second? Second from Senator Stubblefield. Any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor say aye. Those opposed, no. Ayes have it. Representative Crawford, you've passed your bill. Thank you. I'm chairing committee.
Okay. Letting has some bills.
Speaker 162
1:32:40
Is Hawks, Representative Hawks still here? There he is. I'm trying to get
them out. Okay. What do you have, Representative Hawks? Just a little House
Representative Spencer Hawks
Unverified
1:33:00
bill that has no known opposition. What's the number? It's House Bill 1759.
does it have an amendment to it i don't
Representative Spencer Hawks
Unverified
1:33:26
think it does i believe the amendment had been engrossed and already on
the bill it must have been done over on the house side yes ma'am okay okay okay does everybody have this bill House Bill 1759. Representative Hawks, you're recognized to present your bill. If you want to identify the individual with you at the end of the table, please do.
Representative Spencer Hawks
Unverified
1:33:48
Thank you, Madam Chair, and I would like to ask Judge Pierce to sit here with me for his support
Speaker 150
1:33:57
of the bill. Please introduce yourself again for the record, Judge Pierce. I'm Mackie
Representative Spencer Hawks
Unverified
1:34:04
Pierce, Circuit Judge, 17th Division in the 6th Judicial District. thank you madam chair uh what this bill does and it had gone through some amendments and now it has uh broad support because of what it does but what it uh focuses on is our deployed military who are caught in custody situations and basically uh as we read the bill that says that if there's a
modification of a child custody decree based on the active duty status of a parent as a member of the United States Armed Forces it's deployed, that the modification is only going to be temporary and that it will revert back to the previous child custody degree at the end of the deployment. And then also that the deployment of the federal active duty status will be considered equivalent as daily parental presence and parental involvement with the child. So we're not penalizing our Armed Forces members
by being deployed and for serving
this country. Members, do you have any questions? Senator Rice and then
Senator Terry Rice
Unverified
1:35:14
Senator Cooper. Thank you, Madam Chair. I like the idea here,
and I'm not against this, but what would be something if this protects the active duty person but they turned around and re-upped or extended their stay,
would the judge have the opportunity to consider that themselves? You follow what I'm talking about? Senator, from what
Speaker 160
1:35:50
I'm understanding, your question is, So, for example, if someone goes TDY for 90 days, 120 days, six months, whatever, and they decide they're going to stay overseas or whatever, then, you know, as far as my, I'm not authorized to speak for any other judge, but my opinion would be that I consider that on a case-by-case basis and what are the circumstances, what's going on.
When that active duty member comes back, that active duty member is going to want their child back or children back. And then I've got to look at what's in the best interest of the children based upon their voluntary at that point. Most times TDY, sometimes they are voluntary. But in order to get promotions, they have to do certain things. They want to go and do that. That benefits the family. I have to look at all that and have to consider all
Senator Terry Rice
Unverified
1:36:40
those things that come into play. Right, and that's the part that I didn't want the judge not to have input on,
but I also didn't want to take it away from the person that it would be advantageous probably to the child in the long run. Yes, sir. Thank you. And the other
Speaker 160
1:36:57
thing would be, you know, what if that active duty member was deployed and came back with serious problems of any nature? I've got to consider what's best for the child. even though this statute's there, I think I can make a finding that it's no longer in the child's best interest based upon not only his active duty issue, but on the other issue that developed while on active duty.
Senator John Cooper
Unverified
1:37:19
Senator Cooper, you recognize for a question. I think you just answered part of my question, but not all of it. Let's say some things happen simultaneously. And part of that change of decree is based on the active duty status. I'm looking at page two, line two. Suppose there's some other factors that might have been involved in how a decision might be made concerning custody, and all of this has kind of rolled into one time frame there.
How does anybody know whether or not that decision was based on the active duty status or that there might be some other factors that might come into play that would need to certainly be brought up early on when
that person returned. You follow what I'm asking? Senator, I'm not 100% certain I understand your question. Let's
say there was something that a child custody decree might have been
at issue not based on the military part of it that was based on the child's best interest. Yeah. They're always based on the child's best interest. But some factors there that occurred along that line. At the same time, this issue based on active duty status is concerned. and then later that issue is revisited when the person returns,
how easy is it going to be to go back and review all of those factors retrospectively that might have occurred before? Can you see where
I'm headed with that now? I think so, and let me attempt, all right? Number
Speaker 160
1:39:17
one, I can only go back to the last custody order to consider any material change of circumstances that may have occurred regarding the best interest of that child and the fitness of a parent or both parents to parent as custodians from the date of that order forward.
Now, there are some limited exceptions to that, but keep it for this example to that. So if we've got issues that are ongoing and then all of a sudden, and maybe custody is sort of at issue for whatever reason, and then one of the members gets deployed, well, number one, I've got Soldiers and Sadler's Civil Relief Act that I've got to deal with that they can ask for a stay of proceedings. That's fine. I don't have a problem with that because during that stay, the other parent, as long as they're fit and in the child's best interest, they're going to parent that child throughout that military member's deployment period.
When that military member returns, the stay is lifted under the Souls and Sailors Act. I can consider whatever then are those issues that occurred from the last order up to deployment. And then obviously if there's anything that occurred during the deployment, one of those issues, let's say, was alcohol. And that military member continued with a problem with alcohol, and that is still an issue. Obviously, I'm going to consider that. I'm never going to sentence a child to be with a parent that has an alcohol or drug addiction or other drug addiction, that type of thing.
Senator John Cooper
Unverified
1:40:41
I think you used a pretty good example there that I was getting at. I don't know that I'm entirely comfortable with this, but I'm good
Speaker 160
1:40:50
with leaving it in the hands of the judges. Thank you. May I comment? Sure. Madam Chair, thank you. I practiced law in Jacksonville for 19 years. Little Rock Air Force Base. I'm a judge in Pulaski County. I have a lot of military divorces with custody and children. This bill, and certainly Camp Robinson and the other military facilities around here, this bill would at least eliminate some litigation because it does happen. You know,
military member deploys, everything is great. That other parent gets the child for a period of time And for whatever reason, attachment, habit, things form, they don't want to give the child back. And it's not a proprietary interest that they acquire by virtue of possession. It is what is in the child's best interest. And the only thing that has occurred is this military member is doing their duty and serving the country. That's not a change of circumstances that I think should justify additional litigation. And sometimes we have that for no other reason than you were gone for six months.
Well, that's not a good reason, in my opinion. Thank
you. Any other questions by the committee? There are no persons signed up to speak for or against the bill. Would you like
to close for your bill, Representative Hawks? Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm closed for my bill. What's the will of the
committee? Motion do pass. Second by Senator Rice.
Any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor of the motion, say aye. Those opposed,
no. Your bill has passed, Representative Hawks. Madam Chair, thank you, committee.
All right. Who else do we have? Okay. Senate Bill 1760? House Bill 1765? And it has an
amendment to it? Okay. I
see you have a guest here today from where I'm from.
Speaker 293
1:43:15
Yes, sir. and please identify yourself. My name is Tony Hilliard. I'm the immediate past chair of the Arkansas Bar Association and I'm in private practice with Ramsey
Senator Greg Leding
Unverified
1:43:32
Bridgeforth from Pine Bluff, Arkansas. Dr. Letting, you may proceed. I'm just running this on behalf of Representative Maddock and Senator Malek. We do have that amendment first that adds Senator Malek as a co-sponsor and looks to do quite a number of other things.
I get the hint. Would y'all, if... We have a motion
to adopt the amendment first. Second? Someone? Second. Second. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Those opposed? Ayes have it. The bill has been amended, so you can
Speaker 293
1:44:05
proceed now. A quick description of this bill, what this is, the Uniform Directed Trust Act, the amendment actually made it compatible with the current national uniform laws And what's been required, there's already been 28 uniform laws previously adopted by the Arkansas legislature in the past 15 years.
And it particularly is helpful for a lot of our trust companies, banks that are in multiple states having this kind of uniformity that they can look to. A directed trust act basically says where we've got a trustee managing a trust, sometimes those trusts involve unusual assets like small businesses. And when that trust owns a small business, you may have a corporate trustee who's very good at managing trust law, but they don't know anything about an appliance store. They don't know anything about a construction process or other small business or running
a farm. And this way, that grantor, settler, or the trust, the person that owns the farm, they can say, I want you to use my friend over here, who's another farmer that I really trust, to direct you, the trustee, how to manage that farm. It allows them to do that, and yet it also allows that sharing of fiduciary responsibility so that the corporate trustee is not fiduciarily liable for the directions received by that trust director, that other farmer, in compliance with the trust document.
Speaker 291
1:45:30
This has been endorsed by the Arkansas Bar
Association and the Arkansas Bankers Association. So does that exonerate or from any liability that
Speaker 293
1:45:48
trustee, when they're following that direction? Yes, Your Honor, so long as the trustee or the trust director is acting within the scope of those directions. But it essentially does exonerate or protects the trustee from liability for following the appropriate actions
or the actions by the trust director in compliance with the trust document. Questions by the committee? Senator
Rice, you're recognized for a question. Thank you, Madam Chair. Let me
Senator Terry Rice
Unverified
1:46:24
just be blunt like I normally am. you're telling me what the lawyers and bankers want. Who's this going to screw up? And how have we lived without it?
Speaker 298
1:46:39
I will say... How have we lived without it
Speaker 293
1:46:43
before? Well, it is a trend that we're seeing where more and more times the grantor or the person that owns that small business who has that son that has a drug problem, and they know that they can't turn it necessarily, that business, over to the son. It allows the trustee to step in there and how they can still, a corporate trustee, my largest client, frankly, in full disclosure, is Simmons Bank, that corporate trustee like Simmons can take that and work with that small business,
hold it within the trust, which they're really good at, and also allow that grantor to say, hey, I want my friend over here to tell you what to do. I guess the person that's really shorted on this is the son who can't necessarily sue the trustee for doing exactly what that friend who ran the business or operates that business to do. Now, that person, that trust director, still has a fiduciary duty, which is the highest level of duty we can assign to any individual.
They have a fiduciary duty along with that trustee for doing those actions properly, not self-dealing, not acting against someone's best interest within the trust. I guess when I think about who that's shorting, it would only be that child who may not like the way the directions were given by that trust director, even though it is in line with what the parent, usually, who creates that trust, wanted.
Senator Terry Rice
Unverified
1:48:23
And I will compliment you on your word shorted. And I do not mind a banking industry who are taking care of things they need to, but many times, as you know, we think we're fixing something and we find out later and it's because sometimes I don't know the questions to ask. Is there any
Speaker 298
1:48:47
opposition that you know of on this? None that I know of. Okay.
Anybody signed up? Only to speak for
the bill. Thank you. And what I'm hearing you say is, and
tell me if I'm wrong because I haven't read all of this, But basically, the one who sets up the trust has given some kind of instruction to allow this to happen? Yes. Okay. And so it's the property originally of that person who sets it up to benefit whoever, like the son in that instance.
but it's at the direction it's not just the bank or the trustee taking it up on themselves to do this, but what this law does is
say it's going to protect the bank from following the wishes of the one who set up the trust. Yes. Yes, Madam Chair.
Okay. So we have one to speak for the bill. Lynn Foster? She had to leave. Okay.
Speaker 301
1:49:51
She had to teach a class. She's on the Uniform Law Commission, has been on that and
Speaker 293
1:49:57
we're going to explain that the amendment
that was basically adopted was to make it more compatible with the National Uniform Law which they have signed off, which the National Uniform Law Commission has signed off on. Okay.
Senator Cooper, did you have your hand up for a question? Okay. So, Senator Letting, are you closed for your bill? You want to close
for your bill? You have a question? Okay. Senator Stubblefield has
Senator Gary Stubblefield
Unverified
1:50:27
a question. Thank you, Madam Chair. Would you agree that the trustee doesn't always have the best interest of the trust director at heart?
Speaker 293
1:50:41
to have, one, the settler's direction or the grantor, the one that created the trust, the business owner. They have to have what they want and what the trust document says as first priority. The second priority is the beneficiaries of that trust. They still have an obligation. If the trust grantor, the guy that owned the business or the farm and wants to move it into a trust,
if he says to follow and abide by the instructions of that trust director, that friend that knows how to run a farm, the trustee has an obligation by this law to follow those instructions. What if
Senator Gary Stubblefield
Unverified
1:51:26
this is a large row crop farm? The trustee goes out and sprays dicamba and does it in a way that's not
Speaker 304
1:51:37
legal and it harms a lot of... Who's liable then?
Speaker 293
1:51:41
Well, in that situation, what we would typically do, if you're looking at this law where you've got a trust director, If I'm talking about a trustee and a trust director, it would be the trust director that would say, hey, it's time to spray a bunch of dicamba. And the trustee is saying, this is, you know, the trustee following the directions of that trust director, says, okay, we're spraying dicamba. Now, each of them, each have that responsibility that they still behave in a lawful fiduciary manner,
in a manner of managing the property on the assets of that trust properly. If they don't, that's a breach of their fiduciary duty, which is actually one of the easiest things to prove out there in terms of breach of duty. In that situation, if they recklessly administer the dicamba, and so the trust gets sued, that farm gets sued for spraying something that harms somebody a mile away, At that point, that trustee, one, for their own actions, this does not protect the trustee from their bad acts.
It does protect them from taking actions in direct accordance with that trust director. But if they know that that act is going to be illegal, they can't take that. That would still hold
Speaker 31
1:53:06
them liable. Okay. Senator Ballinger. Thank you, Madam Chairman. So most of what I say, and I'm sorry for getting in late, you may have already answered this, but it looks like you're
Speaker 242
1:53:16
just codifying even what would be Arkansas common law with the uniform law for the most part, correct?
Speaker 293
1:53:24
There's very limited common law cases on this one where we've used trust directors, and there was some kind of lawsuit involved in that. It does fit what the uniform law has, and it does fit what is current practice. The problem with the current laws and the current common law has been that the trustee, even following the direct instructions by that trust director, still had that fiduciary duty if those instructions were wrong. Right. Well, and so, I mean, like, one
Speaker 31
1:53:49
of the things that, you know, within, and I'm sure within your trust, you probably have a provision within your trust that says that the trustee's not liable as long as they're acting in good faith, right?
I mean, you're given some, and I think that probably most good trusts probably have that, or else you'd not have anybody who's willing to be a trustee of anything. And so for the most part, I think even that, you know, adopting that, well, you don't see that in Arkansas case law and common law. You'll see that in almost every good trust will have that provision in it anyway. So I don't think that's all that big of a change. But what I guess my concern, since I do some state plan work, is what are some things that you would say? So that's one thing that's being adopted.
I probably won't even amend my trust anyway. We'll leave that language in there. No reason not to put belts and suspenders on.
Speaker 36
1:54:39
But in the end, is there anything else that you would say is a substantial change from what we're
Speaker 293
1:54:49
doing now? Not a particular substantial change. I mean, when I look at trust directors, we see them filling in really in three basic areas. We see them where you've got special needs trust, where the corporate trustee in particular may not be comfortable where you take away that ascertainable standard of health education, maintenance support for distributions,
but because that person may be on Medicaid, they're going to say, well, you make a distribution at strictly the complete discretion of the trustee, but we're going to make this director out here that says, here's how you're going to make those distributions and make that determination. We see it in those unusual assets like where the trust owns a small business or a farm in terms of how, you know, someone else directing when to plant, where to plant, whether to use dicamba or whatever. We see that also in there are some people who really like their investment advisor
and they want them to make all the investments out there, but the investment advisor, say, they're with Bank of America or they're with Wells Fargo and their trustee is over in Delaware, and they don't want to use that trustee, but they still want to use that investment advisor. That's the other place where we see people using trust directors to direct how that trust is investing. But I really don't see it being what I would call a substantial change in trust or estate plan law. All right. Thank you.
Any other questions from the committee
members? Seeing none, and no one else signed up to speak for or against the bill, Senator Lansing, are you closed for your
Senator Greg Leding
Unverified
1:56:20
bill? I am closed for Representative Maddox's
bill. What's the will of the committee? I'm able to pass. And as amended? As amended. And Senator Ballinger seconds the motion. Any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed, no. The bill has passed as amended.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Okay,
what else is in the room? Any other representatives? I know it's 12.15, but we
don't want to be here until 2.15 in the morning, so we're trying to get things out of here. What else is here? I
will say I had drafted that Senate resolution to respond to Senate Bill 378
And I think 571, hopefully, it'll be
here. I see where it was referred yesterday. And hopefully, I don't know what we're going to do with that.
But nobody else on this committee has any other bills? I was going to say the same
Speaker 33
1:57:33
thing, Center Fliers. That adoption reform bill that we talked about, I'd like to have the ability to take that up this afternoon upon adjournment.
Why not right now? We don't have all of our people together and in place, including Representative Penzo, who I saw him in public health. So I'd like to be able to take that up this afternoon if
we can. No, he doesn't have any bills. What
Speaker 314
1:58:04
bill do you have? Wait a minute. I got you on there. 1695 and 1633. Yeah, 1695
Speaker 233
1:58:09
should be easier. We made this afternoon.
my calendar. I don't know. House Bill 1695. Okay, let's get it out.
Speaker 318
1:58:25
I think there's an amendment on 1695. Okay. It's a great thing. There
Speaker 321
1:58:41
it is. Gary, did you think something else?
Okay, Senator Bunn, everybody have the amendment to House Bill 1695? Excuse me.
Senator Will Bond
Unverified
1:59:27
I don't think I got the amendment. I can grab it. That's all.
I would move adoption of
the amendment. Move adoption of the amendment. Second by Senator Letting. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Those
opposed, no. The amendment is adopted. You can proceed to present your bill as
Senator Will Bond
Unverified
2:00:04
amended. This is just a pretty simple bill by Representative Scott and Representative Petty.
The only mistake that they've made is probably asking me to run it in the Judiciary Committee. But it attempts to give some protection to people who are being trafficked and
sort of forced to engage in prostitution, or that's part of their trafficking. It gives them some protection. The amendment, I think, was at the request of the prosecutors to make clear that it is not an offense under this section if at the time of the person's commission of or arrest for an act that meets the elements,
the person was a victim of trafficking of persons. I think there was an issue with the prior language. They didn't think that was tight enough, so they wanted to tighten it up on this end. And the purpose of the bill, again, is to keep those folks who have been forced into human trafficking
from being charged with prostitution offenses under certain circumstances. You know, the bill that Senator Cooper
ran just a little while ago, House Bill 1634, is pretty much like this.
I mean, what's the difference? If the prosecutors can say, tell us what is the difference? They
Speaker 166
2:01:18
both are under the same section of the code. Do we not need this
Speaker 127
2:01:25
one now? No, we do. Oh, go ahead. Madam Chairman, members of the committee, they are dealing with the same human trafficking issues, but this bill is a little different. The previous bill pertained to rape shield protections for human trafficking victims. What this one does is,
and we helped Representative Scott with the language on the other end, but it basically would keep people who are forced into prostitution and are minors from being prosecuted for prostitution if it is investigated and shown that they are strictly victims of human trafficking. Questions by the committee?
Okay. Okay, so anyone else signed up to speak for or against?
Nobody has. So, Senator Bunn, you want to close for the bill?
Senator Will Bond
Unverified
2:02:21
I'm close for the bill. I appreciate a good vote, and I move
do pass. Okay. As amended. As amended. As amended, yes. Thank you. And Senator Cooper seconds the motion as amended. And so any discussion? None. All those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed, no. Ayes have it. You've passed the bill. Senator Ballinger, you're
Senator Will Bond
Unverified
2:02:51
And, Madam Chairperson, the reason 1633 is a little controversial, I think, or more controversial. I'm happy to run that later this afternoon. And then we have 1782 that I guess you and I need to discuss also. Hold on. You said 16? 1633. I'm happy to wait after Senator Ballinger. It does have some testimony, 1633. And then 1782 is the district court bill that you had asked me to wait just a second on, so I'm happy to talk with you about that one.
I'll stand down for Senator Ballinger at
this point. So, Senator Ballinger, you have House Bill what now? House
Speaker 252
2:03:37
Bill 1789, and I'm going to ask Mr. Josh Bryant. 1789? Yes, yes, 1789. And
Speaker 31
2:03:43
I'm going to ask Mr. Josh Bryant to come, who's the gentleman who put a lot of work into getting this together
Speaker 33
2:03:51
and helped kind of herd the cats to get everybody on board with this.
Okay, and remember, we've heard quite a bit of the testimony already, so you don't need
to just regurgitate this to us.
Speaker 33
2:04:04
Yeah, absolutely. So this is the bill, just to remind people, that we dealt with last week, and we pulled down and gave everybody a chance to look at it and read it. This actually is, so that was actually 1644 or 1488. It was the previous version, but we amended it to actually be this language, so that's what we're looking at. This language is exactly the same thing as what 1488 was going to be.
So it essentially is a bill to help kind of reform adoption just a little bit. The problem that we're seeing in Northwest Arkansas and really all over the state is where adoption has become human trafficking and become a profitable event for some people who are not doing it in the right way. So that's the intent of the legislation. If you have any specific questions, we'll be happy to oblige. Questions by the
committee? Seeing none, there's no one signed up.
To speak against or for the bill? Oh, I'm
Speaker 314
2:05:12
sorry. We don't have your names. I'm
sorry. Okay. You can't read some of Sandra Bradshaw. Sandra Bradshaw? Yes, ma'am. Okay, you're speaking against the bill. Yes. We have Kay McLeod against the bill. If you all go to the table on this now. Candy. John Trebell, against the bill.
Candy Cox, against the bill. I'm so sorry.
No problem. Okay, if you all would, identify yourselves. And then if you would, make your statement. And if we have questions, we'll put those
Sandra Bradshaw
Unverified
2:05:55
to you. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. My name is Sandra Bradshaw. I am a licensed attorney in both Arkansas and Mississippi. I've practiced in CrossFit, Arkansas, and I've been licensed since 1992 for 27 years,
and I do have done adoptions for those 27 years. I'm here to speak against this bill. It is punitive to both adoptive parents and to birth parents.
Can you speak more into the mic? Is that mic, all the other mics are
Sandra Bradshaw
Unverified
2:06:28
off? They're off. Okay. It's my position that this bill is punitive to adoptive parents and to birth parents. Although birth parents may not be well-educated or wealthy people, they are smart people.
They are loving people and are doing the very best they can in protecting their children and providing what they can't for them. The days of closed adoptions and secret adoptions are over. Most parents, adoptive parents and birth parents now, really want open adoptions. If Arkansas wants to move with the rest of this nation and move forward, let's do that. This bill steps us back in both penalizing adoptive parents and birth parents in various ways.
And I know that the committee has heard all the positions of how this can penalize the bill. But birth parents, as one provision in here, is that they have to be informed of what DHS can do for them. They know very well what DHS can do for them. They know that adoption is not a temporary solution to the problem, and they're doing the very best they can. This is the only statute in the 27 years that I've ever seen that I, as a licensed attorney and also a notary,
I can't notarize my own client's signature. I'm going to have to provide at 6 o'clock in the morning or 10 o'clock at night a notary, and that's going to be at the expense of adoptive parents. Every other attorney can notarize their client's contracts, their deeds, their property settlement agreements, but I'm not going to be able to do that. It's also the only statute that I've ever seen that penalizes attorneys who act in good faith at the discretion of a judge, And it does the same thing to the adoptive parents.
Finally, I'm asking this committee to vote against this. As some of you well know, Arkansas has a Garrett's Law. I recently had a case where a mother tested positive for methamphetamine and had no prenatal care and immediately made the decision to place her child with a couple of her choosing. and although they were from California, this law would have prevented that woman from making that
adoptive placement. She would not have been able to do that, and that child would have gone into DHS custody under
Speaker 333
2:08:59
the requirements of the statute and respectfully asked the committee
John Tribble
Unverified
2:09:04
not to pass. Thank you. Okay, next. Thank you, Madam Chairman. My name is John Tribble. I'm an attorney practicing in Little Rock. I am also against the bill for multiple reasons. One thing I would like to to point out is there are two agencies in Arkansas
that collect statistics on adoption. That would be the administrative office of the courts through cover and disposition sheets filed with the courts and the Department of Human Services who collect what's required by statute called the THE ARKANSAS ADOPTION INFORMATION SHEET. THE STATISTICS SHOW WITH WHAT LITTLE INFORMATION WE HAVE THAT THIS PROBLEM IS A VERY SMALL PROBLEM. EXCUSE ME, THE PROBLEM THAT THE BILL IS ATTEMPTING
TO ADDRESS WITH THE MARSHALLESE COMMUNITY IN NORTHWEST ARKANSAS IS A VERY, VERY SMALL PROBLEM RELATIVE TO THE TOTAL NUMBER OF ADOPTIONS THAT TAKE PLACE IN ARKANSAS. The most recent year in which statistics were collected in their entirety by both agencies is 2015. In that year, the administrative office of the courts reflects 2,167 adoptions were disposed in Arkansas. That means finalized.
So that is also, by the way, including all adoptions that are completed by Department of Human Services. Under the adoption information sheets, information was collected by DHS on only 1,226 adoptions. That's 57% of the total. Why this is significant, because the administrative office of the courts does not have any identifying information as to the race or the residency of birth mothers or adoptive parents, et cetera.
They merely reflect that adoptions were completed in Arkansas. Of the DHS statistics, Washington County completed 260 adoptions in that year. That's only 12% of the total. The DHS records reflect only one Marshallese adoption being completed in the year 2015. Now, we know that these statistics are not entirely complete.
However, what we do know is that we don't know how many are occurring. The administrative office of the courts reflect the 260 adoptions out of 2,167 being in Washington County. And we also know that not a full 100% of those adoptions, which comprise 12% of the total of the state, are Marshallese. Therefore, we're talking about if we inflate the numbers in favor of the Marshallese community, we're talking about somewhere between maybe 5% and 10% of the total in the state.
Um, we also know that there are a few attorneys who are specifically perpetrating the problem in Northwest Arkansas, and there are a few so-called Marshallese translators or runners or fixers as they've been known who are creating a lot of this issue. We know that one of those three attorneys is in bankruptcy proceedings right now and to our knowledge, is not practicing law.
Therefore, the number of Marshallese adoptions will be reduced. We also are aware that the FBI has investigated the matter. I believe it's still under investigation, but I'm not clear as to that. We know that the government of the Republic of Marshall Islands is aware. The Marshallese government has arrested
Jp Tribble
Unverified
2:13:06
one of the— Okay, can you just speak on the bill? Yes. Okay. Okay. Basically, the point being this bill, by these statistics, this bill addresses and penalizes 90% of adoptions or more to fix a problem that is already a factually reduced problem.
How does it penalize any adoptions?
John Tribble
Unverified
2:13:29
It penalizes it because when you look at the adoption triad, which is the parties involved being the child, the adoptive parents and birth parents, it's the most collaborative type of relationship in the law. Everybody is working together for the best interest of the child. Adoptions are usually not adversarial proceedings. In the case of this bill, by the onerous requirements, it increases the conflict between adoptive parents and birth parents.
It also, for example, adoptive parents who innocently attempt to assist birth parents may, unbeknownst to them, become a convicted criminal if a judge finds one of the expenses that the adoptive parents has paid prior to hiring an attorney or prior to getting an agency, if the judge finds that unreasonable, they're guilty, I believe, of a Class A misdemeanor. Okay, so, all
right. I didn't realize we had people to speak against the bill, Senator Ballinger.
and I want to be careful to give due consideration to both sides. Correct. And I'm looking at the clock, and we go into session at 1 o'clock. Correct. I think it would be better for you all to come back. Today is, what, Wednesday. I hate to be talking about this tonight, late into the night, but might have to do that. And are
you all from different parts of the state, or what?
Speaker 333
2:15:14
I'm from Baltimore, Governor. I'm from Dayton. Madam Chairwoman, I'm from CrossFit, Arkansas, southeast, but I will stay
however late is necessary. Let's bring it back. We'll probably meet
after session, 15 minutes after session today, so that you all are in town now, and we can have more
time devoted for your position, okay? I think that's fair, Senator Ballinger. I'm here
Speaker 238
2:15:42
to do the will of the committee.
Okay, all right. Well, let's just, okay, but
we don't want a lot of repetition. I mean, we heard you so far, so, you know, we'll see you later. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. I think it would be better for us to go get something to eat. Recess will, do I hit this? Okay, we're going to recess. All right, bye.
Agenda
Call to Order
SB344 B. Ballinger TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING THE FILING OF A MECHANIC'S OR MATERIALMAN'S LIEN.
HB1609 Gazaway TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING THE OFFENSE OF POSSESSION OF DRUG PARAPHERNALIA.
HB1673 Petty CONCERNING THE ISSUANCE OF A NO CONTACT ORDER.
HB1686 A. Collins TO AMEND THE DEFINITION OF "MARITAL PROPERTY" FOR PURPOSES OF DIVISION OF PROPERTY IN AN ACTION FOR DIVORCE.
HB1634 Petty TO INCLUDE ACTS COMMITTED BY A VICTIM OF HUMAN TRAFFICKING UNDER THE STATE'S RAPE SHIELD LAW.
HB1695 Scott TO PROTECT CHILDREN WHO ARE BEING TRAFFICKED FROM BEING PROSECUTED FOR PROSTITUTION.
HB1708 V. Flowers TO END CHILD MARRIAGE; AND TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING THE MINIMUM AGE REQUIREMENT FOR MARRIAGE.
HB1765 Maddox TO ESTABLISH THE DIRECTED TRUST ACT.
HB1612 Maddox TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING CHILD SUPPORT AND THE CENTRALIZED CLEARINGHOUSE.
HB1759 Hawks TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING JOINT CUSTODY AND THE MODIFICATION OF A CHILD CUSTODY DECREE.
HB1732 Womack TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING GARNISHMENT AGAINST THE STATE OR A SUBDIVISION OF THE STATE; AND TO ALLOW FOR INCOME TAX REFUNDS TO BE SUBJECT TO GARNISHMENT BY JUDGMENT CREDITORS.
HB1762 Crawford TO AMEND THE QUALIFICATIONS OF A GUARDIAN.
HB1789 Penzo TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING THE OFFENSE OF TRAFFICKING; TO CREATE AN OFFENSE FOR THE UNLAWFUL SOLICITATION FOR THE RELINQUISHMENT OF PARENTAL RIGHTS; TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING ADOPTIONS; AND TO DECLARE AN EMERGENCY.
HB1937 Dalby CONCERNING THE TRANSITION FROM LOCAL DISTRICT COURTS TO STATE DISTRICT COURTS.
Adjourned
Documents
| Title | Type | Pages | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Agenda — JUDICIARY COMMITTEE - SENATE AND HOUSE, Apr 3, 2019 | Agenda | 4 | Official source ↗ |
Speakers
Senator Stephanie Flowers Chair
Unverified
Speaker 6
Speaker 11
Senator Gary Stubblefield
Unverified
Speaker 17
Speaker 27
Speaker 31
Speaker 33
Speaker 34
Speaker 36
Speaker 41
Senator Will Bond
Unverified
Speaker 68
Speaker 73
Speaker 77
Speaker 87
Senator John Cooper
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Senator Greg Leding
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Paul Calvert
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Representative Vivian Flowers
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Speaker 127
Speaker 135
Speaker 136
Speaker 150
Speaker 151
David Camps
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Representative Andrew Collins
Unverified
Speaker 160
Sylvester Smith
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Senator Terry Rice
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Speaker 179
Heather May
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Speaker 185
Speaker 186
Kristen Stewart
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Speaker 192
Speaker 197
Speaker 203
Speaker 207
Speaker 210
Speaker 217
Speaker 219
Speaker 231
Speaker 238
Speaker 242
Speaker 244
Chris Mcneil
Unverified
Speaker 44
Speaker 258
Speaker 260
Representative Cindy Crawford
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Speaker 162
Representative Spencer Hawks
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Speaker 293
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Speaker 298
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Speaker 304
Speaker 314
Speaker 233
Speaker 245
Speaker 318
Speaker 321
Speaker 166
Speaker 325
Speaker 252
Sandra Bradshaw
Unverified
Speaker 333
John Tribble
Unverified
Jp Tribble
Unverified