Judiciary Committee- House

Concurrent to Senate amendment under house bill eighteen seventy representive Underwood you're recognized come and present the concurrence under house bill eighteen seventy. Members you have that. Amendment on your desk the gold she. Representive Underwood I'm you're recognized. Thank you madam chair committee I I know you for this bill a couple of times and I I know you know this isn't my bill but the content representative bill think it make it today so I told might help amount unless they're session run this bill this amendment for him basically the member does four things removes the language around agency to clear confusion that the bill is only to benefit the mother to includes late language around stillbirth miscarriages and then three it puts a cap on how many years after birth the mother can try to collect which is five years and then for includes language to exempt donors and I if the pregnancies again I know you heard like much of this yesterday but if you guys have questions I'll try to answer them. Members are there any questions. Seeing no questions we have no one who signed up to speak for against the bill you're recognized close closing I would just make a motion to concur in the Senate amendment. Members we have a motion to concur in the Senate amendment any discussion. All in favor of the motion say aye All opposed say no. Roll call. Representive Smith. Yes representive Underwood yes representative Hudson yes representative McCollum No representative Collins No representative Richardson No representative Cooper. Representive Cooper. Representative Clowney no. President of slate yes. Representative Scott. Representative Scott. Representative Crawford. Yes representative berry yes representative Gazaway. Representative Gazaway. Representative Cavenaugh yes representative Richmond. Yes representive Nicks No representative flowers representive flowers. Representative Ferguson. No. The motion has failed. The next bill members were taking up the Senate bill four seventy six senator Tucker you're recognized. Thank you madam chair thank you members really appreciate the opportunity to present this this morning it's my first time to present builder House Committee the session so I mainly hope my colleagues raised to serve on this committee with them give me to harm a time also want to thank my state representative representative Collins for jump up and presented this yesterday wouldn't have had a chance to visit beforehand so I just wanted to come give it a shot one more time today and answer any questions you may have I'll be succinct really. What this bill seeks to do is provide a little grace for people who were affected because they lost their job during the pandemic what it allows someone to do is if they were evicted they can file a motion with the court and if the court finds that the reason they were unable to pay their rent is because of the pandemic and they can have their eviction records sealed the reason that matters is because if you're evicted over time you can build up for a record and it makes it harder to get a new place to live or a new lease if you have a record of multiple objections so this just would allow the the record of the eviction cost only by the pandemic to be sealed and that's it. The bill has no effect whatsoever on landlords at every penny of rent that is that a tenant owes to a landlord to still do that does not change under this bill also it does not change the right of a landlord to evict a tenant if the if the tenant is unable to pay rent and the landlord can still affect the tenant the third thing is. On that point we made several changes to the bill one in particular that was brought to my attention by Senator Ballenger he said how will this affect the win was ability to enforce a judgment against the tenant and so we put language into the bill that specifically says. If you look on page two subsection II the ceiling record record relating to an eviction under this section does not inhibit a landlord from enforcing a judgment entered against the defendant either in the county in which the election to place or in any other county so there's no effect whatsoever on landlords when I filed this bill one of the first groups that reach out to as the Arkansas realtors association to get their take on Mr grinder who's here took it to the realtors association they took a vote on and the realtors association supports the bill at that point I brought to committee in addition to the change brought to my attention by Senator Ballenger. We made several other changes at the recommendations of the members of the Senate Judiciary Committee for example Senator Blake Johnson wanted us to define adversely impacted and so we defined that as being unable to pay specifically brief because of the pandemic another concern brought to all of my attention was because this is specifically limited in nature to being evicted as caused by the pandemic I had a beginning date of March first twenty twenty or vacation had to take place on or after that date. I didn't have an end date initially because when I filed the bill I didn't know when the pandemic was going to end and we also don't know if it may come back at some point. The members of the Senate Judiciary Committee or uncomfortable with no end date on there and I was uncomfortable just picking a date out of thin air without knowing what the future holds so what we did was we tied it to the governor's emergency declarations so there's an end date within six months of the removal of the governor's emergency declaration and the last change brought to my attention by the members of the Senate Judiciary Committee is they don't want a tenant to be able to make use of this too many times so we put a cap on their of three times you can only do it three times but those are all the changes we made again. No affect on landlord's whatsoever it's just a little grace for people who were evicted as caused by the pandemic and there's no opposition that I'm aware of on on the bill and I'd be happy to answer any questions. Richey Richmond you're recognized. Thank you madam chair. Sir Clark creates being here and certainly appreciate how gracious she worried thanking represent Collins obviously you didn't watch his presentation. My thanks was just for his willingness to do it okay. Anyway the question I have is you say that the you know this is obviously going to go in front of a judge and there's going to be a determination what evidence does the. I don't know call defended or red or whatever it is they got evicted what evidence does he have to provide to the court in order to get this this judgment the way that you would have done here in this bill not really be a a case by case is and will be up to each individual judge. I had some people advocating with me to make this automatic that if you were affected during the pandemic then you could automatically get your record seal without the intervention of a court. I didn't do it that way for a couple reasons probably most important which is if I do it that way I I thought it would violate the separation of powers because the judge has to make their own independent finding as to whether the person was actually actually was unable to pay their rent because of the pandemic so you know I mean. I can give you an example when I think the most common example would be if someone says Hey I lost my job I had no income for three months I was unable to pay my rent and that's why I was addicted and you know they either testify to that or they get their employment affidavit from their former employer or whatever the case may be my guess is in most of these cases those facts are gonna be undisputed. Most likely of course there can be a number of. Examples in the real world that I'm not thinking of at the moment but the the catch all for all that. Is that there has to be a judge who makes an independent finding that was caused by the pandemic so that's that's what. Brings comfort to the whole thing for me. Represent Hudson you're recognized for a question thank you madam chair I just want to put on the record that you clearly relied on your wrong representative. To present this yesterday and my question because it came up in our discussion yesterday and and I think that sometimes we lawyers forget that the system can be complicated there was concern about notice to the landlord that this would be occurring and this is obviously something that has to go on motion but can you walk the Committee through how that process works at the understand how that land or could be noticed and have the right to appear. Yes. So in any proceeding this is a civil proceeding and there's going to be multiple parties to the proceeding in this case it's going to be the landlord and tenant in that case it in any civil proceeding anytime anything is filed of record all the parties automatically get notice it's incumbent upon the person who does the filing to notify every other party the preceding and now we have electronic notifications where even if they don't really provide notice. As a as a lawyer I always get an email every time someone files anything any any case that I'm an attorney of record and so the landlord is automatically going to get notice no matter what. And I'll just say one more time on top of that. There's nothing about this that will affect the landlord anyway they're still do they're still owed all the money for rent today would have been owed otherwise they can still of the act and they can still enforce the judgment. The reason that you know they're a party to the proceeding is because you know they're trying to collect their their rent and as we put it in the legislation at the request of Senator Ballinger they can still enforce whatever judgment they get and that's not possible unless they're already a party to the proceeding anytime anybody files a motion as a party to landlord with notice of that. Members any other questions. Seeing no other questions we have no one who signed up to speak for against the bill you're recognized close for your bill. Thank you members thank you madam chair just reiterate quickly no effect on landlords just little grace for people who suffered more than most during the pandemic no opposition that I'm aware of and I would very much appreciate a good vote. Member center park is close roots bill what are the wishes of the committee we have a motion to do pass on the floor is there any discussion on the motion. All in favor of the motion please say aye. All opposed say no. The ayes have it you have passed your bill. Members that concludes our agenda as far as I know that concludes our business for the session of this committee doesn't meet that often during recess during our adjournment time during the interim time occasionally we will so just watch that and the subcommittee list will get mail mailed out to you or email to you here in a few weeks with that thank you