In today’s first half of the Judiciary meeting two bills were passed. House Bill 2008, this bill is a committee substitute and relates to nonpartisan election of justices of the supreme court of appeals. The actions of this bill would take place with the nonpartisan election in 2020, the committee passed the bill and it is due to appear on the House floor.
House Bill 2362 was also passed by the committee along with an amendment. This bill relates to procedures for voting an emergency absentee ballot by qualified voters. In the bill there was a line which discussed reasons why a person might need an absentee ballot and used the phrasing “extreme advanced age” this was amended to just say age. This bill will also be reported to the House floor.
After meeting again in the afternoon the committee was able to work pass two more bills to the House. House Bill 2193 provides a specific escheat for US savings bonds. The maturity date for a bond is the day the bond stops losing interest, this bill would allow people to claim those bonds up to 5 years after that date. There were two amendments that were attempted for this bill, one delegate had some trouble with the wording of the bill and worried that it would not allow people to claim bonds from their relatives or loved ones after those 5 years were over. Their amendment failed and another was accepted which changed language and wording in the bill for better clarification as to what the bills purpose is.
House Bill 2423 prohibits certain sex offenders from obtaining supervisory positions over groups of children. There was one amendment made to this bill that includes the words “religious groups” in the examples of what groups of children could be considered as. The amendment was adopted and the bill was passed by the whole committee to be reported to the floor.
To conclude the meeting the committee briefly heard an overview of House Bill 2003. This bill would extend the expungement of certain criminal convictions, this is a sub-committee bill and will be further discussed and voted on by several members from the Judiciary committee.
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