Speaker 1: The Senator has yielded. Um, let me get to these amendments. Uh, I did skip over that. Chair, have we read, have we read the amendments? Read- read 1A.
Speaker 2: Amendment 1A by Senator Jones of the 10th. Offers the following amendment to Amendment One, to House Bill 452 by online 20 striking who are aliens and [inaudible 00:00:23] the order.
Speaker 1: The Chair recognizes the majority leader, Senator from the 46th to speak to the amendment.
Speaker 3: [00:00:30] Amendment One.
Speaker 4: Thank you Mr. President, uh, ladies and gentlemen of the Senate. This amendment is simply re-instating big portions of Senate Bill One that have been stripped out by the House and the committee process. We passed our anti-terrorism act before cross-over day and it did several things to re-define domestic terrorism. You might [00:01:00] remember we had the collaboration of both parties in that the Senator from the 2nd and the 22nd assisted in making certain that that in no way limited the rights of lawful protest or freedom of speech, etcetera. It also encouraged local law enforcement to report suspicious activity and known terrorists to the Fusion Center, uh so that we could take appropriate action, and it gave additional prosecutorial powers to the Attorney General to assist local district attorneys in the prosecution of domestic [00:01:30] terrorism. In addition to that we had created a new Department of Homeland Security that is currently housed within GEMA, and we split it out into a separate agency with the commissioner and a board to es- establish policy for our anti-terrorist strategy. That part ended up being in a little bit of a turf war uh, and through the committee process over in the- in the House it was taken out. Essentially what happened is the Fusion Center is currently [00:02:00] under the command of the- uh, GBI Director. Our Bill asks for the Homeland Security Commissioner to be in charge of the Fusion Center. That met with bureaucratic uh, objection from the GBI so we have taken that out. Everything else is pretty much the same as we had passed out of here, uh, ver- very strong about partisan vote earlier. It still creates a Board of Homeland Security uh, that it has everybody that needs [00:02:30] to be involved in that process, if you looked at the page four starting up at line 99 we list all of the different officials in the State that need to be involved in the planning and response to any type of terrorist activity. That Board is then tasked with coming up with an anti-terrorist strategy. I think our state is deficient that we have not yet planned for these type of events, these type of attacks, we need a strategy and some direction. This Board will come [00:03:00] up with that strategy, strategy, and also establish department policy for the Department of Homeland Security. It sounds like we’re creating a new agency, it’s really only a very few individuals. It is the Commissioner of Homeland Security. Currently they have two analysts that are in charge of anti-terrorism type analysis. I think we have funded a coupla more in this year’s budget. Anybody else will just be shifted from GEMA. Ya gotta remember right now Emergency Management and Homeland Security [00:03:30] are housed in the same agency. We now refer to them as GEMSA so there may be some employees that are shifted under the control of Homeland Security, we’re not talking about hiring new people, building out a new bureaucracy, or an increase in the size of government, just delineating the functions of- of Homeland Security separate from Emergency Management. Uh we- didn’t survive the committee process in the House on this mostly because of that in-fighting. I think by leaving command and control [00:04:00] with GBI this should alleviate that, and let’s have a plan going forward how we’re going to respond to terrorist threats so uh, it doesn’t impact the other portions of the Bill that are identifying known felons that have been released from federal prison, puttin’ em on the GBI’s website which should be part of an overall strategy to protect against terrorist activity. Mr. President, if there are no questions I’ll be glad to yield the well, but I’m, I’m happy to answer any questions that there might be.
Speaker 1: You do have a question. Chair will recognize the distinguished [00:04:30] special judiciary- chairman Senator from the 5th.
Speaker 5: Um, well the gentleman yelled over this- this [crosstalk 00:04:33] … question of parliamentary inquiry-
Speaker 4: Sure
Speaker 5: Um, it appears this … your Amendment is 21 pages and the Bill is-
Speaker 4: That’s true.
Speaker 5: One page. Um, will that have the effect of forcing us back to rules?
Speaker 4: That, that will uh, that’s a good question. I should have mentioned that earlier. Because of the length of this amendment it will create a floor substitute. It will go back to rules and it will be eligible for consideration on day 39. [crosstalk 00:05:01] [00:05:00] I think it’s important enough to delay it a day and, and I’m, I’m sorry that … and I hope it doesn’t slow down uh, the underlying Bill more than just that one day, it shouldn’t.
Speaker 5: Mr. President, I should have directed to you-
Speaker 1: Very good, thank you. There are no further questions Senator.
Speaker 4: Thank you Mr. President, I yield the well.
Speaker 2: The Chair recognizes the Senator from the 29th, the 29th to speak to … or I’m sorry, hold on. Uh, Senator from the 10th, you wish to be recognized? Lemme get that and that way we’ll have all the amendments [inaudible 00:05:32].
Speaker 6: [00:05:30] Thank you Mr. President. [inaudible 00:05:36] I rise in support of Amendment 1A which sim- …
How did we do?
