House Public Safety and Homeland Security Committee hearing on SB452, March 20, 2018. This is the end of a four-hour hearing. The question and motion here is taken from line 19 of the senate version of SB 452 here.

Chairman Alan Powell:            Questions on the motion, all in favor, say aye.

Group:                    Aye.

Chairman:            Opposed?

Speakers 3:            No!

Group:                    I don’t believe I need a show of hands on that, then. The ayes have that one. Any further amendments? Any other motions? No?

Rep Jesse Petrea:            I have another amendment, Mr. Chairman. On line 19, I move that we strike from the substitute, the word “may” and replace it with “shall”. At that one location.

Chairman:            We have a motion, do we have a second?

Speaker 5:            Second!

Chairman:            We have a motion and a second. Questions?

Mr. Clark?

Mr. Clark:              Just want the committee member to know about be aware, um, that there would be some unintended consequences, I get the reasoning but there would be some unintended consequences, um, regarding international businesses that we have a lot of in this state. When their CEO’s that are here, um, it would have some negative effects there, potentially. So unintended consequences, I understand the reasoning, but I think there’s some potential unintended consequences that we need to leave it as a “may”.

Chairman:            I have some other problems with that, I’m going to call our legislative counsel, there’s concerns about possibly constitutionality of that, if you would Julius, please-

Julius Tolbert, Legislative Cousul:  I guess here, if we, if you change the “may” to “shall” then you are statutorily requiring a police officer to detain someone, where constitutionally they have to have probable cause in order to do so. So, um, by putting a “shall” there, you likely will trigger a constitutional issue with that.

Chairman:            Thank you sir.

Senator:                Mr. Chairman?

Chairman:            Yes, sir.

Senator:                May I address the committee? There is a recent decision from the fifth circuit court of appeals in the city of El Cenizo, Texas vs. Texas, doesn’t have a citation, it just came out, March 13, this year, upholding mandatory reporting of, their law is similar in respects to this one.

Chairman:            Thank you Senator. All right we have before us a motion with some discussion is there any other discussion on this?

All right. Then all in favor, say aye.

Group:                    Aye.

Chairman:            Opposed?

Group:                    No.

Chairman:            Would ayes raise your hand?

One, two, three, four, five … opposed? And, it fails. All right, any further motions? Any further motions from any of the committee members? Any discussion, any comments? So before you, you have an amended version as a committee substitute.

All in favor say aye.

Group:                    Aye.

Chairman:            Opposed?

One Voice:           No.

Chairman:            Hm. I think the ayes clearly have that one. Thank you so much. Thank ya’ll for being in attendance. Senator, then this will be forwarded onto the House Rules Committee.

One Voice:           Thank you very much.