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. [2]
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: [3] 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 [4] 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.