Latest news with #HouseBill206
Yahoo
09-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
All about six new laws in Ohio that go into effect today
COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) – Multiple new Ohio laws are going into effect on Wednesday, including a statute that requires public schools to allow religious release time and another that increases penalties for drunk driving. On Jan. 8, Gov. Mike DeWine announced he signed 29 bills into law, all of which are set to go into effect on Wednesday. A list of six notable new laws can be found below. House Bill 8, dubbed the Parents' Bill of Rights, requires school districts to adopt a policy that allows students to attend off-premise religious classes during the school day. Formerly, districts were allowed to permit religious release time, but not required to. In Ohio, religious release time programs are legally allowed to teach public school students during the school day as long as they have parental permission, do not use school resources and teach off of school property. The new law does not change these requirements. How Gov. DeWine, Ohio parents feel about proposed bill to ban cellphones in schools Although districts are required to have a religious release time policy enacted by Wednesday, schools have until July 1 to implement most other newly required policies in the law. This includes a policy ensuring content depicting 'sexual concepts or gender ideology' is available for parents to review, in case they would like their children to opt out. Starting in July, staff will also be required to 'promptly notify' a parent if their child requests to be referred to with a name or pronouns that vary from their biological sex at school. Liv's Law increases the fines for the offense of Operating a Vehicle Under the Influence (OVI). Specifically, the statute adds an extra $190 compared with the previous law. For example, the minimum fine for a first-time offense rises from $375 to $565. Video shows disagreement between Columbus principal, police officer The law also increases the maximum fine for aggravated vehicular homicide to $25,000, which is $10,000 more than the law previously allowed. Additionally, Liv's Law allows police to collect oral fluid samples from drivers suspected of driving under the influence, while the law previously only permitted blood, urine and breath testing. Similar to the other kinds of testing used in the state, refusing an oral fluid swab can result in criminal charges. House Bill 206 allows public schools to indefinitely expel a student who poses an 'imminent and severe endangerment' to others' safety. Ohio law previously allowed schools to expel students up to 180 days – or one school year – for bringing a gun or knife to school, making a bomb threat or causing serious physical harm to another person. Students aged 16 years or older could be permanently expelled only if they were convicted in court of a serious criminal offense, according to the nonprofit Ohio Legal Help. The new law allows expulsions past 180 days for students who bring a firearm or knife to school, make a bomb threat, cause serious physical harm to someone at school, make a hitlist, create a threatening manifesto or share a menacing post on social media. Organization offering 'bounty' for removal of invasive trees in central Ohio Under the statute, after 180 days, a student's expulsion can be extended for 90 days at a time, with no limit on how many extensions are allowed. To be reinstated, students are required to undergo a psychological evaluation by a psychiatrist. After the expulsion period, the superintendent, along with a 'multidisciplinary team' they select, will decide whether to reinstate the student. To make a decision, school officials will determine if the student has shown 'sufficient rehabilitation,' while taking the psychological assessment into consideration. House Bill 531, named Braden's Law, classifies sextortion, short for sexual extortion, as a felony in Ohio. Sextortion occurs when an individual is blackmailed over intimate images. The law categorizes sextortion as a third-degree felony; however, the charge could be upgraded to a second- or first-degree felony depending on a variety of factors, including if the victim is a minor or disabled, and if the perpetrator is a repeat offender. In Ohio, a third-degree felony carries a prison sentence of nine months to three years, and a judge may impose a maximum fine of $10,000. A first-degree felony is punishable by 3-11 years in prison, and a maximum fine of $20,000. Will speeding fines in Ohio increase? The law also provides immunity from prosecution to victims who sent explicit images, and implements fines for telecommunications companies who fail to give parents or guardians access to a device that belonged to a deceased minor within 30 days. House Bill 29 ends the practice of suspending driver's licenses for failure to pay court fines or fees, along with some other minor offenses such as school truancy. Residents whose driver's license or motor vehicle registration was suspended for such offenses before the law was passed are able to have their license reinstated. The law also allows those who have had their license suspended for being in default on child support payments to prove that a suspended license prevents them from making the payments and they could be granted 'limited driving privileges.' Within 30 days, impacted individuals will be notified and provided instructions on how to get their license reinstated. Senate Bill 58 enacts the Second Amendment Financial Privacy Act, which bars credit card companies, banks and other institutions from categorizing or tracking firearm-related purchases. Mail carriers say new contract failed union wishes The law states companies also cannot compile lists of gun purchasers and share such information with third parties, including government agencies, unless required by law through due process. The statute also prohibits the state or any local government from requiring liability insurance to possess a firearm. The legislation was a proactive move, as no local governments in Ohio required firearm liability insurance for gun owners before the law's passage. Nationally, some jurisdictions such as New Jersey and San Jose, California, have enacted such mandates. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
03-03-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Idaho Senate State Affairs Committee advances bill with changes to EMS operations
Idaho state Sen. Carl Bjerke, R-Coeur d'Alene, (right) listens to proceedings during the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee meeting on Jan. 7, 2025, at the State Capitol Building in Boise. (Pat Sutphin for the Idaho Capital Sun) This story was first published by Idaho Reports on March 3, 2025. Major changes could be coming to emergency medical services in Idaho as the Senate State Affairs Committee advanced a bill that transfers EMS Bureau's responsibilities to the Idaho Military Division. Idaho has never declared EMS an essential service, such as police and fire. As a result, the state is not required to fund it. For decades, EMS has struggled to find funding, and many agencies rely heavily on volunteers and donations. This bill moves the Emergency Medical Services Bureau from the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare and relocates it into the Idaho Military Division. The Military Division already coordinates emergency management with state and local government through the Office of Emergency Management. The bill still does not deem EMS essential, but calls it 'critical to the life, health, and safety of Idahoans.' House Bill 206, sponsored by Sen. Carl Bjerke, R-Coeur d'Alene, heads to the Senate after it passed the House of Representatives 53-15 last week. Last year's to bill to fund EMS services, declaring it an essential service, failed to make it out of committee. Local counties and cities would still have control over their own EMS programs and dispatching 911 calls. Idaho has 196 cities and 88% of the state is rural, Bjerke said. EMS availability varies widely county by county, and many counties do not have ambulance taxing districts to fund the service in the state. 'It's time for us to decide how we're going to structure EMS in the state,' Bjerke argued. In 2021, the Office of Performance Evaluations published a report on emergency medical services in rural Idaho, highlighting funding and staffing challenges as well as pointing out that about 7 out of 10 emergency medical workers are volunteers. Should the bill pass, it would also ask for a shift of funding and $150,000 one-time Emergency Medical Services dedicated fund spending authority to cover the cost of transition expenses, $60,000 to contract with a physician to serve as a part-time state EMS medical director to replace the Idaho Emergency Medical Services Physician Commission. Overall, the state would still not declare that emergency medical services are essential, but the bill may put agencies in a better position to work together. The bill would not provide new funding for individual agencies. Kelli Brassfield, policy adviser for the Idaho Association of Counties, testified in support of the bill, saying the majority of counties are supportive. There was no opposition to the bill in the Senate State Affairs Committee on Monday. The bill must pass the Senate before heading to Gov. Brad Little for consideration. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Yahoo
13-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
KY would begin compensating people imprisoned on wrongful convictions under GOP bill
Kentucky is in a minority of states without laws to compensate people who are wrongly convicted and imprisoned. (Getty Images) FRANKFORT — A Republican bill to financially compensate Kentuckians exonerated after wrongful convictions unanimously cleared its first legislative hurdle, the House Judiciary Committee. House Bill 206 could cost Kentucky an initial $3 million over the course of three years and between $650,000 to $900,000 each year after in payments and other benefits to innocent people who spent time behind bars and on parole for crimes they didn't commit. It passed unanimously out of committee Wednesday. Majority Whip Rep. Jason Nemes, R-Middletown, is the bill's primary sponsor. He said in order to receive compensation, a person would need to have been wrongfully convicted in Kentucky and prove innocence. Such a person would then receive $65,000 for each year of wrongful imprisonment — $75,000 in cases of a death sentence — and an additional $32,500 for each year spent on parole or wrongfully registered as a sex offender. The bill also would provide exonerated individuals with a tuition waiver to cover 120 credit hours at any public college or university in Kentucky, enough hours to earn a bachelor's degree. Winnie Ye, the state policy advocate with the Innocence Project, said there have been 22 people wrongfully convicted in Kentucky since 1989, when the organization started tracking that data. Those people have lost a total of 200 years to those wrongful convictions, Ye said. Nemes brought with him several people who were wrongfully convicted. One of them, Mike VonAllmen, said he was exonerated in 2010 after being imprisoned since 1983 in an 'incredible case of mistaken identity.' 'When we look at wrongful conviction and face value, we see there is nothing partisan about this issue,' VonAllmen told the committee. 'We universally agree that confining someone for years over a mistake is wrong and then to open the doors and let them go free only is wrong as well. This bill addresses that wrong.' Johnetta Carr spent four years in jail, starting when she was 16. 'When I walked into the interrogation room, I thought that if I just told the truth, I would get to go home, which is what I was told,' Carr said. 'I did tell the truth, that I was innocent. From there, I got booked into the Jefferson County Detention Center, where I sat until I was 18, awaiting the trial that never happened.' She entered an Alford plea in which a defendant denies guilt but agrees to be sentenced. Former Gov. Matt Bevin pardoned Carr in 2019, according to the National Registry of Exonerations, and she is challenging her conviction in federal court after a police witness and jailhouse informant recanted statements they had given police against her. She told lawmakers she still faced barriers to employment. 'Wrongful conviction is something that I will live with for the rest of my life,' Carr said. 'But I am not a victim. I just find it appalling that as a person who had to go for a certain time and get treated like a criminal for a crime that I did not commit, that people that are actually guilty of crimes get more resources than we do.' She said the tuition waiver would be 'very, very impactful for me.' Before her wrongful conviction, she wanted to be a paralegal, and would still like to pursue that, she said. Rep. Daniel Elliott, R-Danville, who chairs the judiciary committee and is a co-sponsor of the bill, said '$65,000 a year for each year that you were wrongfully in prison really isn't that much money when you think about your life being totally taken away for you for that period of time.' Ye with the Innocence Project said wrongful convictions are 'a symptom of our broken criminal legal system' and a ' grave injustice' that must be addressed. If Kentucky made HB 206 law, the state would join 38 other states and the District of Columbia in having compensation laws on the books for the wrongfully convicted, Ye said. Suzanne Hopf, the directing attorney of the Kentucky Innocence Project, said the bill is 'long overdue.' 'I don't know if anybody can understand the impact that prison really has on you when you've been in there for several decades,' Hopf said. 'But the reality of their life is that they're walking out with no job skills, no home, family members that may have been deceased.' Kentucky has, on average, 1.2 exonerations every year, Hopf said. Each of those has spent an average of 15 years in prison.
