Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Family Law Recodification topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Judiciary committee adopts technical changes, advances SB119 family-law recodification to House
Summary
The Utah House Judiciary Committee adopted a technical amendment and favorably recommended first substitute SB119, a second-phase recodification of family-law statutes that mostly reorganizes and cleans up existing provisions while making three limited substantive changes, including language on adoption venue.
The Utah House Judiciary Committee on Oct. 12 adopted a technical amendment and voted unanimously to favorably recommend first substitute SB119, a second-phase recodification of the state's family-law code.
Sponsor Senator Weiler opened the committee presentation and said the amendment under consideration was "a technical amendment mostly." He introduced Jacqueline Carlton, his draft attorney, who was present to answer questions.
The recodification reorganizes family-law provisions into a single title to improve clarity and consistency, Weiler told the committee. "So this is mostly a clean up, like the second part to kind of a giant clean up of family law," he said, and added that the long title of the bill reflects any changes that go beyond recodification.
Committee members pressed for specifics. Representative Thompson asked whether the bill contained policy changes beyond recodification; Weiler replied that most changes were cleanup but identified three substantive items raised by the family-law section: restoring language to allow adoption proceedings to be brought in a judicial district rather than requiring filing in a county; repealing a statute that set a particular time period for filing a petition; and repealing a statute concerning the adoption of an alien child.
Jacqueline Carlton explained the amendment as part of corrections made after the committee's earlier substitute: "there were just kind of some we made some changes in the first substitute, and there was just some kind of corrections that we needed to make that we missed in that substitute." The committee voted to adopt Senate Amendment 1 to SB119 and then to favorably recommend first substitute SB119 as amended to the House floor. Both motions passed unanimously and the sponsor asked that the bill be placed on the consent calendar; the committee approved that request unanimously as well.
The record shows no public commenters on SB119 during the committee's public-comment period.
The bill advances to the House with a committee recommendation and a request for placement on the consent calendar; the committee did not adopt any substantive policy changes beyond the three items noted and the technical corrections captured in the adopted amendment.
The committee meeting concluded after the vote on SB119 and subsequent advancement of SB150.
