Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Protective Orders Reform topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Senate passes wide-ranging protective-order reforms after fatal case prompted work group
Summary
Senate sponsor described SB 27 as the product of extensive stakeholder work to expand protective-order eligibility to consensual intimate partners, set a 10-year default expiration for protective orders, and add workplace and rural-community provisions; the Senate passed the bill and sent it to the House.
Senator Weiler presented Senate Bill 27, a comprehensive set of amendments to protective-order, stalking and injunction statutes developed by an extensive work group after a June fatal shooting raised concerns that victims had been unable to obtain protective orders.
Weiler told the Senate the bill extends access to protective orders to people in consensual intimate relationships who previously might have been excluded because they had not cohabitated or married. The bill also establishes a default 10-year expiration for protective orders, after which the protected person must provide evidence to continue the order, and includes provisions to mitigate workplace and rural-community burdens (for example, adjustments to avoid forcing essential co-workers off the job while a dispute is adjudicated).
Weiler said the measure was the result of months of meetings with prosecutors, defenders, courts, domestic-violence coalitions, law enforcement and victim-advocacy organizations and acknowledged it was a compromise that may not satisfy all stakeholders. "I don't think I've put any more work into a bill as a legislator than I have in this one," Weiler said.
Senators discussed scope — including whether a "consensual intimate relationship" standard was the correct threshold — and noted stalking injunctions remain available in nonconsensual or short-term dating scenarios. The sponsor moved passage under suspension of the rules; the Senate passed SB 27 and the bill will be transmitted to the House for its consideration (the floor record does not specify a roll-call tally in the text provided).
