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Senate amends campus‑safety bill, swapping 'shall' for 'may' and passes measure
Summary
Lawmakers amended Senate Bill 80 to replace 'shall' with 'may' in a campus‑safety reporting requirement to clarify applicability to private institutions and campus police, then passed the amended bill 26–1–2.
The Utah Senate amended and passed Senate Bill 80 (campus safety amendments) on Feb. 18, 2020, adopting a floor amendment that replaces the statutory term "shall" with "may" in a key provision.
Senator Iwamoto moved Senate floor amendment E, which "takes the word shall and replaces it with may," a change supporters said clarified the bill’s reach and removed an unintended mandate. Senator Bramble explained that the amendment addressed ambiguity about whether private institutions with police forces — such as Brigham Young University — would be covered; he said a plain reading without the amendment could be read to include local law enforcement and private campus police under the bill’s definition.
Sponsor Senator Iwamoto described SB 80 as a consensus bill intended for public institutions of higher education and technical colleges and said it provides transparency and accountability through reporting. With the amendment adopted, the Senate voted to pass the amended bill by recorded roll call: 26 yeas, 1 nay, 2 absent. The bill will be sent to the House for its consideration.
Floor minutes show colleagues debated statutory definitions and clarified that the change was made intentionally to avoid applying the reporting requirement to private colleges.
