Utah House advances package of public-safety, agriculture and transportation bills after full-floor debate

The Utah House on March 5 moved through a slate of bills affecting public safety, agriculture, transportation and consumer services, adopting several substitutes and sending them to the Senate after floor debate and votes.

Lawmakers opened with a concurrence and final-passage vote on House Concurrent Resolution 6, designating May 5 as Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls and LGBT Awareness Day, which passed 58-9 and will return to the Senate for signature. Over subsequent hours the House debated and approved measures on hit-and-run penalties, domesticated-game slaughter, single-plate license rules, towing regulation, CDL employer reporting, amusement ride oversight and peer-to-peer car sharing.

Supporters described the results as targeted fixes and updates. "Last year we moved some hit-and-run charges down from a class B misdemeanor to a class C misdemeanor... You may find it surprising that there are 4,000 hit-and-runs in Utah every year," Representative Eliason said while urging passage of the hit-and-run amendments, which the House approved 67-1. The measure restores certain property-damage hit-and-run offenses to a class B misdemeanor, the sponsor said, to address enforcement gaps when cases were pled down to infractions.

Agriculture-focused lawmakers approved third-substitute House Bill 412, creating a statutory pathway for on-site slaughter of certain domesticated game (for example elk and bison) and defining…