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Committee adopts substitute for workplace-violence protective-order bill, narrows firearm-surrender authority
Summary
The House Judiciary Committee adopted and reported out a substitute for House Bill 222 on May 15, creating a new 'victim counseling center' protective order and adding language that courts may not order firearm surrender unless a firearm was used in or threatened at a victim counseling center; committee recorded that such orders are not qualifying under the federal provision referenced.
The House Judiciary Committee on May 15 adopted a committee substitute for House Bill 222, which creates a protective-order pathway for victim counseling centers and clarifies limits on when a court may order the surrender of firearms in that context.
Chair Gray rescinded the committee's prior action on HB222 and proposed a new committee substitute as the working document. Dylan Hitchcock Lopez, committee aide, told the committee the substantive change appears in Section 9: the court may order "other relief the court determines to be necessary to protect the petitioner's victim counseling center" but "the court may not order a respondent to surrender a firearm unless a firearm was used in the act of violence at the victim counseling center or in the threat of violence at the victim counseling center."
Lopez also explained the substitute's relationship to federal firearm restrictions, saying the type of protective order created for a victim counseling center generally would not qualify under the federal provision cited in the record (referred to in the hearing as 922(g)(8)) because that federal restriction applies to orders issued on behalf of an intimate partner as defined in the cited statutory provision (9-24(a)(2)). "Those protective orders are only issued on behalf of an intimate partner," Lopez told the committee, and a victim counseling center is by definition not an intimate partner.
Representative Vance and others said the substitute narrows court authority and preserves due process while keeping the bill’s protective intent. A committee member moved that the substitute (work order 34-LS0864) be reported out with individual recommendations and an attached fiscal note; Chair Gray announced there were no objections and the substitute was reported out. Legislative legal services was authorized to make technical and conforming changes.
What happens next: the substitute version of HB222 will proceed with the committee's recommendations and attached fiscal notes; the committee record indicates staff will place statutory citations on the record regarding federal interactions if the committee wishes.
