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- Introduced by Sen. Jim Barcia (D) on October 22, 2009, to require the Department of Human Services to regularly review State Police information on outstanding arrest warrants. Under current law a person with an outstanding warrant is not allowed to collect welfare. The bill requires the state to create an automated database that cross-checks the appropriate lists.
- Referred to the Senate Families and Human Services Committee on October 22, 2009.
- Reported in the Senate on February 2, 2010, with the recommendation that the bill pass.
- Substitute offered in the Senate on March 25, 2010. The substitute passed by voice vote in the Senate on March 25, 2010.
- Referred to the Senate Families and Human Services Committee on October 22, 2009.
- Passed 38 to 0 in the Senate on April 13, 2010.
Who Voted "Yes" and Who Voted "No" - Received in the House on April 13, 2010.
- Referred to the House Family and Childrens Services Committee on April 13, 2010.
Most Recent Comments
1) Re: 2009 Senate Bill 941 (Establish arrest warrants welfare ban procedures ) by joemaflage on April 14, 2010Since many of these people have children with them at least part of the time nad are likely the working poor will you let them opt out of paying into a system that they can not take part so they are not taxed to pay for a program that only benefits other poor people.
Equal protection under the law comes to mind? Could you at least tie bar this to equal parenting legislation so that those who are trying to be parents have a fighting chance and those who really run away form children are the ones who are starved under this legislation?
Reply
I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice.
This proposed law may violate the due process rights of welfare recipients under Goldberg V Kelly.
URL:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0397_0254_ZO.html
BRENNAN, J., Opinion of the Court
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
397 U.S. 254
Goldberg v. Kelly
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK
No. 62 Argued: October 13, 1969 --- Decided: March 23, 1970
The question for decision is whether a State that terminates public assistance payments to a particular recipient without affording him the opportunity for an evidentiary hearing prior to termination denies the recipient procedural due process in violation of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
....
The constitutional issue to be decided, therefore, is the narrow one whether the Due Process Clause requires that the recipient he afforded an evidentiary hearing before the termination of benefits. [n7] The District Court held [p261] that only a pre-termination evidentiary hearing would satisfy the constitutional command, and rejected the argument of the state and city officials that the combination of the post-termination "fair hearing" with the informal pre-termination review disposed of all due process claims.
....
While post-termination review is relevant, there is one overpowering fact which controls here. By hypothesis, a welfare recipient is destitute, without funds or assets. . . . Suffice it to say that to cut off a welfare recipient in the face of . . . "brutal need" without a prior hearing of some sort is unconscionable unless overwhelming considerations justify it.
....
Welfare recipients must therefore be given an opportunity to confront and cross-examine the witnesses relied on by the department.
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Finally, the decisionmaker's conclusion as to a recipient's eligibility must rest solely on the legal rules and evidence adduced at the hearing.
...
Affirmed.
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This sounds like a good bill. As long as there is a provision (unlike the no-fly list) for someone to easily appeal.
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