I request that my colleagues support me. Thank you.
Senator Lindsey’s statement is as follows:
As we’re discussing these bills in front of us that have to do with protecting the elderly, I simply just want to take an opportunity to make an observation about them. Senate Bill No. 922 in particular talks about, in certain parts, financial exploitation of the elderly and especially doing that through deceptive practices. I simply wanted to observe that I think the No. 1 threat to elderly people being financially exploited is the government and politicians involved in it. I hope that if this passes, some clever elderly people will find a way to use it against people who are campaigning for their votes and lying to them and exploiting them financially through that way.
Senator Runestad’s statement is as follows:
The intent here is very good. I put in a bill a couple sessions ago to try to prevent financial exploitation of seniors. However, I do, in closer review of the bill, find some areas that I think are troublesome such as if you have this personal protection order under the section of the court that there’s a reasonable cause to believe that an individual restrained has committed one or more of the following acts: possessing or purchasing a firearm. That’s a pretty tall order and you want to make sure you get it right in terms of what an individual has done in order to have such a sanction. One of the provisions, under (i) on page 6, is “a pattern of derogatory or inappropriate names”—is that like the wrong pronoun? I certainly think that could be. Using profanity, ridicule, harassment, cursing, it just seems like it’s very open-ended in terms of what can happen to you.
It also is valid for a minimum of 182 days. I have seen so many of these cases where the judge will say a month, let’s see how it works. For some reason we write it for a minimum of 182 days? By the way, they can issue this ex parte meaning the individual and the attorney have no idea there’s even a court proceeding. You’re talking about a real series of sanctions that could be issued against a person because they used inappropriate names or a derogatory phrase or swore and that’s enough under the bill to really lose a lot of your rights?
Unfortunately, this could have been one of these situations where all on both sides of this chamber, in unison, that it’s a great bill. If those provisions could have been modified, I could support it. I can’t support it as it’s currently written.
The following bill was read a third time:
Senate Bill No. 923, entitled
A bill to amend 1931 PA 328, entitled “The Michigan penal code,” by amending section 159g (MCL 750.159g), as amended by 2022 PA 174.
The question being on the passage of the bill,
The bill was passed, a majority of the members serving voting therefor, as follows: