{"id":16790,"date":"2017-03-24T17:47:12","date_gmt":"2017-03-24T23:47:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lastbestnews.com\/site\/?p=16790"},"modified":"2017-03-24T17:47:25","modified_gmt":"2017-03-24T23:47:25","slug":"legislative-update-friday-march-24","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/2017\/03\/legislative-update-friday-march-24\/","title":{"rendered":"Legislative Update: Friday, March 24"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_16791\"  class=\"wp-caption module image alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 140px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"addboard wp-image-16791 size-full\" src=\"http:\/\/lastbestnews.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/Jill-Cohenour-1.png\" alt=\"JC\" width=\"140\" height=\"243\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Jill Cohenour<\/p><\/div>\n<h4>Bill seeks to head off\u00a0Real ID showdown<\/h4>\n<h6>By Freddy Monares<\/h6>\n<p>Montana is facing a deadline at the end of this year to comply with a 2005 federal mandate called the \u201cReal ID Act,\u201d which requires states to meet minimum security standards for identification cards to access federal facilities or get through airport security.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/leg.mt.gov\/bills\/2017\/billhtml\/SB0366.htm\">Senate Bill 366<\/a> would make it so that Montanans have the option to get a state driver\u2019s license that complies with the standards.<\/p>\n<p>Sen. Jill Cohenour, D-East Helena, the bill sponsor, said,\u00a0\u201cThe fact that Montana has not implemented (it) now, is going to start to affect actual citizens\u2019 ability to get on a plane and fly domestically,&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Cohenour said the state\u2019s issue with Real ID is a worry that private information could get leaked to the federal government.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think we\u2019ve gotten to the point where, let\u2019s get our questions answered about what does compliance really mean, and put this in place as an option for folks,\u201d Cohenour said.<\/p>\n<p>The Senate Administration Committee\u00a0will hear first testimony on the bill Monday.<\/p>\n<p><i>Freddy Monares is a reporter with the UM Legislative News Service, a partnership of the University of Montana School of Journalism, the Montana Broadcasters Association and the Greater Montana Foundation.<\/i><\/p>\n<h4>Update of sexual assault law sought<\/h4>\n<h6>By Cole Grant<\/h6>\n<p>On Friday, the House Judiciary Committee heard a group of bills that would rework aspects of sexual assault law in Montana.<\/p>\n<p>Missoula County Prosecutor Jennifer Clark said the current laws are outdated.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOne of the hardest things we have to do as prosecutors is tell a victim \u2018yes, you were raped. But legally, you were not,\u2019\u201d Clark said.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/leg.mt.gov\/bills\/2017\/billhtml\/SB0029.htm\">Senate Bill 29<\/a>\u00a0would, among other things, redefine the term \u201cconsent.\u201d It would mean a victim would no longer need to prove \u201cforce\u201d in rape cases.\u00a0Attorney General Tim Fox spoke in support of the bill.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt will be one of the most impactful improvements to addressing sexual assault in our state\u2019s history, and will fundamentally change how we approach this issue,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>The bill passed the Senate unanimously before moving to the House. There were no opponents at the hearing Friday. It\u2019s one of several bills that would modernize state law on the issue.<\/p>\n<p><i>Cole Grant is a reporter with the UM Legislative News Service, a partnership of the University of Montana School of Journalism, the Montana Broadcasters Association and the Greater Montana Foundation.<\/i><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Bill seeks to head off\u00a0Real ID showdown By Freddy Monares Montana is facing a deadline at the end of this year to comply with a 2005 federal mandate called the \u201cReal ID Act,\u201d which requires states to meet minimum security standards for identification cards to access federal facilities or get through airport security. Senate Bill [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":145,"featured_media":16791,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[1122],"class_list":["post-16790","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","tag-montana-legislature"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16790","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/145"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16790"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16790\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16793,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16790\/revisions\/16793"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16791"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}