House Bill 4706, Get specific on required responses to child abuse reports: Passed 105 to 1 in the House

To revise details of how child abuse or neglect reports are categorized based on whether children in a household are considered either “safe, safe with services, or unsafe,” and the government agency response that is required for each category. This is part of a legislative package comprised of House Bills 4704 to 4709 that would revise Michigan’s child protective services law and programs in response to a 2018 Auditor General finding that “efforts to ensure the appropriate and consistent application of selected CPS investigation requirements” are insufficient. Other bills would specify when an investigation could be “abbreviated” if a complaint is frivolous, and require that a contact must be made within 24 hours of receiving an abuse or neglect report that provides information on the well-being of each child in the suspect household.

Rep. Beau LaFave, R – Iron Mountain, Yes

House Bill 4020, Legalize “stun guns”: Passed 84 to 24 in the House

To repeal a ban on the sale, possession or use of stun guns by adults, defined as a “device that is capable of creating an electro-muscular disruption…capable of temporarily incapacitating or immobilizing an individual by the direction or emission of conducted energy.” The stun gun definition excludes launchable devices, which excludes “tasers” from the bill; current law requires a person to have concealed pistol license to carry a taser.

Rep. Beau LaFave, R – Iron Mountain, Yes

House Bill 4156, Allow pension “double dipping” by retired state psychiatric health care workers: Passed 38 to 0 in the Senate

To allow former government psychiatric health care workers who are collecting state pension benefits to go back to work in certain positions and collect a paycheck without taking a cut in pension benefits.

Sen. Ed McBroom, R – Vulcan, Yes

Source: MichiganVotes.org, a free, non-partisan website created by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, providing concise, non-partisan, plain-English descriptions of every bill and vote in the Michigan House and Senate. Please visit www.MichiganVotes.org.