
Legislative Update
Terry B. Jones
District 4 Representative
Hello from Bismarck,
Mar 20, 2021
Things are going to really slow down now. We worked on 20 bills this week in my two committees and finished up the last one in transportation committee on Thursday. Next week we only have 10 more bills to do in Judiciary and we will be done in that committee as well.
The bill I should start out with this week in my report is SB2048. This bill was 54 pages long and the people who did the work on it did a nice job of updating the language. It is an update to language for the unclaimed properties that are held by the State Land Commissioner. We heard from Jody Smith that there is a lot of money in the unclaimed properties account, and that most rightful owners don’t know it is there. We learned that insurance companies holding money from a life insurance policy that is not collected by their family within a year of the person’s death, have to send the money to the unclaimed property account. It was good to learn that the insurance companies are highly motivated to get the money to the beneficiaries because that will encourage more people to purchase life insurance. The main message I want to convey to all of you is that if you have lost someone in your family it would be worth checking with the State Land Commissioner to see if there is unclaimed property in your family’s name, either from a life insurance policies, oil field royalties, or any other funding sources that go into this account because this money is always available to the rightful owners. It was interesting for us to learn that there are some people who have large sums of money in this account but they intentionally leave it there for various reasons (tax, family disputes, etc.).
Update on SB2166, shoplifting bill discussed last week. As anticipated the discussion was intense on this bill. A lot of us in committee wanted to stiffen the penalties enough to provide a deterrent to shoplifting. Others were concerned that we didn’t want to go too far and make felons out of shoplifters. As a committee we decided to go ahead and give the judges the latitude to go as high as a Class C felony for shoplifters on their 4th offense. One clarification we put on the bill was that the shoplifter has to be informed in writing when he is sentenced the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd times of the enhanced penalties he/she will be facing if they continue to shoplift in North Dakota. Thursday this bill was brought up first thing on the house floor and we spent about 35 minutes debating it. The body did support the committee’s recommendation for the enhancements to go as high as a Class C felony. It is our intention to send a strong message to business owners that we support their businesses. We also want to send a strong message to the Judicial Branch that we want them to take this serious in their sentencing practices associated with shoplifting. We also want to send a strong message to you, our constituents, that we don’t want you to be forced to pay higher prices at the store due to this criminal activity. If you see someone in a store engaging in shoplifting activities, please call them out or alert management so we can stop this in North Dakota.
While eating pizza with a number of legislators, one of my colleagues told the story about when he was a boy. He went to a store with his friend who shoplifted a candy bar. Luckily his friend got caught and was punished. When my colleague’s father heard about the incident he asked him if he had seen his friend take the candy bar. When my colleague told his dad he had seen the candy bar taken, his dad asked him if he tried to stop him. He told him no but that he had not stolen anything. His dad told him that he should have stopped his friend from stealing the candy bar and proceeded to give him a whipping that he still remembers to this day. I feel we all have a responsibility, if we enjoy our civil society, to ensure our families, friends, and associates follow the laws and rules that make this society so great.
I don’t want to take up too much of your time, so I will stop here and discuss more next week. As always if you have any thoughts or concerns please contact me.
Terry B Jones, 701.627.3397 [email protected]