By John Lyon and Rob Moritz
Arkansas News Bureau
LITTLE ROCK — A bill to require collection of DNA samples from suspects arrested on suspicion of certain crimes passed in the House on Wednesday.
House Bill 1473 by Rep. Dawn Creekmore, D-East End, passed in an 87-7 vote and goes to the Senate. The bill would require collection of DNA from people arrested on suspicion of capital murder, first-degree murder, kidnapping or first- or second-degree sexual assault.
State law currently requires collection of a DNA sample only after a person is convicted of a felony offense.
Creekmore said the bill would cost about $55,000 annually to implement, a cost she said the state Crime Lab could cover in its existing budget. In comparison, a single murder trial can cost as much as $200,000, Creekmore said.
“If we could prevent just one of these trials per year, wouldn’t it be worth it?” she said.
John Ramsey, whose daughter, JonBenet Ramsey, was killed in Boulder, Colo., in 1996, testified in a House committee Tuesday in support of the bill.
Creekmore named the bill after Juli Busken, a 21-year-old from Benton who was killed in 1996 while attending the University of Oklahoma. Busken’s killer was apprehended eight years later, but Creekmore said that if DNA had linked him to crimes he committed before 1996, Busken likely would be alive today.
The House voted Wednesday to reject HB 1866 by Rep. John Burris, R-Harrison, which would eliminate a 30 percent cap on the amount an employer can subtract from a minimum-wage worker’s paycheck to cover the employee’s use of company lodging, clothing or food.
The bill would direct the state Department of Labor to determine a fair value for employer-provided goods. Burris said the bill would make state law match existing federal law.
Some members questioned the potential impact on workers.
“I don’t feel like we should put a burden on those individuals who are the working poor in our state,” said Rep. Mike Burris, D-Malvern.
Speaking for the bill, Rep. John Paul Wells, D-Paris, said that if a worker is able to eat or shop at work at a discount, “the individual employee is going to end up with more money in his pocket at the end of the week under John Burris’ bill.”
The bill failed in a 42-39 vote.
In an 88-3 vote, the House approved Senate Bill 966 by Sen. Larry Teague, D-Nashville, which would prohibit offering event tickets for sale online before the tickets have been offered for sale at the venue hosting the event. The bill would not apply to athletic events.
Tickets for a 2007 Hannah Montana concert at Alltel Arena in North Little Rock in 2007 were offered for sale by online outfits before they went on sale at the arena, frustrating many fans who went to the arena to buy tickets only to learn the event had sold out within minutes.
“This is a vote for all the Hannah Montana fans out there,” said Rep. Steve Cole, D-Lockesburg, who ran the bill in the House. The bill previously passed in the Senate and now goes to the governor.
The House voted 98-0 to approve SB 468 by Sen. Johnny Key, R-Mountain Home, which would prohibit a person who has been convicted of a felony or third-degree domestic battery or is a registered sex offender from driving a vehicle that looks like a law enforcement vehicle and has a siren or lights that look like emergency lights.
The bill goes to the governor.
The Senate gave final approval Wednesday to SB 312 by Sen. Tracy Steele, D-North Little Rock, which would create a program to provide defibrillators to public schools in the state. The bill, containing a House amendment, passed 35-0 now goes to the governor.
The $1 million for the defibrillators will come from the recently passed tobacco tax increase.
The Senate also approved HB 1552 by Rep. Lindsley Smith, D-Fayetteville, which would require an employer to provide unpaid break time and sanitary, private location for working mothers to express breast milk.
The bill does exempt employers if it would be an undue hardship.
The bill passed 20-3 and goes back to the House for approval of a Senate amendment.
Also Wednesday, the Senate Revenue and Taxation Committee endorsed HB 1624 by Rep. David Dunn, which would cut the tax that manufacturers pay on utilities by three-fourths of a percent.
The House Judiciary Committee, however, rejected HB 1010 by Rep. Donna Hutchinson, R-Bella Vista, which would have added Level 2 sex offenders to the list of registered offenders who cannot knowingly enter a public school campus.
The measure failed to get a second motion to pass out of the committee.
