Senate Judiciary Committee approves bill clarifying effective date of firearm sentencing enhancement

At a meeting of the Senate Judiciary Committee, members approved a bill that inserts a specific effective date for a sentencing enhancement for possession of a firearm and clarifies that the measure is not retroactive.

Unidentified Speaker 2, who introduced the item, described it as a "very simple bill" that ‘‘comes just from code revision’’ and said it is intended to ‘‘clarify the effective date’’ for the sentencing enhancement. The bill, as amended to include a date, sets the effective date as Jan. 1, 2024; Unidentified Speaker 2 said that timing is "consistent with the Protect Act."

The exchange that followed focused on whether the change would affect past convictions. Unidentified Speaker 3 asked whether the Code Revision Commission had treated the matter as an oversight or a substantive drafting error and whether the revision could be retroactive. Unidentified Speaker 2 replied, "It it's not retroactive," adding that legislation could be written to be retroactive but "this legislation is not retroactive."

Unidentified Speaker 4, who said he was present at the Code Revision Commission discussion, explained the commission's role in making technical corrections and drawing a line between technical fixes and substantive changes: "the code revision commission is charged with technical corrections to bills," he said, and the commission chose not to treat this as a purely technical fix and referred it back as a substantive bill for the legislature to consider.

Following debate, Senator McKee moved to approve the bill and Senator Hester seconded. A voice vote produced "Aye" and "No" responses before the chair called for a roll call. The roll call record in the transcript shows Senator Hester voting yes, Senator Rice voting yes, Senator Gilmore voting yes, Senator McKee voting yes, Senator Flowers voting no, and Senator Stubblefield voting yes. Senators Tucker and Clark were called during the roll but the transcript does not record their votes.

The chair declared the measure approved and announced varying tallies in immediate succession (transcript includes statements "Your bill passes 6 to 2," then later variations including "6 to 1 with 1 abstain"). Those announcements conflict with the explicit roll-call entries in the transcript; based on the recorded names, the roll-call evidence in the transcript supports five recorded "yes" votes, one recorded "no" and two members with no recorded vote.

The committee took no further business and adjourned.

Questions remain about the chair's announced final tally versus the roll-call record; the committee transcript records the votes listed above but also contains the chair's inconsistent announcements of the final count.