Senate committee backs bill banning ticket quotas, ties grant eligibility to compliance

Senate Judiciary Committee members voted to favorably recommend SB 67 on Feb. 18, a bill aimed at preventing law enforcement agencies from imposing ticket quotas on officers and tying state grant eligibility to compliance.

Sponsor Senator Weiler framed the measure as a renewal of a policy the Senate passed years earlier that lacked enforcements. "We didn't want police officers to have to meet a certain quota," he said, arguing the bill clarifies that a quota is a numeric requirement or minimum standard for citations and would be prohibited. The bill preserves agency ability to measure community engagement: "A person may report a violation to the state commission on criminal and juvenile justice," Weiler said, noting the substitute language allows metrics for interactions so officers are not penalized for issuing warnings instead of citations.

The bill would define an "impermissible quota" and specify that a political subdivision or law enforcement agency may not require officers to meet such quotas, or evaluate, promote, compensate, reward, discipline or transfer officers on that basis. Sponsor and supporters said the only practical enforcement mechanism in the bill is to condition state grant eligibility on compliance. Nate Mudder, chair of the law enforcement legislative committee, told the committee his coalition was neutral and thanked the sponsor for engaging with law enforcement in drafting.

After brief questions to clarify enforcement and the engagement-metric exception, the committee voted to recommend the bill to the full Senate. The committee chair announced the motion passed unanimously.