Legislature(2003 - 2004)
03/31/2004 01:20 PM House JUD
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* first hearing in first committee of referral
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HB 439 - OATHS; NOTARIES PUBLIC; STATE SEAL [Contains discussion and adoption of an amendment making a provision of HB 439 conform to provisions of SB 203.] Number 1504 CHAIR McGUIRE announced that the next order of business would be HOUSE BILL NO. 439, "An Act relating to the authority to take oaths, affirmations, and acknowledgments in the state; relating to notaries public; relating to fees for issuing certificates with the seal of the state affixed; and providing for an effective date." [Before the committee was CSHB 439(STA).] Number 1530 ANNETTE KREITZER, Chief of Staff, Office of the Lieutenant Governor, relayed that members' packets contain a sectional analysis for CSHB 439(STA) and a two-page comparison between current law and CSHB 439(STA). She explained that when the current lieutenant governor came into office, as his chief of staff, she researched the issue of what could be done differently to serve Alaska's 12,000 notaries public better, adding that she'd looked at what other states have done and at legislation proposed in prior years. Number 1589 SCOTT CLARK, Notary Commission Administrator, Office of the Lieutenant Governor, added that the current notary statutes have not been changed since 1961. MS. KREITZER presented CSHB 439(STA) as follows: These are the highlights. For the qualifications, we've lowered the minimum age from 19 to 18 years because we were only one of two states that had 19 as an age. So now, only [in] Nebraska [do] you have to be 19-years-old to be a notary - if this bill passes. The second issue goes to whether or not ... we wanted to allow felons to be notaries, and in conversations with the Department of Corrections, their advice was ... [that] within 10 years of getting out of jail, if a felon doesn't reoffend, then they're likely to not offend again. And so that has been put into the bill as a qualification, that an applicant ..., from the time of release from prison, ... can apply 10 years later to be a notary. And in your packet ... are ... what the felonies consist of. ... So those are two changes on qualifications - major changes. We looked at whether or not we ought to change the terms [of a] notary public - [it's] four years; we haven't changed that. The ... $40 application fee stays the same. There is an increase for the certificates, that used to be per folio, which is an outdated term not used anymore; so now, every time we have to issue a certificate, it will be $5 rather than $3. And that just goes to the cost of business from 1961 to today - we're increasing it by $2. We didn't change the amount of the bond; however, we are now - thanks to an amendment by Representative Gruenberg - ... required to keep copies of the bond for 10 years, which isn't a problem for us. Number 1683 MS. KREITZER continued: There are two commission types: ... notaries public, and ... limited governmental notaries public. We've kept that distinction, but expanded limited governmental notaries public commissions to include municipal and federal employees in addition to state employees. And we've also said that you can hold concurrent commissions; if you are a private citizen - ... you're not doing this for your job, you just do it because you want to be a good citizen and be a notary - you can do that in addition to holding a commission as a state employee or a federal employee. But when you're acting as a notary public in your federal job, you're not going to be charging fees - you're going to be doing it because in the course of your business that's what you're required to do. As a private citizen you can be a notary and you can charge fees separate from that .... So that's one little change in the bill, is that you now can hold those concurrent commissions, but they operate in parallel; they don't cross over. There is some information that we wanted to gather from the notaries to make it easier to go to a more web-based system working with the 12,000 notaries, and one of them were e-mail addresses, but we didn't want to open up notaries to spam, and so we wanted to keep that information confidential. Everything that currently is public information about notaries stays public information; we just wanted to gather a little bit more information so we could communicate with them more effectively. And that's a quick overview of the bill ...; we'll be glad to answer any questions. There is an amendment in your packet from us that would make our bill consistent with the administrative hearing officer bill [SB 203] which you amended in this committee previously. Number 1776 CHAIR McGUIRE, after ascertaining that no one else wished to testify, closed public testimony on HB 439. REPRESENTATIVE GRUENBERG noted that he has an amendment similar to the one that Ms. Kreitzer mentioned. MS. KREITZER expressed a preference for the amendment prepared by Deborah Behr from Department of Law (DOL) labeled 23G-2, 3/26/2004, (1:46 PM), which read: Page 16, following line 30: Insert a new bill section to read: "* Sec. 12. AS 44.50.068(e) is repealed and reenacted to read: (e) If the lieutenant governor finds that formal disciplinary action may be warranted, the lieutenant governor shall refer the matter to the office of administrative hearings for a hearing." Renumber the following bill sections accordingly. Page 17, line 25, following "Sec. 15.": Insert "(a)" Page 17, following line 27: Insert the following new material: "(b) AS 44.50.068(f) is repealed." Page 18, line 2: Delete "secs. 1- 14" Insert "secs. 1 - 11 and 13 - 15(a)" Page 18, line 7: Delete "secs. 1- 14" Insert "secs. 1- 11 and 13 - 15(a)" Page 18, following line 16: Insert new bill sections to read: "* Sec. 18. The uncodified law of the State of Alaska is amended by adding a new section to read: CONDITIONAL EFFECT. Sections 12 and 15(b) of this Act take effect only if a bill is passed by the Second Session of the Twenty-Third Alaska State Legislature, and enacted into law, that establishes procedures for administrative hearings conducted by an office of administrative hearings in the Department of Administration. * Sec. 19. If secs. 12 and 15(b) of this Act take effect under sec. 18 of this Act, they take effect on the effective date of the provisions described in sec. 18 of this Act." Renumber the following bill sections accordingly. Page 18, line 17: Delete "Section 16" Insert "Section 17" Page 18, line 18: Delete "sec. 17" Insert "secs. 19 and 20" Number 1894 REPRESENTATIVE GRUENBERG, calling the aforementioned Amendment 1, [moved] to adopt Amendment 1. CHAIR McGUIRE asked whether there were any objections to Amendment 1. REPRESENTATIVE GARA asked for an explanation of what Amendment 1 does. MS. KREITZER relayed that Amendment 1 provides for the administrative hearing process outlined in SB 203 to be used after 7/1/2005 should SB 203 pass. REPRESENTATIVE GARA indicated that he did not object to Amendment 1. Number 1917 CHAIR McGUIRE announced that Amendment 1 was adopted. Number 1932 REPRESENTATIVE GRUENBERG made a motion to adopt Amendment 2, which read [original punctuation provided]: Page ___, Line ___: Insert new bill section to read: *Sec. ___. AS 44.50 is amended to by adding a new section: Sec. 44.50.___. Unauthorized practice. (a) A notary who is not an attorney may complete but may not select notarial certificates, and may not assist another person in drafting, completing, selecting, or understanding a document or transaction requiring a notarial act. (b) This section does not prohibit a notary who is qualified in, and, if required, licensed to practice, a particular profession from giving advice relating to matters in that professional field. (c) A notary may not make representations to have powers, qualifications, rights or privileges that the office of notary does not have. Number 1937 CHAIR McGUIRE objected for the purpose of discussion. REPRESENTATIVE GRUENBERG said that Amendment 2 will prohibit a notary from practicing law, and opined that the Hams case illustrates that the exact language of notarization certificates is extremely important. Number 1992 CHAIR McGUIRE removed her objection and asked whether there were any further objections to Amendment 2. REPRESENTATIVE OGG noted that Amendment 2 does not specify where in the bill its language will be inserted. He asked whether Amendment 2 would be conceptual. REPRESENTATIVE GRUENBERG confirmed that Amendment 2 would be conceptual. Number 2007 CHAIR McGUIRE, after ascertaining that there were no further objections, announced that [Conceptual] Amendment 2 was adopted. Number 2015 REPRESENTATIVE GRUENBERG moved to report CSHB 439(STA), as amended, out of committee with individual recommendations and the accompanying fiscal note. There being no objection, CSHB 439(JUD) was reported from the House Judiciary Standing Committee.
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