Legislative Update from Senator Chris Caughman

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• LEGISLATIVE UPDATE

  We are getting close to the half way mark of the 2020 session of the Mississippi Legislature and things

  are really picking up speed. The filing of general bills deadline has passed and committee meetings are

  in full force. It is a much busier time for me as I now chair the Business and Financial Institution

  Committee and I have spent much time going over bills assigned to my committee and determining

  what bills to bring out and what bills to let die in committee.

  One of those bills that I will be bringing out of committee this week are Senate Bill 2854 of which I am

  the author that authorizes the Department of Revenue to revise the individual income tax forms to

  allow designation of two bank accounts for direct deposit on receiving your state refund. This is just a

  mechanism hopefully to get people to put money into some sort of savings account or savings plan.

  Often times once that money gets deposited into ones checking it doesn’t take long to spend it and by

  doing this hopefully this will encourage someone to put some back for savings purposes.

  Another bill which I would like to mention that actually didn’t get referred to my committee but

  probably should have is Senate Bill 2202 The Elders Abuse Bill. I am also the author of this bill and what

  this bill does is that if someone over 65 years old is the only one on an account and people in the bank

  know this person well and have really good reason to believe that this person is getting exploited or

  scammed, then the bank can if they choose put a hold on that transaction for 15 days and contact law

  enforcement to help in the matter. We see this happen way too often in our workplaces today and too

  many times there is nothing we can do to help and feel absolutely helpless in the matter. At least with

  this bill, this can buy some time to save the money for the owner of the funds and hopefully stop an

  exploitation from taking place.

  One other bill I would like to mention that I am the author of is Senate Bill 2187 which is the Certificate

  of Foreign Birth Bill. Right now parents from Mississippi who go overseas to adopt babies from other

  countries go through a long, brutal, expensive process. Now, I understand that a lot is needed in our

  crazy world we live in but the problem lies when they get back home to Mississippi in order to get a

  birth certificate from the State they have to go through another round of practically the same process

  and info. Another round of attorney expenses. Another round of the same paper work. Another round

  of drawn out time lost. This bill does exactly what they do in Alabama which says the adoptive parents

  can go through the State Registrar to get a Certificate of Foreign Birth without judicial proceedings as

  long as you have done everything you were supposed to do.

  As always, it my honor to serve you in the State Legislature as your State Senator. Please contact me

  anytime in I can be of assistance. God Bless!!

  Senator Chris Caughman

  District 35