{"id":2438,"date":"2021-03-25T19:44:49","date_gmt":"2021-03-25T19:44:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/albanknews.com\/?p=2438"},"modified":"2021-03-25T19:46:58","modified_gmt":"2021-03-25T19:46:58","slug":"capitol-notes-week-8-recap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/albanknews.com\/?p=2438","title":{"rendered":"Capitol Notes: Week 8 Recap"},"content":{"rendered":"

MONTGOMERY, Ala., March 25, 2021<\/strong> — The Alabama Legislature took a planned one-week Spring Break this week.\u00a0 The session is just over halfway complete, with 14 of the session\u2019s 30 legislative days remaining.\u00a0 Legislators will return to Montgomery on Tuesday for the 17th<\/sup> legislative day.\u00a0 Representatives and Senators will work for two legislative days this week followed by three legislative days the following week.\u00a0 No other information about the legislative schedule has been publicly released.<\/p>\n

With no legislative activity this week, the information below is the same as in the prior edition of this publication.<\/p>\n

Bills of importance to the banking industry include the following:<\/p>\n

HB147 <\/strong>by House Financial Services Committee Chairman Chris Blackshear (R-Phenix City) <\/strong>and SB181 <\/strong>by Senate Banking and Insurance Committee Chairman Shay Shelnutt (R-Trussville) <\/strong>is the Elderly and Vulnerable Adult Financial Protection Act of 2021.\u00a0 These bills give financial institutions full discretion to refuse or delay a financial transaction whenever financial abuse of an elderly or vulnerable adult customer is reasonably expected. \u00a0Introduced last year, these bills garnered unanimous support in both chambers, but were unable to pass into law after the session abruptly ended because of COVID-19.\u00a0 Senate Bill 181 was signed into law on March 9.\u00a0 It is now Act 2021-78. <\/strong><\/p>\n

HB196 <\/strong>by Rep. Matt Simpson (R-Daphne) <\/strong>and SB35 <\/strong>by Sen. Greg Albritton (R-Atmore) <\/strong>makes technical changes to the Alabama Uniform Trust Decanting Act, a law passed in 2019 that provides a method for reforming or modernizing an irrevocable trust.\u00a0 Both bills have been passed by the House Financial Services Committee, putting the Senate bill one vote away from the Governor\u2019s desk.\u00a0 The Legislature has passed the Senate bill and it now awaits Governor Ivey\u2019s signature. <\/strong><\/p>\n

HB216<\/strong> by Rep. Craig Lipscomb (R-Gadsden) <\/strong>is the Alabama Consumer Privacy Act, a law giving consumers various rights related to the collection of personal information by businesses.\u00a0 Modeled after a California law, the legislation imposes onerous burdens on businesses of all types, including financial institutions.\u00a0 The association had a meeting with the sponsor earlier this week outlining concerns about the bill, and the sponsor assured us that he did not plan to pursue the legislation.<\/p>\n

HB293 <\/strong>by Rep. David Faulkner (R-Mountain Brook) <\/strong>is the Qualified Dispositions in Trust Act, which would authorize the creation of self-settled trusts in Alabama.\u00a0 Drafted by the Alabama Law Institute, this bill could theoretically expand opportunities for financial institutions providing trust-related services.\u00a0 On the other hand, this bill could provide debtors with an additional option of shielding assets from creditors.\u00a0 The bill has passed the House and is in position to be considered by the Senate Banking and Insurance Committee.<\/strong><\/p>\n

HB457 <\/strong>by Rep. Chris Pringle (R-Mobile) <\/strong>expands the Alabama Residential Mortgage Satisfaction Act to include mortgages securing commercial agricultural properties.\u00a0 This is the second year Pringle has introduced this legislation.\u00a0 The bill defines \u201ccommercial agricultural properties\u201d as property located in this state that is used primarily for the growing of plants, trees, or animals primarily for a for-profit business and not for recreational purposes.\u00a0 The House will vote on this bill on Tuesday, March 30.\u00a0 <\/strong><\/p>\n

HB470 <\/strong>by Rep. Andy Whitt (R-Harvest) <\/strong>and SB275 <\/strong>by Sen. Sam Givhan (R-Huntsville) <\/strong>would allow documents to be remotely notarized under certain conditions.\u00a0 Drafted by a coalition of trade groups including the association, the Alabama Association of Realtors, and the Alabama Land Title Association, this bill codifies the \u201cRemote Ink Notarization\u201d provisions of Gov. Ivey\u2019s Emergency Executive Orders.\u00a0 In short, it sets up guidelines that would allow a notary public to witness the signature of a document using videoconferencing platforms.\u00a0 The Senate bill was approved by the Senate and is now in position to be considered by a House committee.<\/strong><\/p>\n

HB474 <\/strong>by Rep. Merika Coleman (D-Birmingham) <\/strong>and SB282 <\/strong>by Sen. Shay Shelnutt (R-Trussville) <\/strong>would amend the Uniform Trust Code to create a third option for a Trustee to use when seeking to be released from his or her service to a Trust.\u00a0 Under this option, release would be granted if no beneficiary or interested party objected to the release in writing within 45 days of receiving a notice of the release and an accounting of the Trust from the previous two years.\u00a0 The Senate bill has been approved by the full Senate and is in position to be voted on by a House committee.\u00a0 The House bill has been approved by a House committee and is now in a position to be voted on by the full House.<\/strong><\/p>\n

HB475 <\/strong>by Rep. Danny Garrett (R-Trussville)<\/strong> and SB279 <\/strong>by Sen. Dan Roberts (R-Mountain Brook) <\/strong>provides for how certain financial contracts would be governed after the publication of LIBOR is discontinued later this year.\u00a0 The Senate bill has been approved by the full Senate and is in position to be voted on by a House committee.\u00a0 The House bill has been approved by a House committee and is now in a position to be voted on by the full House.<\/strong><\/p>\n

SB316 <\/strong>by Sen. Garlan Gudger (R-Cullman) <\/strong>would prohibit payment processing from charging an interchange fee on any portion of a payment transfer that was attributed to state or local taxes or fees.\u00a0 Legislation of this type has been introduced in multiple states around the country.\u00a0 The consequences of this bill becoming law could have negative implications on the banking and retail industries<\/p>\n

Through 16 legislative days, representatives and senators have introduced 914 bills \u2013 563 in the House and 351 in the Senate \u2013 and 213 resolutions.\u00a0 As of this writing, 118 of those measures had been signed into law.<\/p>\n

The legislature took a planned one-week Spring Break this week and will return to the State House for the 17th legislative day on Tuesday, March 30.\u00a0 Legislators can meet for no more than 30 legislative days during a regular, and the session must adjourn on or before midnight on Monday, May 17th.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

Look for this update to be published each week during the regular legislative session and at other times as necessary.\u00a0 This update is written by Jason Isbell, an attorney in the Governmental Solutions practice group at Maynard Cooper & Gale.\u00a0 Along with his colleagues at the firm, Jason is a governmental affairs consultant for the association.\u00a0 Jason can be reached at <\/em>jisbell@maynardcooper.com<\/em><\/a> or at (334) 782-1219.\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MONTGOMERY, Ala., March 25, 2021 — The Alabama Legislature took a planned one-week Spring Break this week.\u00a0 The session is just over halfway complete, with 14 of the session\u2019s 30 legislative days remaining.\u00a0 Legislators will return to Montgomery on Tuesday for the 17th legislative day.\u00a0 Representatives and Senators will work for two legislative days this week followed by three legislative days the following week.\u00a0 No other information about the legislative schedule has been publicly released. With no legislative activity this week, the information below is the same as in the prior edition of this publication. Bills of importance to the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":431,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[19,26,25,28,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2438","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-breaking","category-capitol-notes","category-industry-reports","category-legal","category-politics","has_thumb"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/albanknews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/capitol_graphic-e1461688373563.png?fit=350%2C383&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4Y3P2-Dk","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/albanknews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2438","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/albanknews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/albanknews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/albanknews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/albanknews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2438"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/albanknews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2438\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2442,"href":"https:\/\/albanknews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2438\/revisions\/2442"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/albanknews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/431"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/albanknews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/albanknews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/albanknews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}