Back in December, we published and article explaining that five Republicans had joined a lone Democrat — Senator Erin Oban (District 35) — in sponsoring a bill that would make North Dakota’s seat belt laws for adults even more stringent. Senate Bill 2060 would change the law from secondary enforcement to primary enforcement.
SB 2060’s road through the Senate was an interesting one. It failed to pass with a tie vote of 23-23 on January 21st. Interestingly enough, this was due to the fact that one of its co-sponsors, Senator Scott Meyer (R – District 18), was absent during the vote. Because of this, the bill was reconsidered the following day and passed on a 24-23 vote.
In the aftermath of its passage in the Senate, I wrote that the only hope of defeating this bill lies in the House. This is due to the fact that there’s absolutely no question that Governor Doug Burgum would sign it into law if it comes across his desk. I wrote about his illogical stance on this issue and his Vision Zero initiative just over a year ago.
According to information shared with The Minuteman, it seems the House Transportation Committee held a hearing on SB 2060 today and gave it a 9-4 Do Not Pass recommendation. This is encouraging. Now we’ll wait for the bill to make its way to the House floor for a vote.
Do we really need the Almighty State to protect us from ourselves? I don’t believe so. Our hope is that you will contact your legislators and ask them to oppose this bill. We need to reduce the power of the Nanny-state, not expand it.
PLEASE LIKE & SHARE!
Sources:
- https://theminutemanblog.com/2018/12/21/oban-joins-five-republicans-in-proposing-stricter-seat-belt-law/
- https://www.legis.nd.gov/assembly/66-2019/bill-index/bi2060.html
- https://theminutemanblog.com/2019/01/22/senate-might-have-do-over-vote-on-primary-seat-belt-law-in-nd/
- https://theminutemanblog.com/2018/01/19/burgums-illogical-stance-on-seat-belt-laws-the-new-vision-zero-initiative/