New laws added to state’s books
HARRISBURG – Beginning this year, hunting over the Internet, taking pictures up women’s skirts and carrying a loaded paintball gun in a vehicle are all verboten. Now it’s also permitted to bait coyote, and consumers have gained important rights to be notified if they’re in danger of identity theft due to computer breaches.
More than two dozen new Pennsylvania laws are coming into effect this year, after a fairly busy legislative session around the holidays as lawmakers sat through the tortuous development of property tax reform.
The GOP controlled Legislature was unsuccessful in delivering its most pressing goals: property tax reform, a cap on state budget spending, and private property protections through changes to eminent domain law. Democrats, too, failed in their top priority: a minimum wage hike.
But on some of the less complicated and less controversial matters, numerous bills sailed on to the governor’s desk for a final signature with little fanfare and near unanimous support.
“I think we did a lot of things that were never reported. We had a successful four months,” said Drew Crompton, chief counsel to Senate President Pro Tempore Bob Jubelirer, a Republican from Blair County. “As high profile as property taxes? Perhaps not. But neither little nor insignificant were a lot of these things.”
Among them is a new law that gives courts the ability to force those accused of domestic violence under protection- from- abuse orders to give up all their guns and weapons.
The law was the result of a rare compromise on gun control between victim rights advocates and gun owners. Accusers later found to make groundless allegations could be forced to pay damages and attorney fees to the defendant.
Also, the state’s 25,000 homeschoolers must now be permitted to take extracurricular activities at public schools, such as sports, clubs, and music, a result of legislation that was eight years in the making.
And working seniors are now entitled to full unemployment benefits if they meet eligibility requirements. Previously, half the amount of their Social Security income was deducted from unemployment checks. The new law will help the state’s approximately 10,000 unemployed seniors, said Ray Landis, AARP’s associate state director.
Landis said 1 in 5 Pennsylvania seniors are working full or part time.
“We were extraordinarily pleased to see it pass,” Landis said. “In the past there was a tendency to think seniors went back to work because they needed something to do. But the economic situation has really changed. We see pension plans being dropped and benefits being dropped (for seniors).”
Bucks County Sen. Robert Wonderling saw through the first of a series of bills he’s pushing on identity theft. Companies and organizations that compile personal information must disclose any computer breaches in their systems to individuals that may then be at risk for identity theft. Last year, computer breaches exposed more than 50 million consumers nationwide to potential fraud, Wonderling said.
Pennsylvania’s new law gives notified consumers the chance to be on guard, checking credit card and bank statements for anything unusual. Wonderling said he hopes the law forces organizations to be more careful with digital data.
“Not only do we have to develop laws to put these digital thieves on notice, but we also have to change the ways organizations behave regarding digital information,” said Wonderling.
With 17,000 Pennsylvania National Guard activations since 9/11, the Legislature and the governor also have been expanding benefits. One new law allows members to keep the same 10 semesters of tuition coverage if education is interrupted because of service activation. Another sets up a fund to give grants out to military families in need, to be funded by corporate donations and taxpayers who want to donate state tax refunds to the cause.
“It’s hard when people are activated,” said Rep. Ron Miller, a York County Republican. “They go to serve us and they take a significant pay cut. They have to take out loans to pay their bills and this would be designed to give grants.”
Among the more esoteric new laws:
? Internet hunting has been banned in Pennsylvania, even before it had a chance of taking off. A Texas ranch first offered the service, which charged customers to hunt baited deer by remotely firing a gun from their home computer. Texas shut down the practice. Pennsylvania followed suit after hunters said it tainted the sport.
? Carrying a loaded paintball gun in a moving vehicle now is illegal, as is firing at someone who is not participating. Also, no defacing private or public property with the .68 caliber paint-filled bullets. Rep. Jess Stairs (D-Acme) said the new law’s impact on the rapidly growing sport is “just to safen it up and make sure it’s a viable sport.”
Baiting coyotes is now legal, further liberalizing the most open Pennsylvania hunting laws pertaining to any hunted animal. Coyotes can be hunted all year and any time of the day or week with a license. Now, animal guts can help too.
Up-skirting and down-blousing has become an “invasion of privacy,” punishable by one year in jail or a $2,500 fine. That is, photographing or videotaping someone in full or partial nudity where they might reasonably expect privacy. The need arose after a man used his camera phone to take photos up a woman’s skirt in a crowded Central Pennsylvania mall. He was acquitted.
Alison Hawkes can be reached at 717-705-6330 or ahawkes@calkins-media.com