Senator Limmer Continues Discussion For Macy’s Bill

After being injured in a 2015 accident caused by a man driving on a revoked license, it seems as though Macy Kujava’s current health will not change. But her family is remaining positive about a possible change in legislation; the Vanek family hopes a bill authored by Rep. Josh Heintzeman and Senator Warren Limmer will provide justice for future cases similar to theirs.

“I’m glad that people are continuing to look at it and continuing to be interested in trying to figure out how we fix this problem,” Heintzeman said.

Today was all about looking at the current facts of the law and determining if there are any gaps that need to be filled.

“We consider legislation all of the time, but we don’t always quickly react in an emotional reaction, especially us in the Senate; we take our time to study, analyze, get a background on legislation, and then we act and we act proportionately,” Limmer said.

Making sure the punishment is fitting to the crime.

“People who have revoked or canceled driver licenses and they drive anyway in disobedience to a court order and then causing injury or death to another. We want to make sure we get that law right,” Limmer said.

If Macy’s Bill does go through, driving without a valid drivers license would be a gross misdemeanor and additional charges would be applied to repeat offenders, though a gross misdemeanor would only be applied if a collision results in substantial bodily harm or death to another person.

“Well, you may have had your license suspended, been caught and so the way we approached that was a third-strikes-you-are-out sort of approach,” Heintzeman said.

An approach that strives to be more consistent when dealing with drivers without valid drivers licenses.

“I think it is important for the legislature to revisit area of law that we rarely visit. We don’t want to make any flash emotional decisions on potential legislation without knowing the foundation,” Limmer said.

The information gathered will be taken into consideration as the bill is prepared for the next legislative session which will take place on February 20.