A bill passed unanimously by the South Carolina Senate to address animal cruelty in the state contains a judge-specific provision. SB 841 was drafted with a focus mainly on placing restrictions on how long animals can be tethered and under what conditions (news accounts here).
Under the bill as approved by the Senate Magistrate Court and Municipal Court judges must receive at least two hours of instruction on issues concerning animal cruelty every four years.
The Ohio House approved 95-2 last week a bill to exempt personal information about judges from public disclosure.
HB 341 as approved has two main elements.
It adds judges and magistrates to the list of professions whose residential and familial information is exempted from disclosure under Ohio's Public Records Law.
It permits a judge or magistrate to request that the judge or magistrate's address be redacted from any record of a public office that is publicly available on the Internet in which the judge or magistrate's residential and familial information appears, except for the records of a county auditor. For county auditor's records, the judge or magistrate's initials can be used instead.
HB 341 is in now in the Senate but not yet assigned to a committee.