Get caught driving a motor boat while legally drunk and you could lose your driver's license. And your race will now appear on your driver's license so a state agency can track whether police officers are pulling people over because of their race instead of their bad driving.
Those are two of several dozen laws passed by the 2002 Legislature that take effect July 1, the start of the state's new fiscal year.
Rep. Loraine Pace, R-Logan, worked for two years to get her boating DUI bill passed. The new law ties motor boat DUIs to vehicle DUI standards, and someone convicted of driving a boat with a .08 alcohol blood level can have his car license suspended or revoked.
Motor boat drivers after today can't have an open container of alcohol in their boat or be drinking alcohol, but passengers can be drinking on board, the new law says. The impound fee for a boat taken because of a DUI goes from $25 to $200, the same impound fee as a car DUI carries.
Rep. Duane Bourdeaux, D-Salt Lake, worked hard for several years to get his racial profiling bill passed. Bourdeaux, the only black in the 104-member Legislature, finally got law enforcement agencies on board. For several years police officers and others opposed his bills, saying the data collected could be misinterpreted and good cops punished for pulling over traffic violators who just happened to be of a racial minority.
But in public hearings during the 2002 general session, group after group of minorities testified that there is a perception in their communities that police officers — who are often white — are pulling over minorities in greater numbers than white drivers. "It's called driving while black or brown," said Bourdeaux.
Racial information collected through the new system will prove whether there is racial profiling or not in Utah, he said.
The Commission on Criminal and Juvenile Justice will review the data collected from traffic and pedestrian stops to see if there are any patterns within police departments and with individual police officers. Also part of the new law, by January every local law enforcement agency must have a written policy banning racial profiling, although most departments already have such rules.
Other new laws taking effect Monday:
When you renew your driver's license you can donate $1 to a new organ donor fund, which will encourage organ donations. You can donate $1 to a new fund to help disabled senior citizens meet their special transportation needs. State employees get 30 days off to recover if they donate one of their organs for medical reasons.
After scandals over several private career/vocational colleges going bankrupt, private colleges now fall under the control of the Division of Consumer Protection rather than the Board of Regents, which oversees the state's public colleges and universities.
Public education teachers in rural Utah can now qualify for a new scholarship program to help them get master's degrees.
State officials must now have a warrant to remove a child from a home of a parent or guardian for child protection reasons.
The state's criminal DNA database is expanded. All prison adult inmates and juveniles who committed felonies must donate a saliva swab to the database. And over time, the DNA will be matched with DNA from unsolved crimes, such as rapes, with the belief that some crimes will be solved through this new scientific method.
College students whose parents came illegally into the United States can now qualify for in-state tuition at public colleges and universities.
The powers of public school community councils are enhanced.
E-MAIL: bbjr@desnews.com