A bill that seeks to redefine the term \u201cimmediate family members\u201d now heads to the House of Representatives for action.<\/p>\n
The House Judicial and Governmental Operations Committee unanimously adopted Rep. Alice Igitol\u2019s (R-Saipan) House Bill 20-144, which seeks to redefine the term \u201cimmediate family members\u201d to include the common-law spouses.<\/p>\n
Common-law spouses are further defined as \u201ctwo adults who are in [a] relationship together and have been living at the same residence for over one year.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to the bill\u2019s findings and purpose, the intent of the bill was to allow couples in relationships similar to marriage to apply for benefit usually reserved for those legally married.<\/p>\n
JGO chair Rep. Ivan Blanco (R-Saipan) said his committee amended the bill to allow for common-law spouses to avail of other types of leave such as compassionate leave, Family and Medical Leave Act, or FMLA, and maternity or paternity leave just to name a few, just as legal spouses are entitled to.<\/p>\n
\u201cImmediate family members still include siblings, legal spouses, children, etc., but some folks are unmarried [and might] have somebody that has been there for them\u2026what we need to do is to include the common-law spouse under immediate family members,\u201d said Blanco.<\/p>\n
JGO unanimously adapted the measure along with the amendments, which was introduced by Rep. Edwin Aldan (R-Tinian).<\/p>\n
Civil Service Commission chair Herman Deleon Guerrero said in his comments on the bill that it was something his commission supported.<\/p>\n
\u201cA number of employees are committed to common-law relationships and have the same need for family members as do those legally married employees,\u201d he said in response to JGO\u2019s request for comments.<\/p>\n
Deleon Guerrero specified that with the new definition of \u201cimmediate family members,\u201d the commission could now utilize it for issuing leaves usually reserved for legally married couples.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe commission also intends to adopt this definition for use with regard to eligibility for Paternity Leave, Compassionate Leave, and the FMLA,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
The commissioner through Deleon Guerrero\u2019s comments also took the position to urge the legislature to consider a bill that would \u201cestablish and define common-law marriage for the community.\u201d<\/p>\n
The other government entities that JGO solicited comments from did not respond. H.B. 20-143, HD1 now heads to the House of Representatives for action.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A bill that seeks to redefine the term \u201cimmediate family members\u201d now heads to the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[900],"tags":[2176,8245,65,8223],"class_list":["post-267807","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured","tag-fmla","tag-herman-deleon-guerrero","tag-house","tag-jgo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267807","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=267807"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267807\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=267807"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=267807"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=267807"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}