New Laws for the New Year

It’s 2011. Doesn’t that just sound like a futuristic year? Sadly, flying cars, robot butlers, and moon bases seem to be a ways off (we’ll have all that by 2021, I promise!).

Nonetheless, time marches on, along with gradual, incremental changes in science, technology, and society. One of the easiest ways to gauge changes in a society’s values is to look at its laws. Across the country, hundreds of new laws at the federal, state, and local level went into effect on January 1, 2011. Most of them are, to be frank, pretty uninteresting. However, a significant number of them are very important, and may have a direct impact on your life.

Starting at the federal level, several more provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (the big healthcare reform law) go into effect. While the really big changes (the individual mandate, health insurance exchanges, etc.) are a ways off, it’s possible that you’ll be affected (either positively or negatively) by these changes:

–         Flexible Spending and Health Savings Accounts cannot be used to pay for over-the-counter medications without a prescription, except insulin.

–         New taxes are imposed on drug-makers, and seniors on Medicare should see a reduced cost for prescription drugs.

Another big piece of federal legislation, a major suite of new regulations on consumer credit, also goes into effect, including a requirement that credit card companies give consumers more detailed information about the interest rates and fees they’re paying.

Also, the last-minute tax cut compromise reached by President Obama and congressional Republicans includes a one-year reduction in the federal Social Security tax from 6.2% of gross pay to 4.2%, which should result in almost every regular wage-earner in the country seeing a small boost in their paycheck throughout 2011.

Many states are responding to the times with new laws. California, which tends to be on the cutting-edge of trends in American jurisprudence, has a few interesting ones.

For example, in what is likely a response to the tragic case of Megan Meier’s suicide, a new California law makes it a crime to “maliciously impersonate” a person via social networking sites or email.

Another new California law completely decriminalizes possession of up to one ounce of Marijuana: possession of up to one ounce of Marijuana cannot lead to arrest. At most, it can result in confiscation of the marijuana, and a $100 ticket (similar to a simple traffic violation).

California is also leading an effort to get tougher on sex offenders (or to increase the effectiveness of current laws dealing with them) by increasing oversight of convicted sex offenders, as well as penalties for violation of parole terms. It will also have a “one-strike” provision, providing a sentence of life in prison without parole for some classes of offenders, if they re-offend. While any efforts to prevent sex offenders from re-offending (or to prevent their crimes from occurring in the first place) is a good thing, I hope these new laws don’t end up being counter-productive, which we’ve seen before with other “get tough” policies with respect to sex offenders.

Similarly, Illinois has a law going into effect which is designed to make it easier to catch people who attempt to engage in virtual sex acts with minors.

There’s also a law going into effect in California which can impose criminal liabilities on parents or legal guardians if their children miss too many school days without a valid excuse.

Finally, criminal defendants (in certain cases) may opt for one-day trials, with 8 jurors instead of the usual 12. Proponents claim that this will unclog the court system and relieve some of the strain on the state budget.

Other states across the country are changing their gun laws, with almost all of them trending towards being less restrictive. For example, a law in Iowa just went into effect that gives local sheriffs less discretion when it comes to denying permits to carry concealed firearms.

It effectively makes Iowa a “shall-issue” state, meaning that permits will be issued absent a compelling reason not to (the applicant has a criminal record, for example). Some other states, notably California, which issue licenses to carry concealed weapons, have the opposite policy: the burden is on the applicant to show that there is a compelling reason why the license should be granted.

Iowa also has a law going into effect which allows people to carry concealed weapons into bars, provided that they’re not intoxicated. Could 2011 see the glorious return of the Old West saloon shootout? Time will tell!

So, what does all this mean for you? Well, if you’re a normal, law-abiding citizen, chances are you won’t have to change your behavior much, since most of these new criminal laws criminalize things which you would never do anyway (letting your kids miss lots of school days, impersonating other people online, etc.).

The new federal tax law should result in most workers getting a slightly bigger paycheck, which won’t require any change in individual conduct, and most of the provisions of the healthcare law that just went into effect will have little impact on most individuals.

Of course, if you think that any of these new laws (or one of the hundreds of new laws I didn’t discuss) might affect you, you should speak with a lawyer. Because brand new laws don’t have any court opinions clarifying their meaning and scope, virtually every case involving a new statute is a small step into uncharted legal territory.