Senator Sarah Rich moved and the Senate advanced Senate Bill 146 on Feb. 28, 2025, directing the bill to be engrossed and placed on the calendar for third reading and final passage.

The bill updates the state's fingerprint-based criminal history record check language to align with requirements of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, sponsor Senator Sarah Rich said. "This bill aligns our language with the language required by the FBI to have background checks completed as we have requested them in the many compacts that we have passed over the years," Rich said on the Senate floor.

Senator Rich said the bill includes "one small amendment" related to payment for fingerprint-based checks and stressed that the bill "does not create any new background checks or remove that requirement for any of the impacted licenses, certifications, and registrations." The Business, Labor and Technology committee report for the bill was adopted and the Committee of the Whole ordered the bill engrossed.

The Senate's Committee of the Whole reported the bill as having passed second reading and ordered it for third reading and final passage; the committee report was adopted with the committee's recorded vote of 29 ayes, 0 nos. The next step for Senate Bill 146 is consideration on third reading.

The measure was presented and advanced as a technical alignment with federal procedures; sponsors and the committee emphasized the change was to statutory language and not to create new background-check programs.

Third reading and final passage will determine whether the bill becomes law; no final passage vote is recorded in the Feb. 28, 2025 transcript excerpt.