HB 4059 — Modifies the definition of "abuse" for purposes of determining whether a child has been abused.
Congress · introduced 2026-01-16
<b>Digest: The Act changes what "abuse" means when talking about hurting a child. It says that DHS can only look into some reports of child abuse. It also makes a rule for how certain reports of child abuse are resolved. It is an emergency law and starts right away. (Flesch Readability Score: 76.5).</b> [<i>Digest: The Act changes what "threatened harm" means when talking about hurting a child. It says that DHS can only look into some reports of child abuse. It also makes a rule for how certain reports of child abuse are resolved. It is an emergency law and starts right away. (Flesch Readability Score: 78.7).</i>] Modifies the definition of [<i>"threatened harm"</i>]<b> "abuse"</b> for purposes of determining whether a child has been abused. Limits the investigative jurisdiction of the Department of Human Services to investigate certain reports of child abuse. <b>Prohibits making findings in abuse investigations where the alleged perpetrator was a minor at the time of the alleged abuse. Creates exceptions.</b> [<i>Creates a statutory substantiation standard for certain reports of alleged child abuse.</i>] <b>Increases the standard of proof necessary for reporting certain abuse investigation findings to the central state registry.</b> <b>Directs the department to monitor implementation of new child abuse investigation processes and report back to the interim committees of the Legislative Assembly relating to human services.</b> Declares an emergency, effective on passage.
Latest action: — In House Committee
Sponsors
No sponsorships on file.
Action timeline
- · state_lower — First reading. Referred to Speaker's desk.
- · state_lower — Referred to Early Childhood and Human Services.
- · state_lower — Public Hearing held.
- · state_lower — Public Hearing held.
- · state_lower — Work Session held.
- · state_lower — Recommendation: Do pass with amendments, be printed A-Engrossed, and be referred to Rules.
- · state_lower — Referred to Rules by order of Speaker.
- · state_lower — In committee upon adjournment.
Text versions
No text versions on file yet — same ingest as the action timeline populates these. Each version has direct links to the XML / HTML / PDF at govinfo.gov.
Predicted vote
Aggregated from: actual roll-call votes (when present) → sponsor → cosponsor → party median (predicts YES when ≥25% of the caucus sponsored/cosponsored). Each row labels its confidence tier so you can see why a position was predicted.
0 predicted yes (0%) · 543 predicted no (100%) · 0 unknown (0%)
By party: · R: 0 yes / 277 no · D: 0 yes / 263 no · I: 0 yes / 3 no