[Congressional Bills 108th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. 1616 Introduced in Senate (IS)]
108th CONGRESS
1st Session
S. 1616
To amend the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 to prevent
the preemption of State community property law as it relates to
nonforfeitable accrued retirement benefits.
_______________________________________________________________________
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES
September 15, 2003
Ms. Landrieu introduced the following bill; which was read twice and
referred to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions
_______________________________________________________________________
A BILL
To amend the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 to prevent
the preemption of State community property law as it relates to
nonforfeitable accrued retirement benefits.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the
United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. STATE COMMUNITY PROPERTY LAW RIGHT TO RETIREMENT BENEFITS
NOT PREEMPTED BY ERISA.
(a) In General.--Section 514(b) of the Employee Retirement Income
Security Act of 1974 (29 U.S.C. 1144(b)) is amended--
(1) by redesignating paragraphs (8) and (9) as (9) and
(10), respectively; and
(2) by inserting after paragraph (7) the following:
``(8)(A) Except as provided in subparagraph (B), if--
``(i) under the community property laws of any State the
spouse of a participant of a pension plan is entitled to any
portion of the participant's nonforfeitable accrued benefit;
and
``(ii) the spouse's interest in such benefit under such
laws passed to an individual other than the participant by
reason of the death of the spouse;
then subsection (a) shall not apply to an order issued by a court of
such State disposing of such interest.
``(B) Nothing in subparagraph (A) shall be construed to allow a
claim--
``(i) for a benefit directly from a pension plan;
``(ii) against a qualified joint and survivor annuity or
qualified pre-retirement survivor annuity of a surviving spouse
of the participant; or
``(iii) against the participant during his or her
lifetime.''.
(b) Effective Date.--The amendments made by this Act shall apply to
orders regarding the estates of decedents dying after the date of
enactment of this Act.
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