Florida Notary Bill Vetoed!

On June 23, Florida Governor Jeb Bush vetoed HB 567, a bill was designed to combat fraud by requiring Florida notaries to keep a journal of notarial acts.

Currently, Chapter 117 of the Florida statutes governing notaries public does not require notaries to keep journals of the acts they perform.

Gov. Bush was not convinced the bill would succeed in the purpose, also noting that making journals public record could compromise individuals’ personal information such as addresses and telephone numbers.

The Florida Department of State did not issue any statement on its website. When reached for comment, Susan Smith, press secretary for Secretary of State Sue M. Cobb refused to go on the record, stating, “I won’t go on the record because there is nothing to go on the record about.”

Audrey O’Kelley, Executive Communications Manager at the NNA told The Notary Republic that the governor’s decision had come as a surprise.

“The NNA supported the bill,” she said, “as it supports all actions to protect the notary and the public. Also, in trials, only the portion relevant is made available. That is why the FBI is in support of the NNA’s position on keeping journals.”

She mentioned that in California, where a thumbprint is also required, notary journals go a long way in fighting fraud.

When asked about the supposed potential for privacy violations, O’Kelley stated, “We do encourage our notaries to keep journals under lock of key. But the journal itself is not a public record—the notary journal is not covered by the US public records law.”

At the time he vetoed HB 567, Governor Bush signed HB 1145 into law, which makes “In God We Trust” Florida’s official state motto. Good thinking—with no record of notarial acts, God’s just who Florida will have to trust if any records come into question.

Read the bill at FLSenate.gov.

Performing Closings in Utah

According to the website for the Utah Lieutenant Governor’s Office, one of the key facts notaries must remember is that notarizing real estate settlement documents for a title agency when a title escrow agent is not present and one is not a licensed title escrow agent, is illegal. A signing agent who engages in this act is acting as an unlicensed title escrow agent.

However, in a position letter from the Utah Insurance Department written on May 28, 2006, Darrel G. Powell, Director of the Market Conduct Division, addresses the issue to Fran Fish, Director at the Utah Lt. Governor’s Office:

In the past, the Utah Insurance Department has required a notary notarizing a title escrow settlement document to be licensed as a title escrow producer. The Title and Escrow Commission reviewed this practice and determined that the process of obtaining a signature, and the notarization of that signature, on a title escrow settlement document was not part of the duties included in the scope of the title escrow producer license.

Effective immediately, if a notary is only obtaining a signature, and notarizing that signature on a title escrow settlement document, there is no requirement for the notary to be licensed as a title escrow producer. Obtaining and notarizing a title escrow settlement document does not include explaining the content or purpose of a document being signed or the handling of any escrow settlement monies, or any other duties performed by a title escrow producer.

If a notary is asked to do anything other than obtain and notarize a signature on a title escrow settlement document, a title escrow producer license may be required.

An article written by David S. Thun for the National Notary Association’s Notary News in May presented the change in Utah limitations for signing agents. However, the page on the Utah Lt. Governor’s website’s entitled Facts To Remember, last revised May 10, 2006, still shows Item 17 in bright red font: “If you are notarizing real estate settlement documents for a title agency when a title escrow agent is not present and you are not a licensed title escrow agent, you are illegally acting as an unlicensed title escrow agent.”

The Office of Lt. Governor Gary G. Herbert was contacted regarding the inconsistencies between the page and the statement released by the Utah Insurance Department and the National Notary Association. Dorian Ashton, Office Manager for the Lt. Governor, informed The Notary Republic that she was not aware that the website had not been updated and stated that she would direct the matter to the appropriate party.

“It may take a few business days,” she said.

Special thanks to Vice President of Operations Ryan Edwards for the story and Gerri Jones with the Utah Insurance Department for help clarifying the issue.

Redefining SOS in Wisconsin

Doug La Follette has been Secretary of State for the state of Wisconsin for 28 years. He’s the second longest serving current state-level Secretary of State after Secretary Bill Gardner of New Hampshire, who’s been serving 30 years.

But Secretary La Follette may not be there much longer: fellow Democrat Scot Ross has risen to the challenge, saying the office of the Wisconsin Secretary of State has become marginalized and is today nothing but a shadow of what it once was.



If elected, Ross’ main goal is to use his position to lobby for change in who handles elections, a power that belonged to the Wisconsin Office of the Secretary of State until 1974. Now the duties rest with the state Elections Board, whose members are appointed, not elected.

That is Ross’ dream: to bring back the glory of his state’s Office of the Secretary of State by making it directly accountable in all matters relating to state elections. La Follette is not too sure the legislature will go for that. With the Elections Board in place, he doesn’t see a need for it.

“The election process is certainly broken in places like Florida and Ohio,” La Follette writes in his website. “Clearly, having a paper trail and open voter registration are important safeguards against that kind of nonsense.”

Secretary La Follette’s campaign site shows that he is far more concerned with environmental and social issues than shaking up the the administration. The earth is a big concern for La Follette, who holds a Ph.D. in chemistry from Columbia, was a former assistant professor of chemistry and ecology at the University of Wisconsin, served as Public Affairs Director for the Union of Concerned Scientists, as a national board member of the Friends of the Earth and authored the 1991 book, The Survival Handbook: a strategy for saving planet earth.

His website is more that of an academic than it is that of a politician, showcasing his articles, memberships and academic honors simply, on a soothing green background. Ross, on the other hand, has a design-oriented page that features his future plans, a catchy motto (Ross Across Wisconsin!), a quotable bio, news regarding his campaign, a press kit and high-resolution photos, and an e-mail update feature.

La Follette accepts contribution checks by mail; Ross uses PayPal.

As the country hurls itself further into the age of technology, perhaps Ross is the change the Wisconsin Office of the Secretary of State needs. A straw poll showed that 297 fellow party members at a recent Democratic convention agreed. La Follette only received 205 votes.

In an article for the Wisconsin State Journal, reporter Phil Brinkman writes Ross’ opinion on the current Secretary of State: “Ross, 37, said the seven-term incumbent has become ineffectual and hasn't done enough to prevent poaching of the office's duties by other departments.”

Still, there is something to be said for La Follette’s almost zen-like politicking. When discussing his campaign account—which totals $9,000—he said, “I can’t imagine a reason why people would give [Ross] money [for campaigning] when they could be doing something more important.”

What’s more important to Secretary Doug La Follette?

As he announced in a press release on June 7: “Protecting our state’s marvelous environment is very important for our children’s future and our tourist industry.”

While the office of the Wisconsin Secretary of State may no longer be the authority in overseeing elections, La Follette hasn’t been sitting around his office: the Wisconsin Secretary of State has kept busy furnishing public school libraries with funds acquired through the Wisconsin Public Lands Commission as well as fighting for proper forestry practices, clean water, and the preservation of Earth Day, which he helped fund in 1970.

This election is going to be more than just about the people running for office—it’s going to redefine the role of the Wisconsin Office of the Secretary of State.

The primary is taking place September 12, 2006. The winner will take on the winner of the Republican primary on November 7, 2006.

Got press on your state’s Secretary of State? E-mail the editor.

What’s the role of a state’s Secretary of State?

The Secretary of State (or, in the cases of Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Virginia, the Secretary of the Commonwealth) is an official in 47 of the 50 state governments who is either elected at the general election or appointed by the governor.

In Alaska, Hawaii and Utah, states that do not have a Secretary of State, the duties of Secretary of State fall upon the Lieutenant Governor.

These duties vary from one state to the next, but they can—and often do—involve the following:

• serving as the state’s chief elections official;
  
applying the Uniform Commercial Code to ensure business contracts and practices are uniform across the nation;

• chartering businesses; keeping all records within the state (state’s constitution, formal copies of legislation, executive orders, state regulatory agency regulations and interpretations and in some states, civil acts and land transactions and ownership records);
  
• issuing professional licenses;
  
• issuing driver’s licenses;
  
• regulating the activities of lobbyists;
  
• maintaining the state museum;
  
• maintaining the state’s historical records;
  
• monitoring the use of public property;
  
• administering pardons (in some states this only means affixing the state seal to the governor’s proclamation, in others, it involves sitting on the Board of Pardons alongside the governor);
  
• administering notaries public;
  
• encouraging commercial relations with other countries;
  
• and keeping and deciding where to affix the official state seal.

For more information about your state’s Secretary of State’s duties, access Wikipedia’s listing of all 47. The names in blue also feature articles about individual Secretaries. If you have information about your state’s Secretary of State that you can provide to Wikipedia, please visit their articles for creation page.

Notaries and the BBB

Signing companies depend on notaries to carry out business. In an effort to lessen misunderstandings, many companies have placed procedures and notary resources online. Disputes, however, still occur; many of them involve payment.

Notary Beware, for example, was created “to provide Notaries with a ‘one stop’ web site to voice THEIR opinion” about companies who do not engage in fair and ethical payment practices.

“I do not have time to log in to every notary web site and read all comments on a particular company,” Linda Kauffman, the author of the site writes, “hence the creation of this web site.”

Notary Rotary and GoMobileNotary offer discussions of companies who don’t pay or don’t pay on time that one can access by running a search of their forums with code words like “no-no” and “avoid”.

Still, notary boards and awareness sites can only do so much, which is why many notaries have turned to the Better Business Bureau to arbitrate their disputes. The BBB, which was founded in 1912, is an organization based in the United States and Canada that provides company reliability reports and offers complaint resolution between consumers and companies through arbitration and mediation.

Although BBB often refrain from dealing with employer-employee disputes and disputes concerning fees where no misrepresentation is involved, the Los Angeles bureau does take complaints from notaries.

“We take their complaints all the time,” says Gary Almond, Vice President of the Los Angeles Bureau. “The LABBB handles notaries because they don’t have the benefit of the Labor Board. The way it’s handled varies from state to state and bureau to bureau, but we do handle them here.”

To place a complaint, customers must refer to the bureau in the area of the company about which they are complaining. Notaries are advised to work with reliable signing companies and check whether the bureau in their area accepts notary complaints. To find a bureau, access the main BBB site’s city and state search engine at: http://lookup.bbb.org