[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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