Florida Senate eyes tougher sex offender law
House unanimously passes bill named for Jessica Lunsford
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 A Florida community mourns 13-year-old Sarah Lunde.
 A sex offender faces charges after an alleged confession.
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(CNN) -- The Florida Senate will take up a measure that would impose tougher penalties for sex offenders after the House of Representatives unanimously approved a similar bill Tuesday.
On a 118-0 vote, the House passed legislation that would require longer prison sentences, lifetime probation and electronic monitoring for sex offenders convicted of crimes against children.
The Jessica Lunsford Act was named for the 9-year-old girl found slain in February north of Tampa, Florida. Her father, Mark, was on hand for Tuesday's vote.
The bill would punish the molestation of children under 12 with a mandatory sentence of 25 years to life, "followed by probation or community control for the remainder of the person's natural life and subject to a system of active electronic monitoring."
A sex offender who had been living across the street from Jessica's home in Homosassa, Florida, faces charges in the girl's abduction and death.
Police said John Evander Couey, 46, confessed to kidnapping, sexually assaulting and killing Jessica.
He is charged with first-degree murder, and prosecutors are seeking the death penalty against him. Jessica's body was found buried behind the home of Couey's half-sister, where he had been living, in sight of the child's house.
The legislation also comes less than three days after authorities in Ruskin, Florida, found the body of 13-year-old Sarah Michelle Lunde in a pond Saturday.
Sex offender David Onstott, who previously dated the girl's mother, told authorities he choked the teen and dumped her body in the pond on April 10, Hillsborough County Sheriff David Gee said.
The bill also would make it a third-degree felony in Florida to harbor a sex offender.
Police in Homosassa initially arrested Couey's half-sister and two others living in her home, accusing them of obstructing justice by failing to notify authorities that he was living there.
But prosecutors declined to file charges against the three, saying the withholding of information alone did not constitute a crime and there was no provision in Florida law that required someone to tell police of a sex offender's whereabouts.
Lawmakers say they want to close that loophole in the law.
