This year’s Virginia General Assembly session ran from January 14 through
February 28. Here you can learn about and track the fate of the bills that were proposed,
voted on, and ultimately become law.
Blog
7/01/2009
Many of the bills that passed in this year’s legislative session enact new laws, and most of those go into effect today, July 1. Lots of those are of only of interest to lawyers, but a few dozen affect the public. The Division of Legislative Services has helpfully produced a summary of notable legislation “that is of interest to the citizens of Virginia and is likely to have an impact on their daily lives.” That includes a ban on text messaging while driving, a prohibition on smoking in restaurants, and an exemption of the first five digits of social security numbers from FOIA requests.
3/01/2009
The General Assembly adjourned for the year yesterday, on time and without need to adjourn for a special session later in the year. The technical term for this is adjourning “sine die,” a term that legislative insiders use to mean “we can finally go home.” The phrase is Latin, generally pronounced “SEE-nei DEE-ei,” meaning “without day,” as in to adjourn indefinitely. Of course, they will be convening again—in January 2010, for an eight-week budget year session. Between now and then, though, every member of the House of Delegates is up for reelection. Republicans are defending their majority, while Democrats are looking to win the half-dozen seats necessary to control the legislature for redistricting, in 2011.
In the weeks and months ahead, we at Richmond Sunlight will be crunching some numbers on legislation, the video of the session, and adding some new features for folks looking to keep study what happened during this and past sessions.
2/11/2009
Today was Crossover, the day the falls midway through each session when all bills in the House have to make it to the Senate to survive, and vice versa. Those bills that didn’t make the cut are now marked as “Failed” throughout the site, and there’s a whole mess of ‘em.
2/01/2009
There’s a little link that you might see in the sidebar of some bills: “Fiscal Impact Statement.” It sounds boring, but it’s actually pretty interesting, and well worth looking at. Just about any bill that the legislature’s staff figures is going to cost money or save money gets submitted to a nonpartisan review process to estimate how much money we’re looking at.
To look at one bill that’s popular on Richmond Sunlight, consider Del. David Englin’s Indoor Clean Air Act, which proposes to ban smoking in restaurants. The Department of Planning and Budget issued a fiscal impact statement for that bill. They figure the bill will affect the Virginia Department of Health, the Department of Medical Assistance Services, and all localities in the state. They don’t see that it’ll cost the health department any more, so it shouldn’t cost anything. And anybody caught smoking in a restaurant will have to pay a $25 fine, so that’s money coming in…but they’re not guessing how many people will end up having to pay up. So there’s no net dollar value in this impact statement, which is too bad—it’s great to be able to put a dollar value on a bill.
Another bill getting a lot of attention is Del. Bob Marshall’s opposition to the REAL ID Act, which proposes that the state refuse to participate in the federal government’s efforts to establish a national standard for identification cards. DPB’s impact statement is a bit more specific on this one. The state is set to spend $5.2M annually to comply with REAL ID, so that would be some immediate savings. But Virginia would also lose out on a lot of money: “The revenue impact of this bill likely would be much higher than its impact on expenditures, but it is impossible to quantify the revenue impact precisely.” If state agencies can’t comply with federal standards, DPB figures they’re likely to lose federal contracts, probably worth a lot more than $5.2M. Also, it would result in about 200,000 commercial drivers losing their Virginia licenses, since they wouldn’t meet federal standards, which DPB describes dryly as having a “negative impact on commercial activity in the Commonwealth.”
There’s some really good stuff buried in fiscal impact statements. If you want to know whether a bill is a good idea, check for that “Fiscal Impact Statement” link in the sidebar and give it a read. Many of them conclude that it’s impossible to determine the impact, but many contain some real gems.
1/31/2009
There’s a great new Richmond Sunlight feature that we’ve been testing out for this first half of the 2009 session: Richmond Sunlight for the iPhone. It’s a stripped-down version of the site, optimized to run on your iPhone or iPod Touch, that lists legislators and bills. It’s just past the proof-of-concept of stage, and probably not useful to the great majority of people. But if you’re the kind person who must know the latest status of a bill, or whether a particular senator’s district includes a particular city, this is for you. It’s also a great companion when you’re sitting in the gallery of the House or the Senate, watching the proceedings, and wanting more details than what’s at hand. Remember the URL—m.richmondsunlight.com—or bookmark it on your iPhone.
1/27/2009
Democrat Charniele Herring was elected to represent Alexandria in the House of Delegates in a special election two weeks ago, but was prevented from taking her seat until yesterday. The Republican majority in the House contended that the margin in the election was too close to seat her without a recount, though the State Board of Elections had certified her as the winner. Every day, Democrats attempted to get her seated, and every day the vote would fail on a party line vote. When the recount was completed, it was determined that Herring had won the race, and she was sworn in accordingly.
