Here’s this year’s roundup pf good bad and interesting bills in the General Assembly. All the links lead to Richmond Sunlight, which is an awesome bill-tracking site, much more user-friendly than the state site.
The Good
First off, everyone and their dogcatcher has introduced a bill to repeal or at least tone down the abusive driver civil fees that were part of the transportation package last year. In fact, its what sb1 is, by Sen Edd Houck (D-Spotsylvania). Also introducing identical bills are Del. Mark Cole (R-Fredericksburg), Del. Bob Marshall (R-Manassas), Del. Lacey Putney (I-Bedford), Sen. Toddy Puller (D- Mount Vernon), Del. David Englin (D-Alexandria), and Terry Kilgore (R-Gate City). The original bill’s co-author, Del Tom Rust (R-Herndon) also introduced a bill limiting the way the fees will be applied, hb448 but it will be a moot point since abusive driver fees are probably gone anyway.
hb164 by Del. David Poisson (D-Sterling) will phase out incandescent light bulbs in state buildings.
hb158 by Del. Paul Nichols (D-Woodbridge) would give judges the option of giving a thirty day license suspension for littering from a vehicle.
sb82 by Sen Ken Cuccinelli (R-Centreville) would require that local candidates who have sought and received local party endorsement have their party affiliation on the ballot. Right now, party affiliation only appears for statewide, federal, and General Assembly offices, and never for local offices. I see this clearing up a lot of confusion for local races.
hb42 by Del. Jim Scott (D-Merrifield) divides up Virginia’s electoral votes by Congressional district the way Nebraska and Maine do it.
hb32 by Del Riley Ingram (R-Hopewell) increases the penalty for fighting cocks to a class I misdemeanor. Believe it or not this bill failed last year, but it did prompt a priceless quote from Sen. Cuccinelli to the effect of “if my daughter and I put two hamsters in a cage to watch them fight, and I bet a quarter on it, will we be guilty of a misdemeanor?”
hb296 and hb299 are perrenial favorites by Del Frank Hargrove (R-Glen Allen) to put a moratorium on and repeal the death penalty.
sb105 by Sen Cuccinelli would create a non-partisan redistricting process much like the one Iowa uses, where all their congressional districts are nice neat rectangles. Hooray no Gerrymandering
The Bad
Local crazy, Bob Marshall introduced bills hb427 and hb204 changing how the board of visitors of William and Mary are elected and removing Richard Bland College from W+M. I think this is a follow-up to his outrage about the removal of Christian symbols from their chapel.
hb123 by Del. Hargrove and hb14 by Del. Chris Peace (R-Mechanicsville) would bar undocumented immigrants from college, even if they went to secondary school here and were attempting to gain legal status
hb88 by Bob Marshall would require all voters to declare a party or declare as independents, so that the parties could have primaries with only declared party members voting
hb81 gets introduced annually by Bob Marshall and would ban abortion should Roe v. Wade be overturned. I’m not sure if this bill actually does anything since the abortion ban in effect before 1972 was never officially repealed.
hb63 by Marshall again, would require someone to forfeit their car if caught driving more than once on a suspended license. Though I agree that a stiffer punishment may be needed for this crime, I’m still not a fan of Police seizing private property as often as it happens. Del. Rust and Sen. Cuccinelli have both introduced more reasonable bills for temporary impoundment.
hb55 by Del. Scott Lingamfelter (R-Woodbridge) would make English the official language of the Commonwealth. These official language bills are such an insult to the native people of the State (8 Algonquin speaking tribes), the non-English speaking settlers in Virginia and the immigrants who continue to spur the economy here.
The Interesting
hb79 by del Watkins Abbitt (I-Appomattox) would give the Virginia Civil Defense League their own license plates
hb424 by Bob Marshall would allow faculty of state colleges to carry concealed weapons in the classroom. I want to hear some feedback from college faculty out there. Are you yearning to carry heat?
hb421 by the very prolific Bob Marshall would privatize all ABC stores, like in Maryland and New Jersey and put all current stores up for auction.
Well, it should be a fun session. I’ll probably post more after some of the late ones have been introduced, and follow up on these.
January 9, 2008 at 11:32 pm
hb424 – I’m not college faculty, but I for one would prefer not to be forced to be defenseless at work even though I’m licensed by the state to defend myself nearly everywhere else I go. Especially given the proclivity for school shootings these days. Although hb424 is a nice first step, I’d like it expanded so that it would cover students, staff, and faculty. And there are students who are yearning for this. Go check out: http://concealedcampus.org/
January 10, 2008 at 12:43 am
My concern with students having guns in class is my fear that college teachers would feel afraid managing an armed class. I wonder how easy it would be even for me to tell an armed student that they had no chance of passing my class, or that they need to turn in a paper even if they are depressed because their pet died. I would be more likely to be agreeable with an armed person. Since that site isn’t hesitant to bring up the Virginia Tech incident, would the Virginia Tech shooter have been less likely to use his legally purchased guns on faculty and students had he been able to carry them to class every day? Would his teachers have been comfortable with that?