General Assembly Report - JAN 17
Here's the latest on the General Assembly from Roy Scherer:
This report has been delayed by illness, now under control. Sorry.
I'm no longer listing the specific URL to reach
each bill discussed here. See the note at the
end of this report for details of how to retrieve more information.
This afternoon [Wed17Jan07], both the Senate
Courts of Justice Committee and the Criminal Law
Subcommittee of the House Courts of Justice
Committee will meet at the same time. Each will
be considering important bills, so some of these
will simply have to be neglected. My priority
will be the Senate side, since there'll be
another opportunity to influence the House bills
when they're considered by the full House COJ Committee.
On the Senate side, we settled in to wait for
bills to come up. While waiting, I'll report
also on some of the other bills that came up.
SB827 - The Devolites-Davis bill to require
background checks for private firearms transfers
when conducted at a gun show, was postponed
again; the patron still isn't confident that she
can get it though the Committee.
SB876 - McDougle's bill would change the list
of crimes used in defining a group as a "criminal
street gang" to include first-offense (instead
of the second offense set by present law)
distribution of a Schedule I or II drug (These
include heroin, cocaine, LSD,
methamphetamine. Marijuana
distribution/manufacture will still not be
included in these “predicate offenses” except for a second felony offense.)
I spoke against this bill, but to no avail. The
Committee reported the bill, and it will now go
the Finance Committee, who must also approve
funding for it before it can be approved. The
estimated cost over the next five years is over a quarter-million dollars.
SB1079 – Puckett's bill would have established a
“Therapeutic Incarceration Program” for people
convicted of crimes related to drug use. Under
the program, these people would receive
treatment, and could have been released on parole
much sooner than if they had simply been sent to
the penitentiary. There was much discussion, and
the bill was amended to apply only to non-violent crime.
I spoke in favor of the measure, and was able to
point out a misconception of the existing law
regarding “violent crime”. (Some people thought
that drug distribution was classified as a crime
of violence. It is not; Lennice Werthe and I
made sure of that several years ago, when “Truth in Sentencing” was enacted.)
The bill was eventually defeated on a vote of 8-7.
SB1168 – Stolle - Removes the limit on
compensating court-appointed attorneys. Virginia
presently has either the lowest, or
next-to-lowest such rate in the nation, which
means that most people who cannot afford to pay
their own attorney receive only limited
defense. Even in capital cases, existing law
means that court-appointed attorneys must either
fail to do their jobs properly, or must spend
considerably more on the case than they receive
from the Commonwealth. This in turn has
resulted in a number of cases where justice was not done.
There was no opposition to this measure this
year! The problem has been known for years, and
more and more of the power groups have been
supporting change as it has gotten worse. I
should mention, since I am certainly not loath to
point out his errors, that according to Steve
Benjamin (counsel to the Committee and a driving
force behind this bill), our esteemed Attorney
General, Bob McDonnell, was personally involved
in the effort to build a coalition in favor of this reform.
SB1234 – Obenshain – would establish new crimes,
with harsher new penalties including mandatory
minimum terms, for distribution of either one
ounce or eight ounces of methamphetamine. He
says that drug dealers have responded to harsher
laws for manufacturing meth by bringing it into
Virginia from elsewhere. [Insert standard
worse-than-other-drugs-and-terrible-problem-and-end-of-civilzation
argument here.]
I spoke against it, pointing out that an
existing statute already exists which would
provide similar penalties for importing drugs
into the Commonwealth. After some discussion,
the Committee decided to approve the bill, but
cautioned Senator Obenshain that it is highly
unlikely that the Finance committee will approve
it, at least without changes, because of the
cost. (The measure in its present form, over the
next five years, is estimated to cost nearly ¾ of a million dollars.)
SB1237 – Obenshain – would increase penalties
for violation of protective orders, with
mandatory minimum sentences for repeated
offenses. It was approved, though again the
sponsor was warned that the Finance Committee may
disapprove or modify it because of
cost. (Estimated at 1 and a third million dollars.)
I was able to leave the Senate committee after
my last bill was discussed, and go join the House
subcommittee, which had been in progress for several hours.
Several bills had already been dealt with in my
absence. They'll be discussed again at the next
meeting of the full Courts Committee, so I didn't
try to get the details today. While I was there, they acted on this.
HB2532 – Landes – Would establish willful
misconduct which unintentionally causes the death
of a fetus as the crime of involuntary manslaughter.
This was discussed at some length, and was
amended to change the language from “involuntary
manslaughter” to “Class 5 felony”. This would
remove one of the primary objections to the bill,
which is that it would seem to equate “fetus” and
“person”, a tactic which ha in the past been used
as part of a strategy to limit women's rights to abortions.
The measure remains still under discussion.
None of Delegate Gilbert's drug bills were
brought up; he is still recovering. So far as I
know, neither Delegate Wittman's bill to make it
a felony to have a BB gun at school, nor his bill
to increase penalties for having marijuana at school, were brought up, either.
In other developments, Delegate Albo's bill
(HB1769) to outlaw false ads for concerts passed
the House yesterday on a 95-3 vote. This imposes
penalties for using the name of a band without
justification, as a concert billed as “The Doors”
which features only someone who used to be a backup member of the sound crew.
Subcommittee adjourned just after 7pm. At
Friday's meeting, they will have to deal with
between 130 and 250 bills . . . should be fun!
Thursday there was only one meeting with
important bills, and VCDL should have it covered, so I stayed home.
For Friday 19 January, there is a morning
meeting of House Militia, Police and Public
Safety committee, but this has only one minor
bill of concern. (HB2653 – Lingamfelter - Makes
it a Class 6 felony to solicit or otherwise
entice a firearms dealer to illegally convey a firearm.) I expect to skip it.
There is also an early meeting of Senate
Rehabilitation and Social Services, which has
several bills which are of interest but don't
really need my presence. (SB754 and SB773 –
Miller would mandate child-friendly visiting
rooms in state correctional facilities, and both
SB835 – Devolites-Davis and SB934 – Ticer would
change current law to allow continued TANF [food
stamps etc.] benefits for persons who have been
convicted of a felony drug offense comply with court orders.)
Immediately upon adjournment of a noon House
session, the House Courts of Justice Criminal Law
Subcommittee will meet for what's expected to be
a very intense session, during which the
delegates must decide on all bills still on their
docket which have fiscal impact. This is likely
to last much longer than Friday afternoon sessions usually do.
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DETAILS:
To see the summary, text, status, estimated
cost, votes, or other details on any bill, go to:
“Bills & Resolutions – status of individual bills and related information”.
At the text-entry block, enter the bill and type
just as I have it listed above. (Use “SB921”, not “S.B. 921”, for example.)
REMINDER:
These are the two websites where you can access
nearly anything you want to know about
practically anything related to the General Assembly. Use them!
end
- - Roy B. Scherer