RichmondLiberty.org

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I'm no longer listing the specific URL for details on each bill discussed here. See the “DETAILS” note at the end of this report for details of how to retrieve more information; tell me if this is unclear. Thanks.
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The Criminal Law Subcommittee of the House Courts of Justice Committee is scheduled to meet immediately upon adjournment of the full House of Delegates. The House met at noon, and we were expecting them to have finished by now. Trying to get caught up on unfinished business while waiting . . .
AT LAST! The Subcommittee meets at 2:37 – only to suspend at 2:38 as one of the members is called out, and there is no longer a quorum. The excitement is maddening ;-( . . . Finally, 2:48, we're underway.

HB1665 (Marshall) would make it a crime to force or coerce a woman to have an abortion. If the woman is a minor and the alleged forcer is alleged to be the father of the fetus, and is an adult, then the offense would be a felony. The bill would also create a cause of civil action within a year (or within a year of becoming 18, if the woman was a minor), not only on the woman's behalf but also for “wrongful death of the unborn child”. It would also define “force or coerce” very broadly, to include some speech.
As is so often the case, the bill attempts to address a real problem; I'm sure that there are instances where women have been forced to have abortions when they would rather have continued the pregnancy to term. Again as is so often the case, this bill seems to raise more problems than it would solve.
The bill as it was originally written was in serious trouble before the subcommittee. It would have, among other things, apparently made it illegal to point out facts to, for instance, a 16-year-old who's determined to have a baby while she's unmarried, in school, and without funds.
The bill has now been rewritten, but is still bad in my opinion. Hope Amezquita from the ACLU opposed it, as did I; the Family Foundation guy spoke for it, and so did someone else.
The Subcommittee has been further reworking the bill, as I type, and it's marginally better than it was. We're in final debate prior to the vote. The bill is approved, 5-3 pretty much along party lines. Bill must still be approved by the full Committee, and then by the money committees.

HB2279 (Watts) would rewrite a number of the statutes dealing with sexual offenses against children, increasing some penalties and attempting to make the law less convoluted. It's been discussed once already, and has now been amended considerably to better address problems that were raised. It has since been rewritten, and a substitute bill is being presented now (it's a quarter of seven).
The details are still changing, to a degree that I'm not going to attempt to list them here. They're on the web for the original bill, and whatever version (if any) emerges from the Committee will also be on the web then. There's general agreement on the purposes of the bill, but great concern about the estimated costs, which are nearly four million dollars, and there are dozens of nit-picking details that must each be right in order to avoid making laws that are worse, rather than better.
It's closing up on nine pm, and a subset of the subcommittee has been working on this bill for over an hour (while most of them worked on others). It still needs more work, but they're confident that they will have a good version on Monday.

HB2337 (Gilbert) would amend the child-abuse statute to include, as a Class 6 felony, for a pregnant woman to use any Schedule I or II drug without a prescription, or in a way inconsistent with a prescription if one exists. It would specify blood tests as sufficient proof.
I think that I'll support the bill, providing that it's amended to include alcohol and tobacco, and expanded to cover nursing women as well, and expanded to apply to either parent who uses any smoking material in the same building as the child, and . . . there should be other ways of “improving” the bill, as well. We don't really know whether or not the bill will be heard tonight. The patron is still in rehab . . . but they really can't put it off much longer.
At 6:15 the bill comes up, with a proxy patron. There's a substitute already prepared, which is much more straightforward and less bad. “Less bad” is still not good, and the bill was tabled (effectively killed) with very little discussion and no need for testimony. (Three of us were ready.)

HB2586 (Janis) would define looting (stealing during a declared emergency) and punish it as a Class 1 misdemeanor, or a Class 6 felony for a repeated offense. It has an exemption for acts done to “immediately save life or limb”, but no others, such as taking food.
Delegate Janis asked that the bill be carried over to next year, having been made aware of some of the problems with the bill.

HB2648 (SC Jones) would expand the existing law against causing an abortion to apply to the pregnant woman herself. I spoke against it, pointing out that it could affect some sorts of birth control, and would certainly make a criminal of a woman who used any of a number of herbal or folk methods to terminate a pregnancy. Hope from the ACLU was also ready to testify, but a discussion broke out among the subcommittee members about whether or not it clarified existing law or broke new ground. The decision was made to lay the bill on the table, with the idea that it might possibly be revived at Monday's meeting of the full Committee. If that occurs, there should be further opportunity to testify.

HB2662 (Reid) would have made it a felony to house, transport or conceal anyone whom you know or should know to be an illegal alien. It would be a Class 6 felony, except that if there was any commercial gain it would be a Class 5 felony. This bill was not on the docket, but is being heard because the patron was mistakenly told that it would be. The chairman has proposed a substitute that would only apply when the acts were taken “for money or other consideration”.
Claire Guthrie Gastanaga spoke strongly against the bill on behalf of Virginia Coalition of Latino Organizations, as did Jennefer Faison of Virginia Assn. of Community Service Boards. Other opponents speaking were a representative of shelters for abused women and two dioceses of the Catholic church.
There was concern that other opponents had not been heard, since they had no way of knowing that the bill would be considered today, and there were repeated objections to specific points of the bill. Eventually, the Subcommittee decided to pass this bill to the full Committee for a better hearing, which will have to be on Monday.

HB2749 (Hurt) is not one that I had intended to address. It deals with child pornography, pedophilia, and sex offender registration requirements. One of its provisions would require a person who is required to register on the Sex Offender Registry to also report all email addresses and screen names that he uses, and to report any changes in that information within three days.
When I heard this, and the concern raised that a predator might keep changing his screen name every few days in order to keep ahead of the reporting requirements, I asked to speak. I suggested that since the subject would have to be both at a computer and connected to the Net in order to effect a new or changed screen name or email/IM address, it would be much more effective and hardly more onerous to simply require that the State Police be advised within a half-hour of establishing the change. Once it was established that the State Police do, in fact, have email capability 24/7, this change was made to the bill.
As I paid more attention to the bill, I was pleased to hear concern from the Chair and other members about unintended consequences. For instance, it doesn't limit “possession” on a computer to images that have been downloaded; it says that it would be “possession” of child pornography if you had inadvertently viewed an image on-line, since it would then be “stored in a computer's temporary Internet cache or other volatile memory ”. The proponents explained that there are now sites that offer access to live webcams that show such acts, but agreed to rewrite the section.
The bill as introduced has a number of other problems, many duly ferreted out by the members and staff of the Subcommittee. It would remove exemptions for possession of otherwise illegal images for benign purposes, such as research, medical and scholarly use, and even law enforcement/judicial use. It would establish a penalty of up to thirty years, for instance, if a boy who has just turned 18 were to email his girlfriend (who is a week younger than he is) and suggest oral sex.
The proponents swore mighty oaths that they would have a rewritten bill ready for the full Committee on Monday, addressing all the concerns raised. On that assurance, the Subcommittee voted to recommend that the bill be approved and sent to the lockbox – after all, it's estimated to cost 1 1/3 million bucks!
I'll be paying close attention to the rewritten version on Monday.

The Subcommittee is still meeting at a few moments before five, and tempers are getting short – it's already been pointed out that no one living out of town will be seeing their children before bedtime.
Finally adjourned, at 8:57 pm! (And the bus is still running!)

Next meetings are Monday:
At 9:00 am, Senate Courts of Justice meets in Senate Room A, General Assembly Building with bills of interest
< http://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp504.exe?071+doc+S0310122>
House and Senate meet at noon.
A halfhour after the House adjourns, House Courts of Justice meets in House Room C, General Assembly Building
< http://tinyurl.com/2s8lxl>

In the previous report, I mentioned that VCDL would be at the House Militia and Police meeting where a number of gun bills were being heard. The VCDL report on that meeting follows the DETAILS and REMINDER notes below.

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DETAILS:
To see the summary, text, status, estimated cost, votes, or other details on any bill, go to:
< http://leg1.state.va.us/>. Click on:
“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:
< http://leg1.state.va.us/> and < http://legis.state.va.us/>
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!

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Subject: VA-ALERT: Legislative Update 1/18/07!
List-Subscribe: < mailto:subscribe-va-alert@v2.listbox.com>,
< http://v2.listbox.com/subscribe/?list_id=727>

There was good and bad in the Militia, Police, and Public Safety subcommittee #1 tonight.

Bad news

Delegate Carrico under pressure from the Sheriff's Association lobby removed the fingerprinting repeal language from HB 2106. Instead he put in language that should close the loopholes that some sheriff's and police departments have tried to use to require fingerprinting of CHP renewal applicants. The bill will be worked on in full committee to add language defining what a 'renewal' is and to further tighten the actual renewal fingerprint ban language in 15.2-915.3. The bill as changed will be pretty much useless if we get lifetime permits starting this July as no one will be renewing anyhow. Consequently, I am changing the status of this bill from 'Strongly Support' to 'Support' to reflect its weakened language.

Delegate Janis' bill to let judges carry without a permit, HB 2593, was passed out of subcommittee with a note that it needs more work in committee. No one had a chance to speak on this and I plan to do so in committee. This is a bad bill as it would allow a judge with a DUI, or other misdemeanors, to carry, while you or I would lose our permit for 3 or more years! Sorry, but what's good for the goose should be good for the gander.

Delegate Sickles' bill to require safe storage brochures at mental health facilities and that requires the State Police store the firearms of those individuals who don't want their guns at home around a mentally unstable family member, HB 2811, was passed by for the week to give Sickles time to do some rewording. Overall the subcommittee was not thrilled with the bill and VCDL is going to continue to oppose it, even with the proposed changes that Sickles is working on. Hopefully next week the subcommittee will tank it.

Good news

Delegate BaCote's library gun ban bill, HB 2173, was defeated easily!

Delegate Carrico's bill to clarify that only hunters have to have permission to hunt on both sides of the road if they are carrying a loaded firearm on that road, HB 2547, was passed unanimously!

Delegate Spruill's bill to ban carry in Capitol Square, HB 2900, was defeated! One of the bill's objectives according to Spruill was to ban Delegates and Senators from carrying on the Floor! ROFLMAO!

Delegate Wittman did the right thing and struck HB 3013, his bill to make carrying a BB gun on school grounds a Class 1 misdemeanor. So that bill is now dead. Hopefully the felony version will follow suit.

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VA-ALERT is a project of the Virginia Citizens Defense League, Inc. (VCDL).
VCDL is an all-volunteer, non-partisan grassroots organization dedicated to
defending the human rights of all Virginians. The membership considers the
Right to Keep and Bear Arms to be an essential human right.

VCDL web page: http://www.vcdl.org
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end

- - Roy B. Scherer