Roy's General Assembly Report - Feb 13, 2007
GA130207.odt General Assembly 13 FEB 07
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** sigh **
It's time for what's becoming an annual
rant. If you've heard it before, you should
probably hit the
I do this stuff at the General Assembly as a
public service. No one pays me for my time. No
one reimburses me for bus-fare, or lunch, or
late-night pizza or taxi-fare when meetings
extend past the time that the bus stops
running. No one subsidizes the printing, or the
courier service, or the dry-cleaning, or the
other costs. It all comes out of my pocket.
That means that no one is entitled to berate me
for not doing whatever he or she thinks that I
should do. It also means that when I get emails
accusing me of profiteering, or defrauding the
readers, that I contemptuously delete them, since
the senders have shown themselves to be either stupid or willfully ignorant.
I do this because I think that someone needs to
do it, and no one else has stepped up to do
it. I concentrate on things that interest me and
things that I think are important. These include
the classics: sex, drugs, rock'n'roll, and guns.
(You may think of me as a less-talented but
slightly-more-sane Hunter S. Thompson.)
If you have constructive criticism, please feel
free to let me know. I make mistakes, and I
overlook things that I should have noticed. Your input is welcome.
OTOH, if you wish to accuse me of selling out,
or being politically incorrect from your
viewpoint, don't bother. If I fail to meet your
standards, or if you disagree with what I do or
how I do it, I very sincerely invite you to do
better. I've been doing this, mutatis mundatis,
since 1972, shortly before Jeff, Dick, and I
founded “Virginians for Study of Marijuana Laws,
Inc.”. For a number of years I was “Virginia's
only registered marijuana lobbyist.” It's been
some time since I had to register (only required
if you're getting money), and my interests have expanded beyond marijuana.
One of the more encouraging developments in the
last few years, pretty obviously connected with
the rise of the Internet, has been the emergence
of other self-funded or micro-funded
lobbyists. Just a few of these and I mean no
disrespect to those omitted, nor do I mean to
imply that I approve all the aims of those who are listed are:
B.J. Ostergren - “The Virginia Watchdog” -
Privacy -
Hal Macklin - General sanity & deep legal research
Jim Kaddison American Motorists Association Drivers' rights
Lennice Werth Virginians Against Drug Violence Drug law reform
Mike Krawitz Virginia NORML Marijuana law reform
Mike Stollenwerk Fairfax County Privacy
Council Privacy rights -
Philip Van Cleave Virginia Citizens' Defense
League Second-amendment rights -
Now that I have all of that off my chest, we'll go on with the report.
-- Roy
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There was an 8:30am meeting of House Health,
Welfare and Institutions which I did not
attend. They had two bills of interest, but
nothing to which I could usefully
contribute. Will find out tomorrow what happened to them.
The Senate Committee on Local Government met
shortly before the scheduled 2pm. They have a
firearms bill (also a "photo-red" bill).
HB1778 (Cosgrove) to allow photographic
enforcement of red-light running, was transferred
to the Senate Committee on Transportation.
HB2547 (Carrico) would clarify current law, which
says that a person may not carry a loaded firearm
on a public road unless he or she has permission
to hunt from the landowners on both sides of the
road. The bill makes it clear that this applies
only to hunters, not to people who are legally
transporting a firearm with no intention of hunting.
The bill had not come up when I had to leave for
P&E Committee. Not to worry, Philip Van Cleave
from VCDL is here to cover this bill. [4:30
pm: Philip just came across the hall and told me
that the bill was reported from the Committee with only one dissenting vote.]
The Senate Committee on Privileges and Elections
is scheduled to meet at 3pm. They have one bill of particular interest.
HB3157 (Waldrup) requires independent and primary
candidates running for office to pay a filing
fee equal to two percent of the annual salary
for the office, or at least $50, to be listed on
the ballot. There are exceptions for some small
offices, and if the candidate provides an affidavit that he is indigent.
The short version here is that the bill died of
its own weight. Stricken from the docket without
objection from anyone, including the
patron. Those interested in details can look at
the very bottom of this report, after the website reminders.
The Committee rose a bit about 5:30pm.
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Tomorrow's significant meetings include:
noon: House and Senate convene; Patrick Henry Building
2:00 pm: Senate General Laws and Technology; Senate Room B
+ 1/2 hr: Senate Courts of Justice; Senate Room A
+ 1/2 hr: House Courts of Justice - Criminal Law Sub.; House Room C
+ 1/2 hr: House Courts of Justice - Civil Law Sub.; 7th Floor W Conf. Rm.
("+ 1/2 hr" means "half an hour after House [or Senate] adjourns")
Unless otherwise noted, all meetings are in the
General Assembly Building, SE corner of 9th and
Broad, and are open to the public.
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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.)
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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!
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HB3157 boring details for the politics junkies out there:
[Fleshed out, over a beer at the Village, from my hasty notes at the time.]
4:33pm, the bill finally comes up. There's a
substitute version -- this is a different
substitute, to replace the other substitute
version which passed the House -- with a lot more verbiage.
The new version, it turns out on inspection, is
identical in all respects to the House Committee
Substitute version, PDF online at:
except that it also amends/reenacts §24.2-114,
"duties of registrar". Adds new duty:
"At the request of any person who intends to file
a candidate petition under §24.2-506 or 24.2-521,
provide to the extent practicable a written
statement of (i) the number of signatures of
qualified voters required, and (ii) the amount of the filing fee required."
Subcommittee chairman explains that they were
worried that a potential candidate might have bad
information, get too few signatures, and find
this out only when it was too late to correct the
problem. (Presumably, they might also discover
at the last minute that they have to pay for the
privilege of being on the ballot.)
Subcommittee report says independent candidates
can get on ballot too easily, particularly in
small localities, so this bill is needed. Vote
in sub was 3-2. Repeated worry expressed that
some sort of "performance standard" is needed for
independents. Otherwise, you could have 30-40
candidates on the ballot! [At which point
civilization as we know it would presumably crumble.]
Chair asks why sub version needed.
Patron says he "just want[s] to go after these
independents." Sub version needed because
Supreme Court says must treat all
equally. Committee counsel says that's "uniform
within the class of candidates".
Devolites Davis points out that lines 27-29 p 5
mean that every single district will have
different requirements; should be uniform. (This
language identical to lines 47-49 in on-line PDF version referenced above.)
Deeds - What is the problem that this bill is meant to address?
Waldrup: "The idea behind this bill is to raise
the hurdle for independent candidates." [. . .]
"You'll have lots and lots of people who file
just so they can have their name on the same
ballot as the president of the United States,
particularly in the larger jurisdictions."
Patron says he has no great interest in the
bill, and is peeved that Legislative Services
made it more complicated, and that he's tired of
messing with it, and the Committee can kill it if they wish.
Counsel and patron go to hall to try to fix bill
about 4:45. Patron never returns, insofar as I
saw. When Committee rose, I asked Chair about
the bill, and was told that, on behalf of the
patron, he struck it from the docket. I
congratulated him on right action, and for saving
me the task of speaking to the bills
flaws. (Didn't mention that it would have been a
nice idea to have announced that action.)
All this may be more detail than anyone needs,
but some of the statements quoted here may come
in handy when a similar bill is actually passed
in a future Assembly, and we need to go to court.
-- Respectfully submitted,
-- Humble Scrivener
end
- - Roy B. Scherer