Roy's report: GA08-01-16
file GA08-01-16
This is my first full report from this year's session of the Virginia General Assembly. I send it out frequently during the session, and occasionally thereafter. It reports what I've seen happening and what I've been dealing with. The emphasis is on freedom, particularly concerning the classics: sex, drugs, guns, and rock'n'roll, with some chatter about other bills that I thought worth reporting. If you don't want to be on this list, let me know and I'll remove you.
This report is on what happened yesterday. When I returned home, I ate a bite and fell right over, sleeping for ten hours rather than sending the report in a more timely manner. Will try to do better in the future. It's getting out just about 24 hours late, because this has been a very busy day and I kept putting off polishing it up and sending it out. There will probably be some mistakes and omissions in this frst report.
The General Assembly is well underway, and I went down Wednesday to deal with committee meetings. There are still bills being introduced, and not all of those which have been introduced have been indexed, or even printed yet. As always, there will be suprises and confusion for a while.
For those of you who are new to the legislative process, I recommend
Throughout this and other reports, I'll be making frequent references to something like "HB31459, Smith", or "SB666, Applegate". These stand for either "House Bill" or "Senate Bill" followed by the name of the chief patron. There will probably also be references to House or Senate Joint Resolutions (HJ, SJ), Senate or House Resolutions (SR, HR) s well. I'll try not to bury you with acronyms. To get much more detail on the mundane level that I'm ever including here, look at the notes at the bottom of this and every report for the Legislative Information website.
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The Senate Committee on Courts of Justice met about 2:00 pm, with at least two bills of interest. Simultaneously, the Criminal Law Subcommittee of the House Committee on Courts of Justice met, with several bills of interest.
Not having yet mastered the art of simultaneous bilocation, I'm leaving Jim Kadison (of VCDL and American Motorists' Club) to attend the Senate committee, while I cover the House committee.
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On the House side . . . this is a meeting of the subcommittee of the House Courts of Justice Committee. HCJ has to pass on just about every bill that would impose, or change, criminal laws. Most of these bills are first considered by one or another subcommittee, which makes recommendations to the full Committee. Subcommittee votes are not formally recorded (more's the pity for the concept of open govenment).
HB334, McClellan, would make it a felony to steal a cat. The subcommittee has considered this bill three times already this year, and I predict that more time, energy, bluster, and debate will be spent on this measure than on any other. CAts are not treated with the same legal gravity as dogs, or as farm animals, and this has led to some problems. They were finally able to rework it into an acceptable form, and the bill is recommended for passage.
There are a number of bills dealing with the Sex Offender Registry. Several of these expand the places, or in some cases, the times, from which offenders are prohibited. These include: HB223, Cosgrove; HB567, Crockett-Stark; HB622, Brink.
Stuart Petoe of the State Crime Commission explained some of the problems with continually expanding the places and times where people on the Sex Offender Registry are forbidden. The Commission has already warned that if these continue to expand, they are all likely to be thrown out by the courts as being equivalent to banishment, which is unconstitutional. The subcommittee decided that all of these the bills need work, and postponed further action later this evening.
HB224, Cosgrove, would change the language of the DUI statute from covering "any self-administered intoxicant" to make clear that it covers medicatons which have been administered by a professional. The bill was amended from its original form, but proper statutory language is proving difficult to craft. Afer further amendment, the bill was recommended for passage, but we expect it to be changed some more before, and if, it gets out of committee.
HB312, Landes, would make it a felony to recklessly or negligently cause a miscarriage. The bill was amended to delete a section that would have made it a more serious felony if the bad conduct involved driving while drunk or drugged. A similar measure was passed last year ny the House, but killed in the Senate.
HB429, Marshall, makes it a crime to force a woman to have an abortion. A similar bill was passed last year, but died in the Senate. The subcommittee voted to amend this bill to
conform to last year's, and recommended passage by a split vote.
HB491, Amundson, would broaden the definition of indecent exposure to include being nude in any place, including one's own home, where others may see you. The bill is meant to address a serious situation where a man harrassed his next-door neighbor by stripping naked and masturbating ijust inside his full-length window, which faced her window. The trouble is that it's really difficult to craft language that would address that problem, without also making it a crime to fail to close the blinds when you change clothes at home. NOTE that the incident that prompted this bill is written up in some detail in Thursday's Richmond Times-Dispatch, online at:
HB495, Cosgrove, would raise the penalty for impersonating a police officer from a misdemeanor to a class 6 felony. I spoke briefly in favor of the bill, because of the problems that arise from people pretending to be police officers in order to make it easier to rob others.
HB496, Cosgrove, adds unlawfully shooting a firearm into a vehicle or a dwelling a "predicate act" in determining that a group is a "criminal gang".
HB622, Brink, adds public parks adjacent to schools, and a 500-foot region adjoining them, to the places where sex offenders may not reside. Bill was recommended for passage.
HB705, BaCote, broadens the prohibition against registered offenders visiting a school to all hours, not merely during school hours. It was discussed, amended, discussed some more, and finally recommended for passage.
HB1147, Phillips, is one of the bills I've been waiting for. It imposes strict requirements on out-of-state pharmacies which sell drugs to people in Virginia -- with penalties up to thousands of dollars and decades in jail. There's allegedly a big problem with people buying prescription drugs, for abuse. The bill was recommended for passage; we'll get a crack at it in the full Committee hearing.
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In the Senate Courts of Justice Committee, the two bills of concern were SB222 and SB379, both dealing with concealed weapons.
SB222, McDougle, expands the limits on people who are forbidden to possess firearms or explosives. Under present law, people who were convicted of felonies prior to July 1st, 2005, and were 14-17 years old at the time, are allowed to own firearms after they turn 29. The bill would apply the lifetime ban to all people, regardless of when they were convicted.
SB379, Martin, would have added box cutters to the list of weapons which you aren't allowed to carry concealed. It was killed.
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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!
end
- - Roy B. Scherer
[8 N. Sheppard Street, Richmond, VA 23221; (804) 355-7612]
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"Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God."
-- Thomas Jefferson
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