Dear Friends and Neighbors,
Last Tuesday was cross-over, the traditional
halfway point of the Session where the House and
the Senate have to finish action on their own bills
and send them over to the opposite body for
consideration. The days leading to cross-over are a
mad scramble as committees work late into the
evening to deliberate on literally hundreds of
bills. I am told that this year’s cross-over
was relatively easy – finishing up around 8:00
p.m. with four hours to spare. In the past, it has
sometimes been necessary to invoke a localized
“power-outage” to keep the clock at
11:59 p.m.
The following is a summary of just a few of the
bills that we tackled last week. Based on the
survey responses, I know that the voters of the 37th
District have a wide range of opinions on all of
these. As always, I welcome your feedback and
questions. You can find out more about individual
bills by visiting http://leg1.state.va.us.
Transportation (HB3202): As
expected, this Session has been dominated by
transportation. The role of the House took on added
urgency when the Senate plan was effectively killed
the day before cross-over, meaning that the House
plan was the only remaining vehicle for a solution
this year. Unlike most of the bills that come before
the House, which are narrowly tailored to a
specific part of the Code, HB3202 is a wide-ranging
bill that addresses everything from VDOT reform, to
land use planning, to regional self-help plans, to
authorization for transportation bonds. The bill has
both good aspects and aspects that give me cause
for concern. However, at the end of the day the
question came down to whether HB3202 should be sent
to the Senate so that we could continue with the
deliberations and hopefully come up with a stronger
plan. Along with 12 other Northern Virginian
delegates, I voted yes. Delegate Ward Armstrong from
Henry County once told me, “Sometimes you
just have to swallow that toad if you are serious
about getting something done.”
Indoor Smoking (HB2422): Last
year, efforts to pass an indoor smoking ban met
with defeat in the House Committee on General Laws.
This year, a new bill has passed the House that
would prohibit restaurants from allowing smoking
unless they posted a conspicuous sign at the
entrance informing customers that smoking is
allowed. On first look, it sounded like a good
consumer choice bill. But there was a catch. The
bill also repealed the requirement for restaurants
to have a non-smoking section. While non-smoking
sections aren’t perfect, to me they provide a
better alternative than not having them at all,
especially in areas where your choice of
restaurants is limited. As a member of the Committee
on General Laws, I attempted to restore the
non-smoking section requirement while keeping the
new signage language. My motion failed, and
ultimately the bill passed the House on 74Y/22N
vote, with me voting no. It was a strange coalition
that voted against this bill – and I suspect
we weren’t all voting no for the same reason.
Illegal Immigration: Wow. Aside
from transportation, this issue dominated most of
the week. While I support efforts to better enforce
immigration laws, I have also tried to make sure
this is done in a way that doesn’t hurt
children or those seeking emergency care. For
example, I voted for measures to increase penalties
on businesses that knowingly hire illegal immigrants
(see HB2687 and HB2688) as well as measures that
allow our State Police to enforce federal
immigration laws when someone has been stopped or
held for a criminal violation (see HB1618 and
HB1970). On the other hand, HB2937 would eliminate
State funding to any organization that provided even
indirect support to illegal immigrants. The
unintended consequence here would be that charities
and non-profits that help children and those in
dire need – such as Catholic Charities, the
Salvation Army, and the Boys and Girls Clubs –
would need to screen who they serve. This seemed to
be a very tough burden and I voted against the
measure.
Electric Utility Re-Regulation
(HB3068): In the 1990s, Virginia
experimented with de-regulation of our electric
utility industry with the hope that competition
would reduce consumer prices. Although it sounded
good in concept, no meaningful competition ever
developed. As a result, there has been enormous
pressure to re-regulate the electric utilities
before artificial rate caps expire in 2010. One of
the flaws of the original regulatory structure was
that it didn’t provide much of an incentive
for electric utilities to maximize efficiencies.
The new structure adopted by the House in HB3068
provides State oversight of utility rates, but also
provides electric utilities with an incentive to
streamline operations by allowing them to split
savings between customers and the utility. I think
that we are on the right track, but I also suspect
that we will be revisiting the measure over the
next few years to work out the bugs and kinks.
Eminent Domain (HB2954): A few
years back, the Supreme Court, in Kelo v. New
London, gave government sweeping authority to
take private property through eminent domain. While
abuse of eminent domain has not been a wide-spread
problem in Virginia, the General Assembly has
rightly decided to narrow what constitutes a
“public use” under which eminent domain
can be exercised. The sticking point has been the
extent to which government can condemn a blighted
area and then turn the property over to the private
sector for redevelopment. HB2954 is a compromise
bill that would allow the government to take
blighted property and work with a private developer
– while prohibiting the government from
consolidating neighboring properties that
aren’t blighted in order to make the
redevelopment more profitable. While there are still
outstanding issues, the compromise represents a
good step forward and I voted for HB2954. However, I
did not vote for the companion Constitutional
amendment. Perhaps after a few years of practical
application it might be ready for Constitutional
prime-time.
The Budget: Two days after
cross-over, the House also adopted amendments to
the 2006-2007 budget. Compared to
the transportation debate, the budget was easy.
Despite some concerns with a significant reduction
in funding for land conservation and open space
– on which I spoke on the House floor –
this was generally a positive budget for Northern
Virginia. It is not often that this happens, but
after the debate, the Budget passed 97Y-0N. The
budget now goes into Conference Committee to work
out differences with the Senate.
Finally, I want to thank everyone who attended my
Town Hall meeting and/or has completed a survey. I
have learned a lot, and some of the results were
surprising. It is not too late to take the survey
on-line at www.davidbulova.com.
Also, congratulations to the 40 Bonnie Brae
Elementary School artists whose artwork was selected
for display on the 4th floor of the General
Assembly Building. See
here for details!
Sincerely,
David Bulova