Monday, January 21, 2019

2019 Session | Week 2

Raw power, honey, just won't quit
Raw power, I can feel it
Raw power, it can't be beat
Poppin' eyes and a-flashin' feet

Don't you try, don't you try to tell me what to do
Everybody always tryin' to tell me what to do

~Iggy and the Stooges, "Raw Power"


With the deadline to file legislation behind us, (Friday the 18th at 3:00pm was the final deadline to file bills), the pace of activity is really picking up during this short session. Each house has about 2 weeks left to finish work on their own bills. A couple of my 15 bills have already been heard and died (detailed update below). The House and Senate voted on judicial appointments last week, and advocacy groups ramped up their lobbying efforts.

Judicial election day caused the first real partisan fireworks of the session. Typically Judicial elections are fairly dull, procedurally complicated affairs with a lot of steps that have to happen in the right sequence so the House and Senate can sync up to vote on Judges.

About 4:30pm Tuesday, though, we learned that in addition to voting to reappoint sitting judges the majority party had decided on a candidate to be a new State Corporation Commission (one of three). We in the minority party were informed that she would be certified, qualified, and elected the following day.

As the House Democratic Caucus Parliamentarian, it fell to me to look for procedural opportunities to slow down the nomination and give us time to go through a proper process. As Delegate Toscano said on the floor, however, the nomination wasn’t up for actual discussion. Rather, it was an exercise of raw political power.

I submitted a floor amendment to remove the late addition from the resolution and force the election to be rescheduled for a later date, and made several parliamentary inquiries to see if we could have a genuine opportunity to vet the nominee. Unfortunately, the majority party had the numbers they needed to force the election through, which is exactly what they did.

Hope you enjoy this week's update!
 
Legislative Update

Early last week, my bill to allow same day registration was heard in a House Privileges and Elections Subcommittee (HB 1904). After some debate on the idea, the bill was defeated. Unfortunately, updating our voting and election laws remains an uphill battle.

Later in the week, my bill to prohibit 3D printing of guns was heard in a House Militia, Police, & Public Safety Subcommittee (HB 1691). For those that have read my session updates in the past, you can easily predict what happened with this bill - I presented the bill and several groups spoke in favor and the usual folks spoke against. In the end, the bill was killed as are most of the common sense gun violence prevention bills heard in this committee.

Tele-Town Hall on Minimum Wage & EITC

On Thursday, I participated in a teletown on raising the minimum wage and the Earned Income Tax Credit hosted by the State Innovation Exchange (SiX). Senator Rosalyn Dance, who represents parts of Richmond and Petersburg, and Michael Cassidy, President of The Commonwealth Institute, were also panelists on the call.

Meanwhile, over the weekend...

An annual tradition, my son swaps out my old license plate for my new one. Five years after my first plate, I’m into the 50s - the plate number signifies seniority and not the district number as some might think. Lots of turnover in the House of a Delegates lately!