Group pushes for expansion of Alicia’s Law
Alicia’s Law, the Virginia legislation inspired by the rescue of a captive child, has generated more law enforcement funds than projected in its first two years and should be expanded immediately to ensure more child rescues.
That’s the message delivered today by a group of Virginia law enforcement and legislative leaders who joined the pro-child, anti-crime group PROTECT for a press conference in Richmond.
The gathering included Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, Capt. Kirk Marlowe of the Virginia State Police and Bedford County Sheriff Mike Brown, as well as Deputy Majority Leader Todd Gilbert (R-Shenandoah) and Sen. Creigh Deeds (D-Bath). Read more
Creigh Deeds: Session Report
January has come and gone. Punxsutawney Phil has seen his shadow, and it appears that six more weeks of winter weather are ahead. We saw temperatures in the 70s in Richmond this week. Hopefully Phil is predicting six more weeks of this type of wintry weather.
Throughout this session, one thing that stands out for me is the apparent disconnect between my colleagues in the General Assembly and those who campaigned for office last fall. Last fall, candidates from both parties in every region of the Commonwealth were focused on the economy, and rightfully so. Read more
Creigh Deeds; Session report
The 2012 session of the General Assembly is moving by rapidly. Deadlines for the submission of bills and budget amendments have long passed, and both houses of the Assembly are in full swing. There were both good and bad signs of things to come this past week.
On the hopeful side, Democrats and Republicans worked together in many committees and on the floor of the Senate to find compromise and move a number of bills forward. Some bills I favored, others I did not, but divisions did not often break down along party lines. For example, the Senate advanced a bill allowing hunting on private property on Sundays. Read more
Creigh Deeds: General Assembly Report
The 2012 Session of the General Assembly got off to an inauspicious start. Precedent was ignored and the 60 day session began under the shadow of a lawsuit. A brief explanation:
Twice before, houses of the Virginia General Assembly have been evenly divided. In 1996 the Senate was divided, 20 Democrats and 20 Republicans. In 1998 the House of Delegates was divided, 50 Democrats, 49 Republicans and 1 Independent who caucused with the Republicans. In both of those instances, power sharing agreements were reached dividing equally leadership and membership of the committees. This bipartisan approach worked.
This year produced a different result. Read more
David Reynolds: The Electoral Mirror
Elections are not just about winners and losers. They are about you and me, the electorate who voted for those who won and lost. Thus, an election is a mirror of ourselves.
So, what did we say about ourselves? We laid out a comfort zone. If a candidate was outside of it, he or she was not able to catch the brass ring. We said that how we feel about a candidate is how we like to feel about ourselves. We prefer to speak and live softly. If you want to win, we tell our candidates don’t come on too strong, find a quiet, friendly spot off a back road and we will likely vote for you. In-your-face controversy is out, but experience is in. No experience, no trust, no vote. It’s all good. Here in the valley, our physical comfort zone, our neighbors are free and friendly.
There are other comfort zones. We call them academic communities. I have finally come to the conclusion that it would be a mistake for such communities, usually independent cities, to be swallowed up by the surrounding county. Blurring city lines makes no sense. If you doubt this, examine the election results for any recent year, including this November. And while you’re at it, check out the Alleghany County/City of Covington merger vote. Both jurisdictions have decided to allow their citizens to continue their separate ways. Isn’t federalism wonderful? We can live as we vote. Yes, but it’s expensive.
What about the newly elected? Allow me to answer this way: Does putting wine from old bottles change its taste?
Did you notice that the Democratic Party in the Rockbridge area has proven once again how to play the great game of politics? Simple — forget local endorsements. When will Republicans learn that backing candidates falls under the Law of Unintended Consequences?
And how about the man who lost the governorship by a landslide (20 percentage points) keeping his state senate seat by another landslide, winning 64-36. His GOP opponent can now go back to helping clients decipher the tax code. Welcome home, Creigh.
Besides personalities, you might be wondering how the issues fared in the past election? What issues?
One last point on the importance of voting. Two hundred and twenty-four voters in the 17th Senate District determined the legislative agenda for over 8 million Virginians. The GOP now controls both houses of Virginia’s General Assembly.
Column by David Reynolds
David Reynolds: Shop and vote local
Haven’t you had enough of that pollution coming out of an old river swamp that we call Washington, D.C.? I have. That’s why I moved to the Valley. One size doesn’t fit the entire country. It’s too big.
So we carved it up by inventing federalism – state and local governments. Now we don’t always have to listen to Washington. Thank James Madison, the Sage of Montpelier, for allowing us the freedom to occasionally turn off DC.
You know what the polls say. Congress is near the bottom of the barrel in approval ratings. And the president is in a free fall, down to 41 percent.
Here’s my answer to the polls. Ignore them! Shop for local candidates. You may not agree, but most are as good as our tomatoes and corn are in August.
But selecting them is slightly different. There is only one shopping day for candidates. It is this Tuesday, Nov. 8. Be there! And be early to select the best buys.
In politics there is a theory that voters may not select the best person, but they weed out the worst candidates. When you vote on Tuesday you will do some weeding. And not buy bad tomatoes.
Here’s a ripe choice. For state senate, Creigh Deeds is still our man. Until the GOP gets serious about selecting a candidate for the 25th District there will be no contest. Creigh did not make governor because (a) his timing was terrible and (b) his national party let him down. (Translation: He ran the worst possible campaign a year after Mr. Obama was elected.)
There are many choices for board of supervisors and city council seats. Some believe in regional cooperation. Others pay lip service. Separate the two. But the real problem in local politics is that too many council members and supervisors keep going off in different directions. And therefore little gets accomplished. If not political parties, what’s wrong with slates, such as a smart-growth slate to determine what the land will look like for our children? Parties and slates would help to wean us away from the beauty contests we now conduct. And maybe more good ideas would surface. Is that so wild a dream?
Speaking of dreams, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once said,”Our lives begin to end the day we remain silent about the things that matter.” What happens in the Valley of Virginia matters to me. And I don’t wish to die.
Do yourself a favor. Follow Nike as well as Madison, “Just do it.” Vote on Tuesday! Or this being a free country, you are free to continue to do what we do all too well – complain.
Column by David Reynolds
David Reynolds: Senator for Life
If you live in the 25th Virginia Senatorial District, Creigh Deeds has earned your support for another term. We all know that Creigh fell a little short wishing to be our governor. But please do not judge our man by that miserable gubernatorial campaign that was run for him out of a temporary White House office in Alexandria. The children who ran it believed only in themselves and knew only of a Virginia with endless townhouses, gridlocked roads and the Washington Post.
There is also the state where we live, ReVa, the Real Virginia. Combined with NoVa, the White House whiz kids managed to lose the governorship by 20 percentage points.
But that’s ancient history. Creigh, like Dolly in her musical, is back where he belongs, as a state senator – for as long as he wants the job. He knows his territory and he knows the issues. Mr. Deeds was never an Obama Democrat. He is a Virginia Democrat, a reasonable politician who works well with Republicans. He is always willing to meet the opposition more than half way – if it is for a better whole.
Nevertheless, our man from Millboro has an opponent from Charlottesville, a young tax lawyer, T. J. Aldous. (No relation to that other TJ from C’ville.) I know that Republicans need only to pick up three seats in order to wrestle control of the forty-seat Virginia Senate from the Democrats. But, come on, out of the nearly 200,000 people living in Virginia’s 25th Senatorial District, could not the Grand Old Party of the Old Dominion come up with a better candidate? I guess not.
Therefore I presume that the GOP is conceding defeat in the 25th. That’s smart. It is also a smart move for Mr. Aldous and his tax law practice. A true story. In 1964 following the Goldwater-Miller landslide loss (61-39) to President Johnson, a reporter asked the previously little known VP candidate, William E. Miller, what he had learned. He said that he learned that his law practice in Lockport, New York was now doing very well, thank you.
Smart business move,TJ. And welcome back to where you belong, my good Deeds friend.
A personal note: Now that NJ Gov. Christie has told the world for the umpteenth time that he is not running for president, I have decided to establish an exploratory committee to determine whether I should throw my hat into the big ring. The committee’s first meeting will be held next Sunday at 3:00 am at an undisclosed valley location in the last remaining telephone booth in America. If you can’t make it, I’ll understand.
Column by David Reynolds
Valley conservation leaders encouraged, cautioned
Funding challenges, the far-reaching impact of the Chesapeake Bay Act, and the rapidly rising importance of urban conservation took center stage at the Spring Meeting of the six Soil and Water Conservation Districts serving the 13 counties of the Shenandoah Valley and adjacent highlands.
Addressing the 60+ attendees, State Sen. Emmett Hanger, R-Mount Solon, noted the shift in Virginia’s rural-urban populations and the resulting impact on urban conservation, to include storm water runoff and its costly effects – that is, the huge sums spent on water treatment to remove pollutants. The senator called for significant increases in the everyday use of non-potable water (e.g., toilets and yard watering), which he claimed would save hundreds of millions of dollars once widely implemented. Hanger also reminded districts that the historical reliance on data from government-subsidized conservation practices provided imperfect estimates on watershed pollutant levels. He encouraged districts to find ways to capture the untracked impact of voluntary conservation practices to more precisely identify and monitor contaminants.
Like his Senate colleague, State Sen. Creigh Deeds, D-Bath, stressed the importance of conservation, but warned Districts that Richmond is notoriously frugal, a fact borne out in Virginia’s last-place ranking in per capita spending on conservation. Deeds cautioned districts that Virginia will suffer greatly from federal budget cuts, as Washington has provided most of the funding for the Commonwealth’s conservation program.
Ed Overton, president of the Virginia Association of Soil & Water Conservation Districts, said the Association was “grateful to the Senate and House for recognizing the significance of the districts’ work in addressing statewide water quality issues.” He thanked the senators and their colleagues for appropriating one million dollars of the $2.8 million requested to implement Virginia’s Chesapeake Bay Watershed Implementation Plan, approved by the Environmental Protection Agency in late November.
David Kriz of USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service cautioned that forthcoming Federal budget cuts will soon force NRCS to push more conservation issues to partner agencies – including Virginia’s 47 Conservation Districts. Meanwhile, Jim Echols, regional manager for the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation, warned conservation staff and leaders about the difficult challenge districts face in educating Virginians unaware of the scope, depth, and size of the Chesapeake Bay watershed. The Chesapeake Bay WIP identifies numerous actions needed to reduce major sources of nitrogen, phosphorus, and sediment flowing into the Bay. Key sources targeted under the plan include sewage treatment plants, industrial facilities, urban areas, septic systems, and the agricultural and forestry sectors.
The VASWCD is addressing the skyrocketing importance of urban conservation with the creation of a dual-track program to aid the 30 percent of Virginians living in urban areas. The first component of this initiative is securing a grant to establish a pilot urban “cost-share” program. The second facet, modeled after successful efforts in Illinois and North Carolina, is the establishment of a diverse program of urban-focused options from streambed restoration and rain gardens to education and training in Low-Impact Development.
Individuals interested in learning more about the key roles conservation plays in the lives of all Virginians should contact their local Soil and Water Conservation District or the Virginia Association of Soil and Water Conservation Districts at 804.559.0324. Additional information is available online at www.vaswcd.org.
Creigh Deeds: Session report
The 2011 session is rapidly winding down with adjournment scheduled on the 26th of February. The last few days of the session will be spent working out differences between House and Senate versions of bills. Major differences remain on some critical matters.
The largest responsibility of the legislature each session is to pass a balanced budget. In recent years, as Virginia’s economy has struggled in recession, getting a budget passed has been more difficult. Growth in state revenues had been virtually non-existent, and we have seen the general fund, the money used for public education, public health and education, retract now to 2005 or 2006 levels. This year we have seen some growth, and that is a positive sign.
The primary differences between the House and Senate budget proposals revolve around how to spend the increase. The House opted to put the bulk of new revenue in transportation. The Senate chose to restore some of the difficult cuts we made in recent years to public education and health care. Reconciliation of the budget differences will be the main work over the next week. Among those differences are funding for public broadcasting, Medicaid, public education, and compensation.
Included in the budget is the General Assembly’s response to the long-term problem we have with the solvency of the Virginia Retirement System (VRS). There should be no alarm. VRS is sound, but a Joint Legislative and Audit Review Commission (JLARC) study showed in December that within the next fifteen years or so Virginia has significant unfunded liabilities. Last year, on the recommendation of the Governor, the General Assembly reduced contributions to VRS by $620 million. This year, the Senate and the House both made a concerted effort to begin repaying that money to VRS.
In December, the Governor made news when he indicated that for the first time in 28 years state employees would be required to contribute to the retirement fund. His plan, which called for a five percent contribution to be offset by three percent pay increases, has been rejected by both the House and Senate. Still, there are differences in the approaches taken by both bodies.
I have spent a lot of time over the past number of years in my newsletters talking about transportation. We don’t need to rehash all of the details of what is frankly a crisis that affects our long-term economic health. A transportation bill has worked its way through both the House and the Senate and, while there are differences, I am confident that a bill will pass. I have not felt like I could support either version of the bill for any number of reasons. First, the bill relies on four billion dollars in debt and breaks Virginia’s long-standing tradition of being a “pay as you go” state. Second, maxing out our debt capacity will tie the hands of future governors and legislatures and limits flexibility to address future needs. Third, the general fund will likely be raided in the future just to service the debt. In fact, the House plan takes $150 million out of the GF immediately.
This approach to transportation represents a short-term view. We have about $20 billion in back-logged projects that exist statewide. We have a shortage of maintenance funds that threaten our ability to maintain our current transportation infrastructure. Rather than tackle the problem head on, we are passing a $4 billion debt package. As I pointed out before, the money will be spent by 2016, but we will not complete repayment until 2039. Only three projects, two in Hampton Roads and one in Northern Virginia, are guaranteed to be completed with the borrowed money. A list of over 900 projects has been shopped around, raising hope that much needed projects will advance as well, but there is no guarantee that will occur. What I see is that by 2016 when the money is spent, we will be left holding the bill and we will still have a crisis in transportation.
A major accomplishment of this legislative session has been the passage of a bill requiring insurance companies to provide coverage for children with autism. Unless autism affects your family or you know someone who is affected, it is difficult to understand the pressure this disease places on people. The overwhelming body of evidence suggests the earlier you start providing therapy to a child with autism the more likely the child is to lead a productive life. The bill passed in Virginia is the most restrictive in the country, yet to many families it offers real hope. I think this is a significant accomplishment and congratulate Senator Janet Howell, a Fairfax Democrat, and Delegate Tag Greason, a Loudon Republican, for their leadership on this issue.
Creigh Deeds is a member of the Virginia Senate.
Creigh Deeds: Session update
The Virginia General Assembly works as close as is possible to the way representative government was intended. Sessions are short, fast-paced and members, by necessity, have to earn their principal income outside of government. Members of the General Assembly come from all walks of life and must balance family and work with legislative service. It is not always easy.
This past week we reached the crossover in the legislative session, and the Senate and House passed amendments to the budget. I am proud the Senate’s proposal begins the process of restoring fiscal health to the Virginia Retirement System by accelerating repayment to the fund. We also increased funding to K-12 and higher education and restored some balance to our provision of core services in Virginia, without a tax increase. The House budget reflects different priorities, and the next two weeks will be spent in large part reconciling those differences.
The House and the Senate passed transportation bills. The differences between the plans passed in the House and Senate are significant, but I can report to you that I could not support either one. The passage of the transportation bill is critically important; it will help us begin to address the backlog of projects and create jobs to jumpstart our economy, but the plan is flawed. The House takes money from education, public safety, and health care to fund transportation. The Senate version rejects that approach, but still relies heavily on debt. Under the version passed by the Senate, the money, about $4 billion, will be spent by 2016. Virginia’s debt service will exceed the five percent cap. Debt service on the bonds will not hit its peak until 2028 and will not be completed until 2039. I fear that future Governors and legislators will have to raise taxes just to make the debt service payments. Furthermore, by 2016 we will be in exactly the same posture we are now, with a backlog of projects and no sustained source of funding for transportation. And the only projects guaranteed to be funded are in Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads. Transportation is a statewide issue.
I can report to you that my bills moved along with a fair amount of success in the first half of the Session:
- SB 890, 900, and 901 relate to the proposed City of Alleghany Highlands and will allow the citizens of Alleghany and Covington to decide whether to create a consolidated city. Those bills have passed the Senate and should be voted on by the full House next week.
- SB 902 will allow retired judges to act as pro bono counsel in civil matters. That bill has passed the Senate and is pending in the House.
- SB 903 and 904 seek to close some gaps in prosecutions with respect to domestic violence and subsequent offenses by felons. These bills were brought to me by prosecutors from Campbell County and Lynchburg and have also passed the Senate.
- SB 905 and SB 1234 were brought to me from the City of Charlottesville by a bike safety committee. I struck SB 905 to try to build consensus within the bicycling and law enforcement communities around the application of reckless driving laws and bicyclists. SB 1234 is pending in a House Transportation Subcommittee.
- SB 906 is a response to dating violence and the tragedies we have witnessed throughout Virginia. This bill updates family life education curriculum and is a product of students in the Sorensen Institute for Political Leadership. This bill has passed the Senate and is moving through the House.
- SB 1229 creates an incentive for clean energy manufacturing job creation. The bill was incorporated into SB 1360, which has passed the Senate and is awaiting consideration in the House.
- SB 1232 is an effort to restore integrity to the land conservation tax credit program. This bill has passed the Senate and is moving through the House.
- SB 1233 elevates the retirement status of conservation officers who work in state parks to that of other law enforcement officers.
- SB 1426 would require those found guilty of child pornography offenses to pay restitution to the victim.
- SB 1450 requires the Department of Taxation to put fillable tax forms on the internet. This will create a huge convenience for taxpayers and make the filing process more efficient.
- SB 1451 creates transparency for parents whose children have been admitted to behavioral health facilities around Virginia by requiring the state to post information about licensing and investigations.
- SJR 321 is my annual effort to reform the redistricting process. This bill has passed the Senate and is scheduled to be heard in Subcommittee next week.
- SJR 355 is an attempt to create more efficiency in state government by moving to a zero-based budgeting process. This resolution has passed the Senate and is moving through the House.
It continues to be my honor to serve you. If we can be of assistance in the last two weeks of the legislative session, feel free to contact me or my legislative aide, Tracy Eppard, at (804) 698-7525 or by e-mail at district25@senate.virginia.gov.
Creigh Deeds: Session report
The 2011 General Assembly session is racing toward conclusion. We are now at the halfway point, the crossover, when each house must complete work on its own bills. We are just days away from having competing versions of the budget adopted and finalizing actions on a number of controversial issues. Intensifying the work is the knowledge that after we complete the 2011 regular session later this month, we will be called back into a special session to redraw legislative and congressional districts.
The U.S. Constitution requires a census every ten years and the subsequent redrawing of congressional districts. Our state Constitution similarly requires the redistricting of House of Delegates and Senate districts upon completion of the census. With the census figures just released this week, we now know more about where the population shifts occurred. While the overall population figure for Virginia has been available for some time, the precinct level information has just been made available, so work on redistricting can begin in earnest. This is one of the toughest times in politics. Some districts gained population significantly and will have to shrink; others lost population and will have to grow. For many years I have advocated for reforming the process by which we draw district lines. My ideas found favor in the Senate, but have continually been rejected in the House of Delegates. This year the governor appointed an advisory commission on redistricting. Although I am uncertain exactly what role the commission will play, it is certainly useful to have more ideas as the process unfolds.
With the task of redistricting looming, we still have a significant amount of work remaining in the 2011 session. Constituents and special interest groups have filled the halls the last few weeks to talk about budget priorities. Over the weekend, the House Appropriations Committee and the Senate Finance Committee will release amendments to the state’s spending plan for the next year and a half. Central to those discussions is the governor’s transportation plan. The Virginia highway system was created during governor Harry Byrd’s administration in the 1920s and utilized cash to fund projects and road maintenance. Debt in Virginia has been reserved for capital projects, like buildings on college campuses, state office buildings, improvements in state parks, and mental hospitals.
While the governor’s proposal relies heavily on debt, the use of bonds to fund highways in Virginia is not entirely new. During the years when governor Gilmore was in office, bonds serviced by anticipated federal revenue were issued. We have grown more reliant on these short-term bonds during the last twelve years. In 2007, the General Assembly attempted to address our transportation problems with House Bill 3202. The legislation included longer-term bonds that we did not begin issuing until 2010 because of the economic slowdown.
The bond issue is of particular concern because we are almost at our debt capacity limit, which stipulates our debt service payments may not exceed five percent of general fund revenues. In order to move forward with issuing bonds, the governor proposed looking at the five percent debt cap as an average of general fund revenues over a period of ten years. The governor, therefore, proposes to issue over the next three years $3 billion in bonds approved in 2007 that are serviced by car insurance premium taxes together with an additional $l.1 billion in bonds to be serviced by anticipated future federal revenues. The governor’s package will cause total state debt servicing to exceed the five percent cap by 2014.
The governor’s transportation plan has gained a lot of support from Democrats and Republicans. Many agree with me that there is no quicker way to invigorate the economy and create jobs than to get a transportation package passed. We have transportation needs all over Virginia that must be addressed, and the bond package could advance about nine hundred projects that are already in the Six Year Plan. However, I am very concerned about the long term consequences of issuing debt to fund highway construction. I am particularly concerned that much of the debt is relying on future federal revenue. The 2010 elections reflected growing concern about the accumulation of debt and what is viewed as out of control deficient spending; yet, in 2011 we are relying on more deficient spending to get a transportation bill passed in Virginia. Furthermore, to rely on the federal government for increased funding is just not sound public policy given the federal government’s transportation trust fund has only been made whole by transfers from the general fund for the last two years. As we head into a vote on the transportation plan, I am trying to weigh all considerations.
It continues to be a high honor for me to serve in the Senate of Virginia. During the past three weeks, I have received thousands of emails from constituents about various bills and look forward to your continued input. If you would like to share your views or set up a time to visit the Capitol, please contact me or my legislative aide, Tracy Eppard, at (804) 698-7525 or by email at district25@senate.virginia.gov.
Creigh Deeds is a member of the Virginia State Senate.
Creigh Deeds: Session report
Posted by afp on February 10, 2012 · Leave a Comment
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