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General Assembly Report by Rob Bell The Virginia General Assembly has finished the majority of its work. Bills that passed both the Virginia House of Delegates and the Virginia Senate have now been sent to Gov. Tim Kaine for consideration. The more significant legislation from the 2008 session includes: • The most sweeping overhaul of…
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Story by Chris Graham [email protected] Rick Howell remembers asking Sam Rasoul about his campaign fund-raising efforts last summer when he worked for the Sixth District Democratic Party congressional nomination candidate as his campaign manager. And he remembers that he didn’t like the answer that he was given. “I felt that Sam was rather vague with…
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Column by Steve Landes Although there are just a few days remaining until the scheduled end of this year’s session of the Virginia General Assembly, events aren’t slowing down. This is the part of the session where delegates and senators meet to work out the final details on a wide range of legislation, and when…
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General Assembly Report column by Del. Ben Cline With the final week of the 2008 General Assembly session upon us, 100 delegates and 40 senators have begun to close up their Richmond offices and return to their homes, families, and communities to discuss the accomplishments of the past 60 days. But just as we began…
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General Assembly Report by Rob Bell Last week, a compromise was reached between the Virginia House of Delegates, the Virginia Senate and Gov. Kaine’s office to reform Virginia’s mental-commitment laws. The new laws will constitute the most sweeping reforms of mental commitment in Virginia in 30 years. I authored several bills to address aspects of…
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Winners and Losers column by Chris Graham [email protected] Raise your hand if you thought Virginia Tech would win more than four ACC games this season. C’mon. Seriously. I didn’t know that the Hokies would win a single game. I mean, you lose guys like Zabian Dowdell, Jamon Gordon and Coleman Collins in one fell swoop,…
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General Assembly Report by Rob Bell With the worsening budget numbers, the House of Delegates released its biennial budget. Unlike the governor’s budget, the House budget does not cut $220 million in school construction and lottery money that was going to local schools. These cuts would have cost my four local school divisions over $3…
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General Assembly Report column by Del. Ben Cline This past Sunday was “Budget Sunday,” the day that the House and Senate appropriations committees released their amendments to the two-year budget that the governor introduced last December. Legislators, lobbyists and other groups with a stake in the budget waited in line for hours to get copies…
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Column by Steve Landes We have now passed the midway point of the 2008 General Assembly session, commonly referred to as “crossover.” The House passed 616 of the 1,576 bills filed by delegates and the Senate approved 433 of the 795 bills filed by senators. Now, the House will spend the bulk of its time…
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General Assembly Report by Rob Bell One of the General Assembly’s biggest jobs in 2008 is to craft the two-year budget that will begin on July 1. This year, the economic slowdown – especially in the housing industry – has meant that revenue is $1.4 billion below projections. Although the overall budget is increasing slightly,…
