Virginia's Public Square
Virginia's Public Square
The one-two legislative strategy by Delegates Scott Garrett and Kathy Byron would prohibit taxpayer funding of abortion providers in this year’s budget and begin working towards prohibiting it in Virginia’s constitution. The move comes as Governor Northam and Democratic lawmakers proposed a sweeping repeal of abortion restrictions, including on late term abortions in the third trimester.
From federal investigations, to wonky deals with Chinese investors, to allegedly seeing the Khashoggi assassination, Terry McAuliffe may have to answer a barrage of odd questions when he officially announces his presidential run.
The legislation would place greater punishments on telephone spammers, adding the practice of spoofing to the Virginia Telephone Privacy Protection Act (VTPPA).
When Senator Mark Peake (R-Lynchburg) first ran for office in 2015, he said Virginia needed more lawmakers focused on solving problems with common sense. This session, he’s fighting for a bill which he says does exactly that.
Peake introduced SB1038 to require voter registrars throughout Virginia to electronically verify the name, date of birth, and social security number of each voter against existing federal databases to confirm that every registered voter is a citizen of Virginia and the United States.
Calling it a “very simple bill” and “very common sense”, Peake urged the committee to pass the measure, which he said would strengthen election integrity in Virginia and help fight voter fraud.
“I just kind of would like to make sure that people who are registered to vote in Virginia are actually Virginia citizens and the people they say they are,” he said.
Peake noted his legislation would cost less than a million dollars, contrasting the fiscal impact of the bill with the much larger sums of money spent every year on campaigns in Virginia.
“We’re talking about less than a million dollars to make sure that people who register to vote in the Commonwealth of Virginia are actually citizens of the Commonwealth of Virginia and are actually the people they say they are. That’s my bill,” Peake added, following a short presentation.
On Wednesday, Peake’s bill advanced out of the Senate’s Finance Committee, following an earlier favorable recommendation by the committee on Privileges and Elections, which handles election-related legislation. The legislation advanced out of Finance on a party line vote, with all Republicans in favor and all Democrats opposed, after passing out of Privileges and Elections with bipartisan support, when Senator Lionel Spruill (D-Chesapeake) broke ranks with his party to support the bill.
During Wednesday’s hearing, no representatives from the Department of Elections came to speak for or against the bill.
Following a short presentation, the committee, with Peake’s blessing, adopted an amendment giving registrars until 2021 to implement the legislation. This amendment, observers said, was necessary to give localities time to implement the electronic verification in their computer systems, as well as move the bill’s modest implementation cost beyond the current budget cycle, a move intended to put the law on the books and protect its passage against the possibility of becoming caught up in a larger budget dispute over Governor Northam’s proposal to increase spending and taxes this year.
While Northam has not indicated whether he would sign the legislation, the governor has shown disdain for other election integrity measures, calling for a repeal of Virginia’s voter ID law in his annual State of the Commonwealth address, in which he also called for higher spending, sweeping gun control, and creating a “fundamental right” to abortion, including late term abortions in the third trimester.
Northam’s opposition comes in spite of public polling showing voter ID measures to be very popular. According to Gallup, four in five Americans support voter ID laws.
Peake’s bill will now be heard by the full Senate, which favored the measure last year. If passed, it would need to gain approval in the House of Delegates before heading to the governor’s desk.
For example, at Virginia Commonwealth University, DACA recipients living in Virginia would only have to pay $14,490 in tuition and fees, much less than the $35,798 price tag for out-of-state students.
In a heartfelt speech which has since racked up hundreds of thousands of views online, Delegate Margaret Ransone (R-Kinsale) spoke on her career, her accomplishments, and her service in the General Assembly following days of heated and uncivil debate over the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment.
“I am a woman and I’m an elected member of the oldest legislative body in the New World, the Virginia House of Delegates,” opened Ransone. “Needless to say I’m very proud of that and I’m proud of how I got here.”
Ransone, in her eighth year as a delegate, helps manage her family’s oyster company, located in Kinsale, in Virginia’s Northern Neck.
Her voice breaking on occasion, Ransone rose to the floor on Tuesday following a heated committee hearing that morning in which she voted against ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment, saying it would be duplicitous of existing protections in the US and Virginia constitutions while potentially opening the door to taxpayer funding of abortion by court order.
In that hearing, Ransone said, attendees covered the ears of their young daughters when she began to speak, depriving the young women in attendance of the opportunity to hear both sides of the debate.
Ransone said feeling silenced was a low point in her public service career.
“Do you know as soon as I started to speak, mothers in the room who simply disagreed with my position covered their daughters ears, as a sign to me and to their daughters that in the political process you don’t have to listen to people who mom disagrees with. And, to be honest, it was a low my public service career because when I simply wanted to empower young women that message delivered from a Republican woman simply wasn’t worth hearing.”
“Well, today, I will deliver that message again, to the young women and to their mothers and to daughters, and even to the twenty seven women in this body. Never, never let anyone tell you that you need anything more than hard work, determination, heart, and a strong work ethic to be successful in life,” Ransone continued.
Earlier that day, several measures making Virginia the 38th state to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment failed in the House’s Privileges and Elections Subcommittee #1, which Ransone chairs, following earlier passage in the Senate. While the full Privileges and Elections committee could still report the resolutions, observers said the subcommittee recommendation was likely to be followed, resulting in the amendment’s failure this year.
The committee’s vote followed weeks of debate and rallies by supporters and opponents of the amendment, which grew increasingly heated as the session dragged on.
Ransone also dismissed suggestions that men had “bullied” her into voting a specific way.
“The men in this body, on both sides of the aisle, they respect me and they have become incredible friends to me, and I’ve earned their respect,” she continued, praising her colleagues. “They’ve embraced me, and they’ve embraced my opinions, and they believe in me. And that’s incredible.”
“They empower me to speak my mind just like I’m doing today.”
Responding forcefully, Ransone said her vote was hers alone, elaborating on why she felt the Equal Rights Amendment was not necessary.
“And as a strong independent woman it was my choice to vote against the ERA. Don’t misunderstand what I’m saying. Women deserve equal treatment. Women deserve to be paid fairly. Women deserve to have every opportunity in life. Just like a man does.”
“And thanks to the 14th Amendment and the Virginia Constitution violating any one of those is against the law.”
Ransone also warned that ratification of the measure currently before the General Assembly could lead to years of court challenges, as the Congressionally-imposed deadline for ratification passed in 1982, one decade after the amendment was approved on Capitol Hill and sent to the states.
Previously, in the 1939 case Coleman v. Miller, the Supreme Court ruled that Congress did have the authority to set a deadline for ratification.
Writing a majority opinion in a case concerning Kansas’ vote to ratify a child labor amendment, Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes stated such a limitation was a “question for the political departments, with the ultimate authority in the Congress in the exercise of its control over the promulgation of the adoption of the amendment.”
Continuing the message she shared earlier in committee, Ransone closed by encouraging young women to follow their dreams and let nothing stand in their way.
“Never let anyone tell you that you need to wait on any law to be successful,” she said. “Nothing stopped any of us with hard work and determination and a big heart nothing’s going to stop you either.”
In the end, Ransone had the last word — turning what had been an attempt to silence her voice into a speech which went viral on the Internet.
As the Virginia State Senate is set to vote on legislation that would classify abusing a family pet a felony, they are setting their sights on providing the same measures against those who abuse or kill law enforcement animals.
The legislation from Senator Bill Stanley would repeal the requirement that the driver’s license of a person convicted of any violation of the law – who fails or refuses to provide for immediate payment of fines or costs – be suspended by the state’s judicial system.
After last year’s distressing report of Virginia’s foster care system by JLARC, Senator Bryce Reeves’ bill would “address the issues that are critical to the care, custody, and control” of foster care children to have a “direct impact on day one.”
Photo ID requirements became a topic of debate during Tuesday’s floor session of the Virginia House of Delegates, with Republican Majority Leader Todd Gilbert (R-Shenandoah) sparring with his Democratic colleague Mike Mullin (D-Newport News) over identification requirements related to voting and pawnbrokers.
Earlier this year, Mullin introduced HB1774, a bill requiring Virginians to show valid and unexpired government ID when offering goods to a pawnshop. Mullin said his bill would help cut down on illegal transactions at pawnshops.
“HB1774 is a bill to clarify that unexpired government-issued IDs are required for pawning goods,” said Mullin on the floor, speaking to the bill. “Current law only states that the ID must be government issued.”
“HB1773 [sic] came as a direct recommendation from the city of Newport News to allow for more effective enforcement of the identification requirement to pawn goods, to ensure more accurate record keeping, and to deter attempts to fence stolen goods,” he continued.
During his 2017 campaign, Mullin opposed a voter ID requirement, even though polls show it is backed by a strong majority of voters, with some surveys pegging support as high as four in five, according to Gallup.
“No, restricting access to the polls on Election Day is a form of voter suppression,” Mullin told the Williamsburg Yorktown Daily.
Earlier this year, Governor Ralph Northam made the repeal of Virginia’s voter ID requirement a priority during his annual State of the Commonwealth address. Democratic lawmakers answered his call, with Delegate Kaye Kory (D-Falls Church) introducing HB2565 to implement the governor’s policy proposal. Similar legislation was offered by Senator Mamie Locke (D-Hampton) as SB1447 in the upper chamber.
The proposed legislation would completely repeal Virginia’s photo ID requirement for voting, despite public support.
When presenting his bill on the floor, Mullin faced pushback from House Republican Majority Leader Todd Gilbert (R-Shenandoah), who used the discussion on pawnbroker ID requirements to ask his Democratic colleagues about their support for repealing the voter ID law.
“I would ask the gentleman if he likewise believes that the general principle of verification of identity before pawning goods is a good thing,” Gilbert inquired of Mullin.
Appearing visibly nervous, perhaps suspecting a voter ID debate lay ahead, Mullin asked Gilbert to restate the question, before ultimately agreeing with his premise.
“I would ask the delegate if he has inquired of the governor if the governor, likewise, believes in that principle, given his recent edicts or commentary on his desires, with respect to showing government ID to perform certain necessary functions in our society,” Gilbert added. “I would ask the delegate if he believes the right to pawn goods is an essential function of our democracy.”
“Everybody, all the time, has to show an identification to do all kinds of things, and that is perfectly acceptable thing to do, even when you’re pawning your watch,” Gilbert continued. “The one time that we find that is never appropriate, from our friends on the other side of the aisle, to have to show an ID, is when you do something so essential and fundamental to our democratic process as cast a vote.”
“One can see where there are all kinds of reasons we would want to prevent someone from pretending to be someone else in order to pawn goods, I would hope that we would all agree, although we obviously do not, given the governor’s recent desire to repeal the voter ID law, I would hope we all agree that pretending to be someone else when you’re voting is likewise we should try to deter.”
“I just wanted to join the chorus of support for having to show identification,” Gilbert added in closing.
House Republican leaders have vowed to defend Virginia’s voter ID law against Governor Northam’s attempts to repeal it.
Republican leaders have indicated the governor’s repeal proposal will not pass this session, though that could change if Republicans lose seats in the General Assembly this November. Currently, Republicans control the House of Delegates and Senate, holding majorities of 51-48 and 21-19, respectively.