The last week before Crossover has been a quiet one, with three of our bills, “3 foot Passing”, “Don’t Follow Too Closely”, & “Dooring” all passing their House of origin and awaiting their hearings in the other House starting the week after next. (Please contact your legislators.)
Champe Burnley & Tom Bowden did join me for our favorite Monday morning at 7 a.m. House Trans Sub 2 meeting, where we had been led to believe that we had a chance for HB277/the “Stop for Pedestrians in a Crosswalk” bill patroned by Del. Rob Krupicka to be reconsidered since it had previously failed to report by a 3 – 3 vote with one of the members absent with a Drs. appointment. Alas, SubComm Chair Dr. Garrett from Lynchburg kept his unbroken streak of opposition intact to any bill that would benefit bicyclists or pedestrians intact by failing to call the bill for reconsideration.
Smarting a little from that not entirely unexpected setback, we headed for the General Assembly Building’s Cafeteria for a bit of breakfast and networking with early arriving legislators following which it was back out into the rain for the walk down to the Patrick Henry building for our appointment with Molly Ward. We briefed her on the 2015 races, and the Trails projects currently underway in the state — Cap2Cap, Tobacco Heritage, Beaches to Bluegrass, and U.S. Bike Rt. 11. After a lengthy audience with her, we departed encouraged.
After meeting again with Del. Dolores McQuinn and her aide to go over the several times modified language for HB 542, the bill that currently makes it a felony to wear a mask, and learning that it finally was listed for hearing on Wednesday at some indefinite time after adjournment, we departed the GAB still well before lunch time.
Come Wednesday, with no one having a real idea when the Criminal Law SubComm of the House Courts of Justice Comm would be meeting, only that it would be after the Adjournment of the House (usually about 1 p.m. or so) and the conclusion of the Constitutional and then the Ethics SubComms of the Committee. Not wanting to be late, having spent so much time on this bill already, Champe & I arrived about 3 p.m. only to find that the House had not adjourned until 2:45, so that the Constitutional SubComm was just getting started. It had a lengthy docket, with a number of controversial bills on it. So we had a chance to hear the spirited and lengthy debates on several Abortion bills and a number of other less controversial ones, prior to the SubComm finishing its business about 5:45.
With no break in between, the same 11 persons became the Ethics SubComm and launched right into the bill to revise the law regarding the acceptance of gifts by elected officials. Even though this topic was discussed solely by the Committee members with no testimony from the audience, it took almost two hours before it concluded.
With the clock now approaching 8, the same SubComm changed hats again and became the Criminal Law SubComm which began to hear the Docket our Mask bill was on. Unfortunately, our patron had been a little late in signing up to be heard, so we were down the line a bit. Late hour or not, the Committee was giving the full treatment to each bill, for which they are to be commended.
Finally, a little after 10, our bill was called, and our much revised language was presented by Del. McQuinn to the still attentive Committee, with the representative of the motorcyclists testifying very effectively and citing previous cases involving bikers wearing masks and being stopped by law enforcement. I followed him, followed by a law enforcement rep, one from the Retail Merchants (who wanted no masks whatever inside their banks and stores, stating that the police would be called immediately if someone entered wearing one). Lastly came the rep from the ACLU, who recognized the problem, but was concerned that people might be stopped by law enforcement for no reason other than wearing a mask. Along the way, the exception we had put in for “participating in recreational activities” was stricken since one of the delegates didn’t want the Ku Klux Klan to be able to say while marching that they were participating in a “recreational activity”. Finally, after some back and forth, language was generally agreed upon that would leave as a felony anyone “wearing a mask with the intent of concealing their identity”, recognizing that someone riding a motorcycle, or bicycle, or standing waiting for a bus, or hunting, or running in cold weather, would be considered as “protecting their face” rather than “intentionally concealing their identity” and would be taking it off prior to entering a retail establishment. After all of this, the bill was unanimously reported by the 11 members and will go on to be heard by the full Courts of Justice Committee, probably tomorrow.
As we walked out at 10:38 p.m. we said “Good Luck” to the guys in orange caps who had also been waiting since about 3 p.m. to oppose a bill they felt was trying to restrict their “fox penning” . When I note on the Legislative website this morning that the bill was Passed by Indefinitely by a voice vote, I would assume that they went home happy, some time around 11. Although I’ve not experienced this previously in the 15 years I’ve been going down there, some of the regulars tell me that this occasionally happens on the House side only, when certain committees get a backlog of bills and Crossover is approaching.
Please, no one nominate me to run for Delegate! $18,000 a year is not enough to compensate one for this kind of pressure, and I commend the ones who take on the responsibility.
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Thanks for the update! Very interesting!