With the House Transportation Committee convening one hour early at 7:30 a.m.in order to get all their bills handled without having to work on Saturday, they had to be finished by 10:45 since the Full House convened at 11. At 10:50 Chairman May suspended the proceedings with 9 bills still unheard and declared that the committee would reconvene at 6 p.m. in a smaller room in the Capitol building, which was the only room available. As luck would have it, both of my bills were still unheard.
At 6, the committee was unable to reconvene since a quorum could not be mustered as a number of committee members were in two other committee meetings running late over in the General Assembly Bldg. While waiting for the needed members to show up, Champe & I were meeting in the lobby with the Chief of Planning of the Dept. of Rail & Public Transportation (DRPT), reps of CSX and Norfolk Southern, and reps of the Friends of the River, attempting to reach some agreement on House Bill 2088 which would require the railroads to grant public access across or along their tracks in projects where they were receiving $1 million or more in state grants. As uncooperative as ever, the RR reps were insisting on “grade separated” crossings (which means a culvert under, or an overpass over, the tracks) which they budgeted at $300,000 per crossing, guaranteed to kill the deal.
In due course, our patron, Del. Wm. Fralin from Roanoke, arrived from
his other meeting, and we reworked the bill around the information desk in the Capitol. At length, we came up with a handwritten version,
completely different from the language we started with, that all parties could live with. Del. Fralin got the one page duplicated so he could hand a copy out to each of the 17 committee members, and after a long and heated debate over a bill governing tow truck drivers was concluded with a 9-8 vote, our bill was finally heard, and passed unanimously, with little debate, but with a few comments about our photocopied, handwritten bill. There weren’t enough copies for me to get one, but the gist of it was that before any such grants are made, the DRPT & the Dept. of Conservation & Recreation must meet with reps of interested groups to determine if access across or along the tracks is desired and feasible. If it is, access then will be made part of the deal with the railroads if they are to receive the grant. Not earth shaking, but progress in the right direction, and now we’ll see if we can get it through and enacted.
After that, HB 1876 Banning Text Messaging by Drivers received some debate, but the Delegates were anxious to complete their long day, and it was reported with a vote of 16-1, after amendments were passed excluding taxi cab drivers and drivers with commercial drivers licenses. It only carries a secondary offense, so a law enforcement officer must have another reason to stop the driver, but all felt that it was a step in the right direction, since if it goes all the way through the process it will be this state’s first restriction enacted for an adult using a cell phone while driving. Thus ended a long day, and a lesson in how democracy, Virginia style, works, shortly after 8 p.m. Now we see if we can get these bills the rest of the way home.
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