David J. Toscano

Commentary on Virginia and U.S. Politics & Culture

David Toscano

The Impact of King v. Burwell

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Carmen Bingham
(434) 220-1660
carmen@davidtoscano.com

With the decision in King v. Burwell, the Supreme Court has further confirmed the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and allowed to stand the subsidies that have been provided to thousands of Virginians who have signed up for insurance on the federal ACA marketplace. I am very happy for the 286,000 Virginians who would otherwise have lost reasonably-priced insurance and for the many Americans who continue to benefit from provisions of the ACA. In Virginia, though, there is much work that needs to be done. Almost 400,000 of our friends and neighbors would benefit by state expansion of Medicaid. If we expanded, we would also bring Virginians’ tax dollars back to the Commonwealth, where they could be used to create jobs, insure people, and help our hospitals rather than have them sent to places like Connecticut and New York to fund their own expansions. In the next session, we will try again to expand Medicaid. I hope my Republican colleagues will finally conclude it is a good deal for the Commonwealth and their constituents.

Adjournment — in a Blaze of Ethics Glory

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The Virginia General Assembly adjourned on Friday, February 27, 2015, at approximately 9:00 p.m. In most sessions, the last minute negotiations surround the budget. This year, it involved ethics reform. As you may have noticed from numerous news reports, Senate Republicans threatened to block any ethics bill from being passed. At the last moment, however, they relented, and we were able to pass modest ethics reform that improves the law somewhat on what had previously been in place. While this law goes farther than previous efforts, it does not tackle the critical issues related to campaign finance reform, including the role of major contributions in election campaigns. That being said, the bill lowers from $250 to $100 the value of gifts, meals, and travel that an elected official can receive from a lobbyist or a person seeking a contract with the state. It also includes any dependents living in the official’s home, such as a spouse, child, or other relative. The bill clearly could have gone farther; the Ethics Advisory Council does not have much enforcement power and there are certain exemptions to the gift ban for legislators’ travel to “widely attended” events such as conferences. I voted for the bill because it is better than our laws were two years ago, but I believe there is still much to be done.

The last days of the session saw a number of measures passed that I had proposed and strongly supported. Included in these were the expansion of the DNA database, a campus sexual assault reporting bill that protects survivors while providing increased encouragement to them to report perpetrators of these crimes, and a bill that requires notations be placed on college transcripts when students are discharged for violations of the codes of conduct. These measures were proposed as a result of The Rolling Stone article on UVa and the Hannah Graham case, and I believe that they will bring a higher level of protection for our citizens while encouraging more reporting of sexual assault on campuses.

During the final days, we also passed:

  • A bill to increase safety of daycare facilities (HB1570). Homes serving five or more children will require licensing. There will be national fingerprint background checks for employees, and a requirement that unlicensed providers tell parents in writing that they are not licensed or regulated by the state. This will undoubtedly increase safety in our daycare facilities.
  • A bill that will further professionalize the Virginia ABC operation (HB1776). ABC will now be an authority that is run more like a business and less responsive to political appointees.
  • A bill that extends health insurance coverage for autism treatment to about 5,000 more children (HB1940).

This session brought changes to extend mental health benefits to about 22,000 low-income Virginians, increased funding for free clinics, legislation to de-criminalize the use of oils derived from marijuana to treat severe epilepsy, and the defeat of a measure that would have shrouded Virginia’s lethal injection process in secrecy by preventing public disclosure of the drugs used in execution.

Little progress was made on common sense gun legislation; the House rejected my bill that would have allowed private gun sellers to voluntarily ask state police to conduct a background check of anyone who sought to buy firearms from them at a gun show (HB2370). Universal background checks and the return of one-gun-per-month were also defeated. At least we were able to defeat a bill that had been offered by some Republicans to put guns in schools and airports.

2015 House of Delegates Democratic Caucus
2015 Virginia House of Delegates House Democratic Caucus – Back Row (left to right): Vivian Watts, Mark Sickles, Mark Keam, Daun Hester, Lionell Spruill, Luke Torian, Kaye Kory, Scott Surovell; Middle Row: Monty Mason, David Bulova, Eileen Filler-Corn, Alfonso Lopez, Joe Preston, Patrick Hope, Joseph Lindsey, Ken Plum, Rip Sullivan, Matthew James, Marcus Simon; Sam Rasoul, Mike Futrell; Front Row: Jeion Ward, Delores McQuinn, Betsy Carr, Roz Tyler, Jennifer McClellan, Toscano, Mamye Bacote, Kathleen Murphy, Charniele Herring, Johnny Joannou, Rob Krupicka.

We passed a bill that will allow home-schooled children to participate in public school athletics, and a bill that will allow Uber and other transportation ride-sharing services to operate in Virginia. We passed bills that will establish two new veteran care centers in the Commonwealth and to allow veterans to receive certain academic credits at community colleges for training and educational programs they completed during their military service.

For those interested in music, we passed legislation that would designate not one, but two state songs.  “Our Great Virginia” will be considered the traditional state song and “Sweet Virginia Breeze” will be considered the popular state song.

The big disappointment continues to be our failure to pass Medicaid expansion.

The Governor has until March 30 to sign, veto or send amendments to legislation, including the budget. We return to Richmond for the one-day Reconvene Session on Wednesday, April 15, 2015, to address his vetoes and amendments.

Several of my floor speeches from this year’s Session can be viewed here via YouTube:

I have now returned to my law practice, but remain willing to assist you with any issue involving the Commonwealth. Please feel free to call my office at (434) 220-1660, or email me at david@davidtoscano.com with questions or concerns. It is a pleasure serving you in the General Assembly.

Sincerely,

David Toscano

David Toscano

General Assembly Update (Feb. 20, 2015)

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The 2015 General Assembly session is scheduled to adjourn on February 28, 2015. The revised budget is just about done and will likely include some raises for teachers and state employees. It is also likely to include some additional monies for higher education. These are important advances, though I would like to see additional funding for education.

The budget does not go far enough in a number of other ways, and still does not provide for the expansion of Medicaid, which could bring back hundreds of millions of our taxpayer dollars to help Virginians secure health insurance, create jobs, and strengthen our hospital systems.

A number of the major initiatives that I have worked on look likely to pass in some form. The bill to expand the DNA database, which was proposed in response to the Hannah Graham murder, has now passed the Senate in a form slightly modified from the one that was passed by the House. This means that there will be a conference committee composed of Senate and House members to reconcile the two bills for final passage. The same is true with the campus sexual assault reporting bill. I hope to be involved in the final discussions on these bills and expect them to be passed and signed by the Governor.

In the energy arena, one of the major debates focused on the bill proposed by Dominion Virginia Power to freeze electric utility rates for the next five years. This is drawing considerable controversy in the press, and much of the focus has been on the initial form of the bill, which was extremely detrimental to consumers and those of us who support greater investment in renewable energy. The bill that passed, however, is substantially different than the one that was proposed. In fact, the amended bill was not opposed by the Sierra Club, nor the League of Conservation Voters. It includes a requirement that Dominion undertake a weatherization program for low-income persons, and unprecedented initiatives to expand solar and other renewables. The bill provides some comfort to consumers as it will freeze the “base rates” of the utility for the next five years. Your utility bill may or may not change, however, as your bill also reflects the cost of fuel. If natural gas continues to decline, that decrease in price will be passed on to the consumer in the form of lower bills. If there is a spike in natural gas or other fuel sources, your bill will likely rise. But the base rate, which is determined by the cost of other operations of the utility, such as maintaining its infrastructure and repairs and replacements generated by weather events and natural disasters, will be borne solely by the utility. In the event that Dominion “over earns” after the five year period, they will have to provide a credit to consumers, or an actual reduction in base rates.

My efforts to reform the coal tax credits have not yet succeeded. Republicans in the House and Senate have not yet been convinced of the economic arguments opposing the massive taxpayer subsidies provided to the coal and utility companies. This has amounted to approximately $600 million over the last twenty years for an industry that has lost three quarters of its workforce during this period and is now mining substantially less coal. Unfortunately, some people are so “locked in” to the so called “war on coal” argument, and are willing to allow their constituents to further subsidize an industry that is failing. The better approach is to take the money and invest it in emerging industries in southwest Virginia that will create better jobs in the long run. We will continue to fight for reform.

Several of my other bills will soon pass both bodies and go to the Governor. Included in these is my bill to give property owners more flexibility in how they deal with the city’s zoning ordinance for sidewalk construction (HB 2051), a bill to eliminate paperwork for small businesses as they file their personal property tax documents with their localities (HB 2098), and a bill requiring universities to provide more information about their sponsored research programs and the degree to which these initiatives are creating more commercial activity in the Commonwealth (HB 1959).

And, for your viewing pleasure, you may be interested in a floor speech I gave this week on “millennials” and how Democrats are responding to their concerns in Richmond. You can see it here.

I am looking forward to returning to Charlottesville to spend more time with my family, resume my law practice, and serve my constituents from my local office. It is a pleasure serving you in Richmond.

Sincerely,

David Toscano

David Toscano

General Assembly Update (Feb. 13, 2015)

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Crossover and the House of Delegates Budget

Crossover has now come and gone, and so too has the debate on amendments to the budget. On the budget front, the good news is that the Commonwealth is doing better financially, and as a result, the House budget provides raises to state employees and teachers. The House budget includes 1.5 percent pay increase for school teachers and employees, and an additional pay increase for other state employees. The budget, however, does not go far enough. Our teacher salaries in Virginia are now $7,500 below the national average. State per-pupil spending, even with this new budget, is still lower than it was in 2009. The result has been that localities are forced to pay more of the cost of education than they did in the past, and property tax rates have increased as a result.

Medicaid expansion

The budget also does not go far enough in that it continues to reject Medicaid Expansion, a decision that continues to cost the Commonwealth $4.4 million per day in federal funding ($1.8 billion lost to date) as we continue to send our tax monies to Washington instead of  bringing them back here to aid some 400,000 people who do not currently have health  insurance. The House budget includes a slight increase for free clinics, but they do not have the capacity to address the vast unmet need for quality medical care. We are very fortunate in Charlottesville that our free clinic does better than most, but neither the extra monies nor our facilities are sufficient to adequately address the problem. House Republicans have accepted elements of the Governor’s Healthy Virginia Plan, but this will affect fewer than 30,000 citizens, and we have yet to determine whether the House proposal will be approved by the Obama administration.

Pre-K spending

The House budget also cuts pre-K spending substantially and does not give the Governor the flexibility to move some of the money around so that it can service more people throughout Virginia. The budget does not go far enough in dealing with the tax preferences that represent massive transfers of Virginia taxpayer dollars to a small number of corporations, particularly coal and utility companies. Instead, we have a budget that includes a “reform” to the Land Preservation Tax Credit, a program that does a lot to conserve rural land against future development. You may hear my comments on the budget below.


 

DNA database expansion

A number of my bills survived Crossover either in their original form or combined with another Delegate’s legislation.  My DNA bill passed the House resoundingly as incorporated into Delegate Bell’s bill. This bill allows samples of DNA to be taken from people who have committed, and are convicted of, certain misdemeanor offenses. This does not include juveniles or minor misdemeanors. The samples will be included into the DNA database which can be used to exonerate those people who have been improperly charged with a crime and help apprehend people who have committed more serious crimes.

Campus sexual assault

The language of my campus sexual assault bill found its way into another bill (HB 1930), and has now passed the House. After listening to many constituents and advocates for survivors, my bill was transformed into a survivors empowerment bill that none-the-less gives university Title IX Coordinators the ability to report serious offenses in the event that the perpetrator might be a danger to the community. This bill will undoubtedly be changed as it moves through the process, but I think we will have a measure passed that will increase the likelihood of survivors reporting these cases and making more perpetrators accountable for their actions.

Health insurance coverage for children with autism

Two other interesting bills passed that can make a difference to health challenges faced by Virginia. House Bill 1940 requires health insurance carriers to offer coverage for autism in youngsters between the ages of two and ten; any family which has a child with autism realizes what a challenge this is. And HB 1445 decriminalizes the use of cannabis oil for the medical treatment of epilepsy.

We have two more weeks left in the session if we finish on time. It is a pleasure serving you in Richmond. As always, please do not hesitate to contact my office should you have any questions or if we can be of any assistance.

Sincerely,

David Toscano

David Toscano

P.S. Eugene and Lorraine Williams, civil rights pioneers, were honored by the House of Delegates last week.  You can watch here:

Medicaid – A Full and Fair Debate?

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As early as January 2014, House Republicans promised a plan to address the 400,000 Virginians who fall into the health insurance coverage gap because they make too little money to qualify for subsidies under the Affordable Care Act, but make too much money to qualify for Medicaid.  The Governor and Democrats have offered, over the last eight months, three separate proposals by which we could access several billion dollars in federal monies to provide coverage.  As you may recall, present Medicaid spending is matched, dollar-for-dollar, with federal monies.  With the proposed Medicaid expansion, however, the federal government would pay 100 percent of the cost for the first several years, eventually dropping to 90 percent.   I believe that this is a good deal for the Commonwealth.  We could take monies that we save in the first years and apply it to the later years in the event that the federal government does not live up to its responsibility, a fear cited by House Republicans as a reason not to expand Medicaid, but an unlikely event.

Democratic proposals since January 2014 have included a two-year pilot plan advanced by Gov. McAuliffe; straight Medicaid expansion; and “Marketplace Virginia,” a proposal offered by Senate Democrats and Republicans to use federal monies to buy private health insurance through private companies.  All of these plans have been summarily rejected by the House Republicans.

During the budget dispute in the spring, the Republicans promised a “full and fair debate” over Medicaid so long as it was separated from the budget.  That occurred, and the Republicans scheduled this so-called full and fair debate for last Thursday, September 18, 2014.  The “full and fair debate” consisted of a 15-minute discussion in the Rules Committee about another compromise proposal on Medicaid expansion, and a short debate on the House floor with the result predetermined.   The Republican answer was another “No.”  If you want to see some of the debate on this issue, click here; for my floor speech on the issue, click here.

Our meeting last Thursday also brought a compromise on addressing our budget shortfall.  If you want to see my comments on how we should try to close some tax preferences to make up our budget shortfall, you can click here.

Finally, three new judges were appointed for our district, and they will take their seats on December 1, 2014.  Although I continue to believe that the selection of judges is overly-partisan, I offer my congratulations to the three that were appointed, Judge Richard Moore, Deborah Tinsley, and David Barredo.  I am confident that they will be very effective judges and will serve this community admirably.

Please feel free to contact me with your concerns.  It is an honor to represent you in the General Assembly.

Sincerely,

David Toscano

P.S.: I want to express my thanks and gratitude to the citizens of this community, the local and state police, City Police Chief Tim Longo, and Secretary of Public Safety Brian Moran for all the work being done to bring Hannah Graham home. I was at JPJ Command Central last Saturday and Sunday and watched the volunteers stream in from around the Commonwealth and nation. I saw the line up of City School buses, UVA buses, and Jaunt buses at 7:30am on Sundayready to take the teams of volunteers out into the field to search for Hannah. The generosity and caring of this community is remarkable.

Contact Me

211 E. High Street
Charlottesville, VA 22902
Phone: 434-977-7977
Fax: 434-977-4847
davidjtoscano@gmail.com

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