Virginia General Assembly Process

GA Update Extra: They Had A Chance, And They Blew It

February 21, 2019 by David Toscano

House Republicans Said They’d Vote if ERA Got To The Floor: They Missed Their Chance

Over the last few weeks, we were told on numerous occasions that if a resolution to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment got to the floor of the House of Delegates, a number of Republicans would vote for it, and Virginia would become the state that would add the ERA to the U.S. Constitution. Yesterday, we learned that was wrong.

I offered a floor amendment to a Senate Joint Resolution that, if supported, would place the House on record as ratifying the ERA; it couldn’t get much clearer than that. The resolution addressed equal protection under the law; so did my amendment. My amendment did not seek to change a Rule. It did not request the “discharge” of a committee, a procedural tactic designed to bring the ERA to the floor since it has been bottled up in committee. It was a one paragraph addition to SJR 275 to support the ERA.

The Republican leadership did not even permit me the opportunity to argue in favor of amending the resolution; I was only able to do it after the fact, during a point of personal privilege. Instead, without any debate, the Speaker and the majority leader forced a vote to re-refer the resolution to the House Courts of Justice Committee, which has finished its business for the year. You can see our response to this outrageous exercise of raw political power that denied the right of the majority to actually vote on the ERA here.

Although it was their leadership which engineered a way to duck a vote, each and every Republican supported the motion to re-refer. It would only have taken 2 Republicans voting with the 49 Democrats to keep SJR 275 on the floor, and then we could have voted on the amendment. This was their chance to actually take a vote on ratifying the ERA, and they blew it. I imagine ERA advocates all over Virginia are taking notice of promises made but not honored when the opportunity was presented, and of friends who stood with them when the choice was clear.

Today we will debate the proposed changes to the House of Delegates Rules that would allow the existing ERA ratification resolution to come to the floor for a vote. I hope you will watch our floor session by visiting this link.

Doing the People’s Business During a Challenging Time

February 5, 2019 by David Toscano

We are now in the busiest week of the legislative year. On Sunday, the House and Senate budgets were unveiled. Today, February 5, is “crossover,” the day on which all bills must be passed in one legislative body to cross over to the other side of the Capitol for consideration. We debate the budget this Thursday. All of this work is, of course, going forward in the shadow of the turmoil surrounding the Governor. I posted my thoughts (you can read it here) about this still-unfolding situation as of Saturday morning on social media, and will probably have more to say later. For now, however, we legislators are focused on doing the job our constituents elected us to do.

STATUS OF MY BILLS

Eight of my bills have passed the House and will now be considered by the Senate. Four initiatives address rising health insurance premiums and health care costs, and are directly related to the spike in insurance premiums that occurred in Charlottesville in late 2017 during the ACA Marketplace open season to purchase 2018 health care insurance. [Read more…]

You Win Some and Lose Some: But You Never Stop Trying

January 25, 2019 by David Toscano

When I first arrived in the House of Delegates in 2006, a friend of mine counseled me not to get too personally attached to any proposed legislation. “Bills are like goldfish,” he said. “You love and care for them when they are alive, but when they die, you go out and get another fish.”

There is some common sense in this attitude, especially when you can bring bills back in the next session to try again, but I have to admit it’s a severe disappointment when very important efforts are defeated, especially when they could make a big difference. In the last week, I have watched this happen to measures like the ERA ratification resolution, which was defeated in the House Privileges & Elections Committee after a herculean lobbying effort. It is not totally dead, and we are working on another strategy to push for a vote on the House floor, but we have some major hurdles to overcome.

There are a few of my bills which have not yet been placed on a subcommittee agenda (as of Friday afternoon, at least), including HB 2377 to grant localities the authority to decide what to do with Confederate statues in public spaces and HB 1959 to allow any voter to vote absentee without having to provide a reason or fit into a special category. For these, the fight to win them is still ahead, and I appreciate all the work being done to help that happen. [Read more…]

Kavanaugh, Due Process, And Legislative Impasse In Richmond

October 1, 2018 by David Toscano

Few Washington events have rivaled the spectacle and drama of the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings. Once thought a shoe-in for the U.S. Supreme Court, the conservative judge is now embroiled in a maelstrom of accusations that include attempted sexual assault, prolific drinking, possible lying to Congress, and an insufficiently judicial temperament, all of which may eventually sink his nomination and may even threaten his standing as a sitting judge on the D.C. federal appeals court. [Read more…]

General Assembly Update: A Tale of Two Committees

May 10, 2018 by David Toscano

The Parkland shootings vividly reignited the gun safety debate all over America, including our Virginia House of Delegates. Republican and Democratic delegates, however, responded quite differently. The Republican leadership decided their focus should be narrow, and, through the Speaker, created the House Select Committee on School Safety, a bipartisan 22-member group to which I was appointed. [Read more…]