Senator Creigh Deeds

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Week 5: Budget Week

February 12, 2021 by Creigh Deeds

The 2021 Session is rapidly drawing to a close. Last week we reached crossover, and now the Senate is only considering House bills and the budget. The House of Delegates is considering the budget as well, together with the Senate bills.

Both the House and Senate will adopt versions of the budget today. While preliminary, the Senate budget begins the process of restoring more of the mental health funding that was lost during the pandemic. You will recall that the Governor unallotted a couple billion dollars of spending once the virus wreaked havoc on our economy. Some of the things that I have been working on for a long time, like a loan forgiveness program for mental health professionals and discharge planning for jails with high numbers of inmates with mental health issues, were unallotted. We worked hard to get that vital spending back into the budget.

Other matters, like pay raises for state employees and teachers and funding for school divisions throughout Virginia, are included in the budget, as well as restoring the dental benefit for adult Medicaid patients. [Read more…]

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Filed Under: Virginia General Assembly 2021 Tagged With: conservation, Death Penalty, K-12 funding, mental health policy, State employee compensation, Virginia budget, Voting Rights

2021 Session, Week 3

January 30, 2021 by Creigh Deeds

Marijuana, Bikes, and More

This most unusual of legislative sessions is going quickly. We are nearing the crossover, the deadline for the Senate to act on senate bills and the House of Delegates to act on house bills. It’s crunch time as the Senate completes work on bills and get them to the House for consideration. I want to report on some of the more significant actions.

As I’ve written in the space before, one of the big policies under consideration is the legalization of marijuana for recreational use. [Read more…]

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Filed Under: Virginia General Assembly 2021 Tagged With: conservation, election reform, gun safety, K-12 funding, marijuana legalization, Senate procedures, State employee compensation

2018 Session Wrap Up

March 16, 2018 by Creigh Deeds

The 2018 Session of the General Assembly is history. It will be noted for a new governor, success and failures, including our inability once again to agree on a biennial budget. [Read more…]

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Filed Under: Virginia General Assembly 2018 Tagged With: broadband access, conservation, Governor Northam, health care costs, Higher Education funding, juvenile justice, K-12 funding, legislative redistricting, Medicaid expansion, mental health policy, power company regulation, promoting economic growth, public transportation, State employee compensation, Virginia budget, Virginia General Assembly Special Session, Virginia transportation funding, Virginia transportation policy

A Contentious Week

February 9, 2018 by Creigh Deeds

We are now ending the last full week of the 2018 Session prior to crossover. As explained last week, the Senate and House will have to finish work on bills originating in their own chambers by Tuesday. This has been a week full of contention.

One of the most contentious issues of the session relates to rate setting for utility companies. In 2015, Dominion Power pushed a bill through the legislature which essentially froze part of their rates, disabled the State Corporation Commission from rate-setting reviews for a period of years, and locked in Dominion’s revenues. Dominion argued that action was needed because of the expected financial impacts of adoption of the federal Clean Power Plan. I voted against that bill because I thought it was a bad deal for the ratepayers. Interestingly, one of the “concessions” that Dominion made in that deal to get the Governor’s support and that of some environmentally-minded Democrats was a commitment to produce 500 megawatts of solar energy by 2020. That goal was attained in 2017. As anyone who watches the markets knows, the cost of solar energy is going down and the demand is going up. Hindsight being 20-20, we now know that the “concession” made in 2015 was a low bar. [Read more…]

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Filed Under: Virginia General Assembly 2018 Tagged With: Atlantic Coast Pipeline, conservation, Governor Northam, mental health policy, power company regulation, Renewable Energy, state parks

Five Weeks to Go

February 2, 2018 by Creigh Deeds

We continue to hurtle toward crossover of the 2018 Session of the General Assembly. Crossover is basically the mid-point, though it typically occurs a little past the 30th day of the 60 day session.

While the Constitution of Virginia sets forth the requirements for how a bill becomes a law, such as passing both houses in exactly the same form and being read three times before a vote is taken, there are certain rules the legislature adopts each session to govern the conduct of business. One function of those rules is to set forth exactly how much time each body has to consider its own bills, including its version of the budget. The crossover, when the Senate and House have to finalize action on bills that originated in their own chamber, is February 13. With the budget bill, a few more days are granted. We will not vote on our respective versions of the budget until February 22.

This session has brought some uncertainty, for a couple of important reasons. [Read more…]

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Filed Under: Virginia General Assembly 2018 Tagged With: Atlantic Coast Pipeline, conservation, Governor Northam, health care costs, legislative redistricting, Medicaid expansion, Senate procedures, Virginia budget

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2021 Virginia General Assembly

Week 6: In the Homestretch

February 19, 2021 By Creigh Deeds

The 2021 Session of the General Assembly is winding down. We only have a week left in the regular session, which is anything but regular this year. We are in a pandemic, and we had to go through extraordinary means simply to meet for the normal 46 days. [Read More…]

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