Senator Creigh Deeds

Proudly Serving the People of Virginia's 25th District

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Report from the Reconvened and Special Sessions

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The General Assembly convened a special session on April 11 to resolve the budget impasse. In the meantime, on April 18, we held the annual reconvened, or veto, session to consider the Governor’s amendments to and vetoes of bills. More on that later.

As you know, we are in the situation with respect to the budget because we’ve not been able to agree on Medicaid expansion. The situation is frustrating. We should have acted on this matter a long time ago.

In 2013, when the partisan makeup of the Senate was 20-20, Republicans organized and had the vote of then Lieutenant Governor Bill Bolling to give them the majority. However they needed support from Democrats to adopt a budget and to move forward on former Governor McDonnell’s transportation package. Part of the budget agreement contained language that should have led to Medicaid expansion by now. The budget created the Medicaid Innovation and Reform Commission to recommend reforms so that we were not blindly expanding a program without ensuring it was streamlined and efficient. The commission met and made those reforms. However, Republicans dug in their heels.

Fast forward to 2018, we witnessed significant changes in the makeup of the House of Delegates. One of the prominent issues on the campaign trail last year was healthcare, and specifically Medicaid expansion. Wanting to put that issue in the rearview mirror, the Republican leadership in the House decided to adopt Medicaid expansion albeit with a work requirement.

We don’t have time to quibble. The world is not perfect, and we cannot let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Medicaid expansion, even with a work requirement, makes sense. In the years that we failed to pass to expand Medicaid, we have left hundreds of millions of dollars on the table and denied healthcare to hundreds of thousands of working Virginians. The expansion population is primarily the working poor. Due to their low income levels, they also do not qualify for subsidies to buy insurance on the exchange. I hope that in the special session we can keep in mind our obligation to try to bring opportunity to all Virginians. A healthy workforce makes for a healthy economy and can drive growth throughout our Commonwealth.

The veto session concluded after about four hours of discussion and produced no real surprises. None of the Governor’s ten vetoes were overridden and most of his amendments were adopted. A few of the highlights are below:

  • Senate Bill 106 and House Bill 1598 as passed out of the General Assembly were weak attempts at redistricting reform. The legislation merely incorporated some of the criteria from prior bills but excluded the criteria that could be most beneficial to reforming our process. Essentially they locked in place the existing process. The Governor offered amendments to make this truly a reform bill. Predictably, the Republican majority in the House and Senate defeated those amendments.
  • SB 378 and HB 665 sought to revive the coal tax credit. The Governor amended the bills to include reenactment clauses, thus requiring the 2019 General Assembly to pass the legislation again in order for the provisions to become law. The legislature rejected the Governor’s amendments, so the bills will go back to him for reconsideration. I expect he may veto the bills, as Governor McAuliffe did in the past.
  • The Governor amended a number of bills relating to wireless infrastructure. SB 405 and HB 1258 established parameters for zoning approvals of wireless towers in order to provide consistency across jurisdictions. SB 823 and HB 1427 set a cap on public right-of-way use fees for wireless companies. The governor made amendments to improve the bills and grant more flexibility to local governments. Those amendments passed.
  • SB 669, the legislation I introduced to ensure a minor who has been subject to a temporary detention order cannot possess a firearm, was amended to take effect immediately. The amendment was approved both houses.
  • While we are having a major discussion about healthcare, the Governor amended a number of bills (SB 844, SB 934, SB 935, and SB 964) that sought to expand options available to Virginias in terms of short-term, catastrophic, and association plans. It was unclear if Virginia could get waivers for them to take effect this year and some were not allowable under federal law. Therefore the Governor wanted to study the ideas and figure out how to implement them effective if actively. The amendments were all rejected.
  • SB 856 and HB 1539 were designed to come up with the state’s share of improvements for the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority. You may recall that I discussed this in a newsletter last month pointing out that Maryland, the District of Columbia, and Virginia had to come up with money totaling a $500 million investment in the Metro. During the session the bill was amended in the House of Delegates to take the money from other Northern Virginia transportation projects. The Governor’s amendments basically raise the grantors tax and the transient occupancy tax in Northern Virginia to provide new funding for the Metro. Those amendments were rejected, so the bill goes back to the governor. The legislation is important to the entire Commonwealth. If money raised locally for Northern Virginia transportation projects is diverted to the Metro, those projects will then compete with projects throughout Virginia for state funding. Because of the significant congestion issues in Northern Virginia, those projects will likely rate higher in terms of necessity and move to the front of the line potentially causing delays in improvements in other areas of the Commonwealth. These amendments were necessary to protect transportation funding for all of Virginia.

In general, I supported the Governor’s amendments as did a majority of my colleagues on both sides of the aisles.

During one of the recesses on Wednesday, the House and Senate Privileges and Elections Committees met to discuss the explanations for the two constitutional amendment questions on the ballot this fall. Often these questions are confusing and we tried to make the language of the explanation as understandable as possible. One amendment (SJ 21) will allow localities to grant partial tax exemptions to citizens for flood-prone properties that have been improved in order to abate or mitigate flooding. The second amendment (SJ 76) will permit the surviving spouse of a 100% disabled veterans to retain the real estate tax exemption on his or her primary residence even if the spouse moves.

The special session continues until we finalize a budget. I will be bouncing back-and-forth between Bath County, Charlottesville and Richmond for the foreseeable future. If I can be of service to you or answer any questions, please feel free to contact my office in Charlottesville at 434-296-5491, in Bath at 540-839-2473 or by email at [email protected]. It remains my honor to serve you in the Senate of Virginia.

Best,

Creigh

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Guns, Dogs, and Pipelines

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The 2018 Session is winding down. Our work turns to the last remaining bills. At the beginning of every session initiatives are brought forth from every corner of the Commonwealth. Sometimes a lot of excitement, even enthusiasm, surrounds those ideas. Yet when the subcommittees get to work and the questions and criticisms come, bills often disappear for the year. Certainly that has been the case this year.

Like every year, over 50 firearm-related bills were introduced this session. We considered bills to promote gun safety, to control ownership, and to reduce restrictions on ownership. At least a half dozen of these bills attempted to make it easier to carry a concealed weapon or possess a firearm. At this point in the session, the only bill I think will pass relating to firearm safety is one I introduced, Senate Bill 669. The legislation ensures a minor who is committed involuntarily shall be ineligible to possess or purchase a firearm when he or she comes of age. The law already exists for adults, and many thought this was the state of the law. However, two families reached out to me in recent years about experiences with their loved ones that suggests otherwise. While the bill has moved slowly through the process and people have been trying to research thoroughly the possible nefarious intentions of the bill, it looks like the bill will pass. [Read more…]

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Changing of the Guard

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We are nearing the completion of the first full week of the 2018 Session of the Virginia General Assembly. Last weekend we enjoyed some pageantry as Ralph Northam was inaugurated as the 73rd Governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia. On Monday, he gave his initial address to the legislature. The inaugural and his speech this week were similar but had different receptions.

First, the inaugural address was a broad statement of Governor Northam’s vision for the Commonwealth. It included a glimpse into the Governor’s soul and a sense of what makes him the right person, at the right time, for all the right reasons to be the Governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia. [Read more…]

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Crossover 2017

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Groundhog Day was yesterday, which means we are very close to the crossover of the 2017 legislative session. Crossover, which comes shortly after the midpoint of each session, is the point by which the Senate must act on all senate bills and the House on all house bills. The bills then cross over to the other side for consideration.

At the beginning of each session each legislator has goals they want to accomplish. I am no different. One hundred forty legislators sponsored thousands of bills this year and had policies they sought to advance. Now however we are in the heart of the sausage-making process, and many of those dreams have been dashed. By next Tuesday, everything but the budget will cross over from each side to the other. The pace now is frenetic. [Read more…]

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Snow, Guns, and Nelsonite

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The General Assembly session is moving along quickly. Committees meet early in the morning and late into the evening. The swirl of receptions, which has always accompanied the process, continues to occur, but they are less well attended than ever. Legislators are not only more conscious of the freebies, but the past week’s snow storm and resulting cancellations has backed up our work.

While at home in Bath County, we labored under a fairly modest snow storm for this time of the year; other parts of the state struggled. My friends in Highland County and in Charlottesville told me of accumulations of 18 inches or more. The Richmond area saw similar snowfalls, and some areas in Northern Virginia received over three feet of snow. Travel was treacherous and slowed to a snail’s pace. Once the snow stopped falling, snow disposal, particularly from urban streets, became a significant problem. The Governor has indicated this storm may have been the most expensive snowstorm in the history of Virginia. The clean up alone was estimated to cost $2 to $3 million per hour, in addition to the costs of preparing the roads for precipitation and public safety. Still the General Assembly churns on.

This week saw a major shift towards some compromise on guns, although the final deal is still up in the air. Many elected officials view the issue of guns in black or white terms. Legislators either vote for gun control or they vote to protect the Second Amendment. It is very difficult to find nuanced ground.

The Attorney General seemed to throw fuel on the fire last fall when his office conducted a study of the concealed carry laws in other states, as our law requires him to do, and determined that 25 states with which we have reciprocity have weaker concealed carry laws than Virginia. In fact, in some states even those who have been involuntarily committed to mental health facilities are eligible to carry concealed weapons. As I’ve explained to people before, there is nothing radical about the Attorney General’s actions. The law calls for the Attorney General in consultation with the State Police to determine with which states we should have reciprocal agreements and make a report to the Governor and the General Assembly. A lot of people do not like what he found.

In fact, the NRA made it their top goal in this legislative session to restore the reciprocity agreements. I have heard from many of my constituents who support that view. In the end, a very rare compromise appears close on this issue. Democrats and Republicans, gun control advocates and opponents, have come together on a tentative plan to restore reciprocity with the twenty-five states along with making strides on some gun control policies.

In Virginia during 2014, 112 homicides were the result of family and intimate partner violence. Over half of those deaths involved firearms. Just last year, four people died while an active protective order was in place. This proposed compromise removes firearms from the possession of those against whom protective orders have been issued. This is a major public safety achievement.

In addition, the deal takes a first step with respect to background checks at gun shows. We have debated and discussed the gun show loophole for over a decade. Private sellers, those who sell firearms but are not federally licensed dealers, do not have to submit their buyers to background checks. Only a small portion of weapons are sold at gun shows by private sellers, but it doesn’t take but one weapon for something tragic to occur. This agreement would require the State Police to provide background checks to any private sellers who voluntarily request one of their buyers. Many people will not be satisfied as this falls short of mandatory checks, but if an agreement is reached it will be a step forward.

Proposed changes to our gun laws have been an issue of incredible contention between a legislature controlled by Second Amendment advocates and a Governor who has campaigned for gun safety and gun control. The players were destined to continue to be at loggerheads. The compromise means that everybody gives something, and we make some progress.

On a much lighter note, today the Senate passed legislation I sponsored to designate Nelsonite as the official state rock. Last fall, a group of government and geology students from Piedmont Virginia Community College (PVCC) came to me with this proposal. The students had done their homework. They garnered the support of the state geologist, the chairwoman of the Nelson County Board of Supervisors, our friend Connie Brennan, as well as Frank Friedman, the President of PVCC. Virginia is one of four states that does not have a state rock, mineral or gemstone. Nelsonite is named after Nelson County and had a significant impact on the local economy in the early 20th Century and is mined as far away as China. The bill was amended to include the American Dogwood as the state tree and the Northern Cardinal as the state bird. The General Assembly made those designations in the 1950s, but they were omitted inadvertently.

Earlier this week, Senate Bill 356 passed out of the Senate without opposition. The legislation directs the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services to create a stakeholder group tasked with developing the Virginia Pollinator Protection Strategy. The goal is to promote best practices to protect our dwindling bee population. Landowners, beekeepers and farmers all have a shared interest in this regard, and I am hopeful my bill will receive the support of the House of Delegates.

It continues to be my high honor to serve you in the Virginia General Assembly. If I may be of service, do not hesitate to contact me. I can be reached at [email protected] or (804) 698-7525. I look forward to hearing from you.

Best,

Creigh

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