01/18/12: All of us should watch Richmond

This op-ed appeared in The Virginian-Pilot on the date shown.

WITH THE GENERAL Assembly session in full swing, I spent some time last weekend reviewing the bills that have been filed. Richmond Sunlight (www.richmondsunlight.com) shows 1,360 bills introduced so far in the House of Delegates and 666 in the Senate. More than 1,600 of these were introduced in the last seven days.

Some are resolutions commending this person or that group — the football team of my old high school is one — or celebrating the life of a respected member of a community.

There are also a fair number of duplicate bills. While I expect there to be a House and Senate version of many bills, that’s not the duplication to which I refer.

A topic that has received a lot of press of late is whether to allow local school boards to determine when schools are to open. There are at least 10 bills introduced to accomplish this, with three — HB15, HB86 and HB1063 — that are word-for-word identical.

Eventually, all of these bills will be rolled into one. In the meantime, it is a bit of a nightmare for citizens to wade through the bills and find the ones that may affect their lives or livelihoods.

Do we really need 3,000 bills each year? Perhaps the legislators could simply co-patron a bill that has already been introduced.

Interest groups spend hours poring over the bills and producing lists of those that affect them. That’s why I was looking. I serve on the legislation review task force of the Virginia Society of CPAs. While the list may ultimately be whittled down, there are currently hundreds of bills that affect our profession one way or another.

But the citizen in me couldn’t help but notice some of the other legislation introduced, including that commemoration of the Phoebus High School football team.

There are bills that would require registration by political party, bills that would define life as beginning at conception and bills that would require voters to show identification to vote.

There are bills that would dilute the effect of the Dillon Rule on localities, bills that would strengthen the hold of the Dillon Rule on localities and bills that would require reporting of child abuse or neglect.

Del. Bob Marshall introduced HB68, which would prohibit “the introduction of any bill that refers to a tax by any word other than ‘tax.’” No euphemisms should be allowed, according to this would-be U.S. senator.

Some of these bills will get a lot of coverage in the media. Others — like the one requesting a study on merging the Eastern Virginia Medical School with Old Dominion University, or the one that would allow a state income tax deduction for tolls, or the one that would permit localities to put certain notices on their website, on the radio or TV rather than in a newspaper — will receive almost none.

What we want our commonwealth to look like is being decided by our representatives in Richmond. As a citizen of the U.S., I find it easier to follow what’s going on in Washington, with that news being constantly pushed to me. As a citizen of Virginia, I have to seek out that information, more of which affects me daily. Fortunately, tools like Richmond Sunlight make it easier for me to do so.

Take a look. You’ll probably find some bills that affect you, too.