"Bills to take partisanship out of legislative redistricting, promote energy conservation and reform the mental health commitment process are among the top priorities of the Charlottesville area’s state legislators.

Legislation to switch Virginia’s party-based redistricting process to a nonpartisan model would be the most effective way to restore competition to elections, according to state Sen. R. Creigh Deeds, D-Bath County.

“I’m just convinced nonpartisan redistricting will change the nature of politics in Virginia and stop this partisan polarization,” said Deeds, whose oddly shaped 25th District stretches from the West Virginia line to include Charlottesville and most of Albemarle County.

“You’ve got polarized districts where people just don’t have choices” under a system dominated by partisan considerations, he said. “I’m convinced we can get compact and contiguous districts and end up with a less polarized legislature.”

Deeds’ bill is based on laws in Iowa and New Jersey that attempt to create competitive districts for the state legislatures and for Congress. “I think it’s still good politics but it’s even better government,” he said.

“I think the opportunity is now and it’s almost unprecedented,” said Deeds, who observed that the Senate is gaining a Democratic majority in January and the House is staying in Republican hands for at least the next two years.

“It’s in everyone’s interests. … Nobody knows what the makeup of the House is going to be in 2011” when Virginia next draws lines for legislatives districts using new population figures from the 2010 Census.

Deeds’ plan, which passed the Senate for the first time this year only to die in a House committee, would hand redistricting to a 13-member committee appointed by the legislature. It would include six Democrats, six Republicans and an independent chairman chosen by a majority of the panel.

Borrowing from Iowa’s law, the Virginia panel would be limited to considering population without bowing to partisan favor “in any way,” he said.

Dels. Rob Bell and David J. Toscano are split over the Deeds plan with fellow Democrat Toscano strongly in favor and Albemarle County Republican Bell opposed.

Toscano, a former Charlottesville mayor, said he disagrees with some Democrats who said they may lose interest in nonpartisan redistricting now that their party is likely to be able to wield some control of the process, at least in the Senate.

“If we want a nonpartisan system of redistricting, we can’t back away from it when we gain control,” Toscano said. “Either I will put it in on our [House] side, or sign on with someone who does.”

Bell said his top legislative priorities would be bills to reshape Virginia’s mental health treatment and commitment process in light of April’s shootings at Virginia Tech.

“We are looking at the actual standard for involuntary commitment” and ways to ensure that individuals committed for treatment do not slip through the cracks and avoid needed treatment, Bell said.

“We set up tracking from start to finish,” said the chairman of the Health, Welfare and Institutions subcommittee likely to consider such bills. Bell said he is also being named chairman of another Courts of Justice subcommittee about to hear other mental health legislation.

Other bills that Bell plans to introduce would establish an advanced medical directive for mental health care for individuals to outline the type of care they would like to receive if and when they lose control of their own care and set up more crisis stabilization units to treat individuals outside a hospital setting.

Another piece of legislation Bell is sponsoring would set up a presumption against bond for individuals convicted of a criminal offense but still awaiting sentencing.

“The flight risk is very high when someone [faces] a significant sentence,” Bell said. That bill is one of several suggested to Bell by area police and prosecutors, he said.

Toscano said he has a package of energy conservation bills he plans to introduce.

One bill would provide a homeowner with a tax credit of $750 a year for newly constructed “earth craft homes,” Toscano said.

Another measure would allow school boards to adopt standards to prevent extensive idling of school buses in front of schools, he said.

That measure is patterned after a Vermont law that cuts harmful school bus emissions and helps school districts save on fuel, he said.

A foster care bill that Toscano plans to sponsor would allow individuals who have “aged out” of state foster care at age 18 to have more options for keeping job training and mental health services from the time they leave foster care until they turn 21, he said.

Toscano also is sponsoring a resolution to urge Congress to establish a public service university. Such a school would train students to go into public service and provide scholarships that would commit graduates to five years in civilian service, he said.

Other education measures he plans to introduce would secure more state aid to schools in Charlottesville and Albemarle based on the higher cost of living for teachers in those localities and would help Albemarle in state aid by removing the county’s revenue sharing payments to the city from the county’s composite index for state school aid.

“The big issues this year are not going to be about our individual bills but are what happens to the budget and what happens to mental health, to see if we can avoid a train wreck” between the GOP-majority House and the Democratic-majority Senate, Toscano said." (Bob Gibson, The Daily Progress, November 22, 2007)