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“Raw Power” — SCC, ERA, and Guns
January 21, 2019
We have now completed the first
12 days of the 2019 General Assembly Session, and the legislative train
has clearly begun to pick up speed. But not everything is on the same track. The
big developments last week included election of a State Corporation Commission
judge, defeat of a dozen common-sense gun bills, passage of the ERA amendment by
the Senate, and introduction of a major bill to fight climate change.
SCC AND THE EXERCISE OF POWER
The State
Corporation Commission (SCC), a constitutional creation separate from the
executive and legislative branches, is one of the most important entities of our
state government. It is distinctly different than similar commissions in other
states because it has a broader regulatory charge; it not only regulates
railroads and utility rates, but also approves health insurance rates and
oversees a wide variety of other areas important to consumers. The General
Assembly selects the three members of the Commission, and the Governor has no
veto power to deny their seating. Under the Virginia Constitution, at least one
of the three Commissioners must also meet the qualifications to be a judge, and
last year that Commissioner retired before his term had expired; but the
Republicans in the House and Senate have not been able to agree on a new
appointment to replace him for over a year—until last week. In
a surprise and shocking move, at the speed of a “bullet
train” and with little notice to the General Assembly or the public, the
Republicans approved a new Commissioner within 24 hours of her announced
candidacy. Judge Patricia West, most recently an
associate dean and professor at Regent University Law School and previously
Virginia Secretary of Public Safety for Governor George Allen and chief deputy
attorney general to former Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, admitted in her
abbreviated hearing before the Commerce and Labor Committee that she
has absolutely no experience in health or energy regulatory policy, key
issues before the Commission. The public had no
opportunity to comment on the choice, and very few
General Assembly members had a chance to actually speak with the candidate, as
is the typical protocol prior to approval. You can see my comments on the
nomination here and
can read the story about the appointment in the Washington
Post. I hope that Judge West will be a good Commissioner, but the term she
is completing for her retired predecessor ends next year, so she
will need to be considered for a full-term appointment in 2020, after the fall
elections.
ERA
UPDATE The Senate approved its Equal
Rights Amendment resolution with substantial Republican
support, by a 24-16 vote, and it now comes to the House, where it faces an
uncertain future. Delegate Mark Cole, the Republican Chair
of the House Privileges and Elections Committee, has not indicated whether he
will even permit a hearing on the House versions of the
resolution, and the Senate’s resolution will be assigned to the same committee. If
any ERA resolution can get to the House floor, there is enough bipartisan
support that we would have a good chance of passing it. I
will be fighting to make that happen. For now, it is up to the House Republican
leadership to determine if it will even receive a hearing.
COMMON-SENSE
GUN LEGISLATION FAILS AGAIN On Thursday afternoon, over
a dozen common-sense gun safety measures were killed in the space of a few hours
by a subcommittee of the House Committee on Militia, Police, and Public Safety.Two
of those bills were mine. This Subcommittee is controlled by rural, conservative
Republicans who never support reasonable gun safety measures, so their
opposition was not surprising. The first of my bills (HB1956)would
have allowed localities to control whether firearms can be carried in public
spaces at permitted events. This measure, which had the full support of Attorney
General Mark Herring, was important in the aftermath of Charlottesville, August
2017; if you walked the streets of the city on that day, you saw countless
people with automatic weapons dressed in fatigues, and no one knew who they
were, or why they were heavily armed, or what they might do with such weapons.
As it did last year when I first introduced it, the bill died with all 4
Republicans voting against it.
My second bill (HB1957) would
permit judges to inquire as to whether any firearms in a home where children are
experiencing a mental health crisis were secured. It died as well, as did a bill
to enact universal background checks, another to restore the previous statute
that prohibited Virginians from purchasing more than one gun a month, and a
relatively new idea that has gotten support within Republican-controlled
legislatures around the country called a “Risk Warrant.” Under this approach,
after a judicial process, a person’s firearms could be temporarily removed from
his or her home if it can be shown that the person is a danger to self or
others; the firearms would be returned after the crisis subsided.
KNOWLEDGE IS POWER: BIG LOCAL NEWS
This past week’s announcement that local investor Jaffray
Woodriff is donating $120 million to the University of Virginia to create a
School of Data Science is hugely important for both our
community and the state. Data science embraces the challenge of developing tools
to analyze huge amounts of information, so that we can extract insights and
knowledge that will allow us to make many aspects of our lives better: in
agriculture, health care, transportation, finance, and so many other areas. With
Amazon arriving soon in Virginia, and the explosion of opportunities in the high
tech data sphere, this gift will elevate our ability to stay on the cutting edge
of a new age of economic opportunity.
TRAGEDY IN THE BODY This
past week, my friend and fellow Delegate John Bell and his
family suffered a terrible losswith the death of their son and brother.
Joshua Bell served this nation in the Air National Guard, and continued to serve
in a different way when he shared his powerful personal experience of injury and
subsequent addiction to pain medications with others, including his father
(whose legislative agenda has included many bills dedicated to helping those
caught up in opioid addiction). Our colleague Mike Mullin movingly eulogized
Josh’s death with the words that such a tragedy “smothers our souls.” Our hearts
grieve for John, Margaret, and their family.
ML
KING DAY On Sunday, I joined hundreds
at the ML King, Jr. Performing Arts Center to celebrate the legacy of Dr. Martin
Luther King, Jr. We heard wonderful musical performances
from the interracial community chorus and a powerful, inspiring speech from Dr.
Cornell Brooks of Harvard University. It was wonderful to see a
lifelong Charlottesville volunteer and advocate, my good friend Teresa
Price, receive the annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Community Award. In
honor of Dr. King, I have republished a speech I made last year at the General
Assembly’s prayer breakfast, where I discussed the significance of the “Letter
from a Birmingham Jail.” You
can view it here.
YOUR FEEDBACK POWERS MY WORK FOR YOU
As important as it is for me to send these updates to keep my constituents
informed, it’s even more important for me to hear from you so I can stay
informed about how you feel regarding matters before the General Assembly, and
any other issues on your mind. Please take a few minutes to
answer and return my annual survey mailer, which will likely arrive in your
mailboxes this week. If you live in the 57th District and don’t receive
one, call my Richmond office at 804-698-1057 or email DelDToscano@house.virginia.gov and
give us your name and address so we can try to get one to you quickly.
SESSION LIVESTREAM
If you would like to watch a live stream of the floor
session in the House of Delegates, go to this webpage.
The session usually begins at 12 noon Mon-Thurs, and sometimes earlier on Friday
(10:00am).
Delegate David Toscano (electronic mail, January 21, 2019)
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