Two weeks remain until the General Assembly is scheduled to adjourn on March 11. However, much work remains to complete agreement on bills, especially the Big One, the Budget Bill.
Regarding the non-budget bills, we are in the process of the House reviewing the Senate bills and vice versa. Amendments (changes) may occur in either body in both cases, so bills similar but not fully in agreement go to ‘conference,’ where representatives from each body attempt to reconcile differences. If agreement is not reached in conference, they die for the year. When successful, these bills are usually, but not always, passed by both bodies and forwarded to the governor for consideration.
Regarding my bills, HB698 to permit residents and private businesses to bore under state roads for water or sewage drain field access, passed the Senate 40-0 and went to the governor for consideration. My bills to permit a phase-in of the implementation of new, lower EPA mandated ammonia contents in discharges from small rural wastewater plants were delayed due to the budget bill having to be passed by last Thursday. I anticipate they are a go for next week’s passage by both bodies.
Next week my bill to require General Assembly approval of any cap and trade or regional states’ compact to control and tax CO2 without approval by the Legislature will be heard in the Senate. I expect a lively debate but I strongly contend the people’s representatives should vote on any energy policies on top of and independent of our SCC regulatory controls on electricity generation, services, rates and policies.
Often bills are shown as failed in the record but what often actually happens is the contents of the bill are ‘rolled’ into another similar or broader reaching bill. This happened to me earlier in the session with my HB691
This bill reallocated the number of Circuit Court judges in the 21st District (Patrick, Henry, and Martinsville) and 22nd Districts (Franklin, Pittsylvania and Danville) from 2-3 and 5-4, respectively. This reflects the recent judicial study on judges needed, reflects reality as there are now three and four in office, and the judges in both districts asked the allocation law be changed to reflect the actual situation. My bill died in subcommittee but these changes are in a broader bill covering judgeship allocations across the entire state.
As you have seen in the media, this week the House and Senate voted out their respective budgets but with a very major difference in expansion of Medicaid. In a hotly debated and divided vote, the House budget included expanding Medicaid to 18-64 year-old healthy, childless adults, while the Senate did not. For the first time in my 11 years as your delegate, I voted against the budget due to this.
In fairness to the supporters of the House budget, it encompasses the Indiana model of purchasing a health insurance policy for the recipients, plus the Kentucky model of expansion that includes a “work/training” requirement in order to receive benefits. Those are appropriate measures but belie the fact that Medicaid is for the truly needy; is an ineffective program for healthcare outcomes; based on the experiences of states that have expanded Obamacare, the results are it busts state budgets; the federal commitment to continue to fund its advertised share of the costs is suspect, at best; and, it drains sorely needed dollars from the truly needy, as well as from core Virginia government functions such as K-12, public safety, higher education, and other health and human resources needs.
I am often told expansion is a moral imperative, that this group needs it, to simply “give it to them,” that hospitals can only survive if they receive the 72-cents or so of their costs to treat additional Medicaid patients, etc. Virginia already has a Health Care Safety Net for the poor and indigent, namely the Health Care Foundation, our indigent care/training hospitals (VCU and UVA), Community Health Centers, free clinics, and more. A reasonable question to then pose is will expansion mean a reduction or elimination of the need for and funding for this safety network? No, I cannot see that happening. Rather, it would be an expansion of an already failing federal law.
I look back at the federal promise to fully fund the No Child Left Behind Act and the Vote America Act, where the federal money went away in a few years and the states and localities were relegated to covering all the costs. As an appropriator on the budget committee, I also have to look at the $600M in additional money in the budget currently designated for Medicaid, which has to come off the top of our revenue program and, thus, reduces spending on other core programs, such as those I mentioned above. The next two weeks will undoubtedly be a pressure-pot for the conferees charged with reconciling differences so we can vote out the final budget by March 11.
A topic of wide interest this week included the bill to require state University and College Boards of Visitors (trustees) to hold a public hearing on tuition hikes. The bill was killed in the Senate (passed 99-0 in the House) after extensive lobbying on this and similar bills by the institutions and their supporters.
The issue of body cameras by law enforcement came up in some heated budget discussions. Remember, whether or not to use these is a local decision, not state. As some of us predicted, there is a large cost to this far beyond the technology purchase, operations, maintenance, frequent upgrades of the cameras themselves, and more. The recordings must be securely stored and reviewed by a lawyer, not a paralegal. This results in a huge additional workload in commonwealth attorneys’ offices in those jurisdictions that have chosen to use this technology.
This week we had a lot of input on how this workload is negatively impacting many commonwealth attorneys’ offices and, as a result, local government budgets. It appears to me we may need to step back and determine if camera use is living up to promises and get a better perspective of the personnel impacts and other costs from local governments, commonwealth attorneys, law enforcement, even the judiciary before the 2019 Session.
Legislation has passed in the House and Senate to prohibit long-term school suspensions. I voted against this as I believe those decisions are best made by the local school divisions that know the facts of each case. I predict the next thrust will be more programs and expenditures for ‘alternative education,’ which would add another burden upon our local schools.
Next week a revised electricity regulation bill from the Senate will be heard in the House. Indications are it is much better but, with likely additional proposed amendments in the House, I will have to evaluate the final contents before I cast my vote.
The halls of the Capitol and our office building were still relatively quiet this week as visitors were aware legislators were focused on the budgets. To arrange a tour of our capitol or schedule a meeting with me, please call or email my legislative assistant, William Pace at (804) 698-1009, DelCPoindexter@house.virginia.gov or write to me at Pocahontas Building, Room E304, 900 E. Main Street, Richmond VA 23219.
