Last year, I was working in my office late one afternoon when I received a call from a constituent. Laurie is a physical therapist, and she wanted information about a bill that was important to her profession. She knew the bill had been considered that day, and she wanted to know how the vote turned out. But when she went to the Legislative Information System, there was no information on how any individual committee member had voted.
Laurie was troubled. “I have three small children,” she said. “I can’t come to Richmond. But I certainly could take the time to contact people to express my concern about their vote–if only I could find out how they voted.”
Laurie is not alone. In 2006, nearly 2000 bills were considered by the House of Delegates. But of that number, 615–more than 30 percent–show no recorded vote on their disposition. In contrast, in 2005, before House rules were changed to allow bills to be killed in subcommittee without a recorded vote, just 9 bills failed without a recorded vote in 2005 (roughly half of one percent).
Today, our colleague Ken Plum introduced House Resolution 48. It would simply change the House rules by requiring a recorded vote in subcommittee.
Given the number of bills we must consider in a session, giving subcommittees power to dispose of bills that lack much support is probably here to stay. But it is essential that all of us remain accountable for our votes.
I urge everyone to contact Delegates about the importance of supporting HR 48. The vote will be held next Thursday.
What exactly are the rules in regards to public recordings of these subcommittee meetings? Can a member of the public make an audio recording? Can they make a video?
Any member of the public may attend any subcommittee, although they are usually held very early in the morning or very late in the afternoon. (This is a change from the Bad Old Days when–no kidding–there were armed guards outside the Appropriations room!) I imagine the Chairman could prohibit video recordings, since they are not allowed in the House itself. The rules are silent on this, however.
Thank you very much. I think the armed guards was the story most told to me when I worked last session. I still can’t imagine it how that must have felt.
How and when were the rules changed last year to allow for secret votes? I did a couple searches at the GA site (leg1.state.va.us) and couldn’t find anything about the change.
Thanks.
It was at the very beginning of session. You can find it in the rules committee for the house. If they were on Richmond Sunlight, the tag would be “ridiculous”
This is good work Kris!
So was your bill to establish a non-partisan redistricting commission. I’m spitting mad as your constituent that they killed it so fast! Dave Albo had to motion to kill it too…..UGH!!
Excuse me, PBI’d it so fast. We need more access to our legislators and how they’re doing business down there.
Having been there Wednesday for the day you get the sense of it, but it’s not open enough for regular folks to see it in total sunshine. I’d like to have video access to committee and sub-committee meetings, or at least audio, and I’d like to be able to see all votes made in any legislative setting.
Thanks so much for offering both of these. If we get control, I hope you’ll offer this again so we can take the politics out of redistricting and let the sunshine in OUR House!