“You look nice today. Did you dress up for a special occasion?”

“Nope. I wore this because it’s the last clean thing in the closet.”

Time to go home.

There was a little back-and-forth between the House and the Senate (and frankly, the Senate’s amendment improved the bill), but yesterday HB 2341 passed the House 94-0.

This bill will allow School Boards to remove a student who has been charged with a very serious crime in the community until that student is placed in an alternative school.

It’s a minor change in the law, but the Fairfax County School Board believes that it will protect students from kids who have committed very violent crimes in the community,

Just when everyone is crabby and the economy is still lousy and winter seems like it will never end, here come the national basketball championships to lift our spirits.

While it’s the men’s game that will get most of the ink, there is at least one good reason to pay attention to the women’s tournament this year.

Her name is Jenn Warkenthien, from a tiny town very close to where I grew up in South Dakota. And while South Dakota State University is not a typical basketball power, anyone who reads this story will join me in cheering the team on.

Yesterday’s horoscope included this advice: “Caffeine is your friend.”

Indeed. For the next several days, our sessions will be L-O-N-G. Today, we will consider SIXTY pages of Senate uncontested bills. Just explaining all of them should take several hours. Yet these are the bills that came out of the Senate without opposition.

Then we’ll get to the contested issues. Septic tank issues (a hugely controversial subject this year). Energy conservation. Guns in bars. All of which mean we should probably plan to eat not only lunch at our desks, but to order in pizza for dinner.

With one week before we adjourn sine die, it’s almost impossible to predict how long our daily floor sessions will run. That’s because we are coming to the time when the “bi” in “bicameral” comes in.

In many cases, the House can’t take action on a piece of legislation until the Senate has acted. Or both houses need to consider all revenue bills before a deadline.

This week, blogger Jim Hoeft of Bearing Drift came to Richmond and tried to stop by to see me. We emailed back and forth for six hours. (“I’m sitting in Senate Finance and can’t come by now. How about in an hour?” “Nope, I have to present a bill then.”) In the end, we never did connect.

That will be the case from now until Saturday. So if you come to Richmond, be flexible about your schedule. We have learned that this week, schedules are merely aspirational documents!

I never thought I’d see the day. But the Virginia House of Delegates has just passed a restaurant smoking ban. The final vote was 60 – 39, with one delegate (Crockett-Stark) absent.

The bill will make all restaurants smoke free, with three exceptions:

– Private clubs such as VFWs or American Legion clubs.

– Areas that are both walled-off AND have a separate ventilation system.

– Outdoor patios.

It may not be the perfect bill, but it is a huge move forward for Virginia.

Lots going on here today. But while we digest the differences between the Senate and the House budgets, here’s something to discuss.

Nate Silver, the statistics guru who basically called the November election right on the nose, now puts his clever brain and his statistical models to the Oscars.

Is he right? Is Slumdog Millionaire a lock?

Tomorrow, the Senate Education and Health Committee will consider my HB 2341. It grew out of a serious incident in Fairfax County. A student was badly beaten in the community on a weekend. Police charges were filed in the case. But because the offense took place off school property, the principal of the school had no alternative but to allow that student back into the school until the case was adjudicated.

 

Naturally, the victim was terrified. In addition to suffering from the beating, the victim now had to face the assailant each day in school. Out of fear, the student did not return to the school until the assailant had been removed.

 

My bill provides that in cases where a student is charged with a community crime that involves serious physical harm to another student in the same school, principals could impose a short-term (no longer than ten days) suspension until the school decides whether that student should be placed in an alternative school. Here are some reasons I believe the legislation should be passed:

 

• The bill is very limited. It will apply only in cases of a small number of very serious crimes—felony assault, criminal sexual assault, mob assault. In all these cases, the school that would limit it to students in the same school. Fairfax estimates they would need to use the provisions of this legislation only a few times each year.
• The suspension will be extremely short term. Under current law, the principal would be allowed to suspend the student for a period of no longer than ten days. During this time, current law provides that the student must be told about alternative education arrangements. In Fairfax, that would mean the student would be allowed to access an online assignment system to keep up with assignments.
• As a practical matter, there will be a student out of school in a case like this. The policy decision before the Senate will be whether that student is the victim or the assailant.

Across the Commonwealth, people have today off. Schools, banks, and offices are closed.

We don’t. When the General Assembly convenes, we meet. Every day. Come snow, sleet, or federal holiday.

I used to regret the lack of a day off. But over time, I’ve recognized the wisdom of holding a session on a day when other people aren’t working.

Many of the citizens who aren’t working are here in Richmond. They are taking their day off to visit their elected representatives and observe democracy at work.

Groups include the ARC of Northern Virginia, a Girl Scout troop from Clifton, several Boy Scout troops, the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority, members of the Speech Language and Hearing Association of Virginia, and many, many more. (In fact, it took more than 25 minutes to introduce all the visitors during the Morning Hour.)

We are delighted they are here.

It usually takes a little time for the really good and the really gawdawful bills to surface. But now at the midway point, I think we have a nominee in the latter category.

It’s Del. Mark Cole’s HB 2528.

Del. Cole has introduced legislation that says local police departments can’t set up gun buyback programs unless they SELL THE GUNS BACK.

So, we buy guns from people to get them off the streets. Then apparently because some Delegates can’t bear the thought of any gun actually being, say, melted down, we require the police department to sell the guns back to licensed dealers. From whence they end up back on the street.

I pretty much thought the purpose of gun buyback programs was, well, to buy guns and not to sell them. Current law, by the way, allows police departments to sell the guns if they wish.

Of course HB 2528 passed the House. But it limped out with 33 negative votes, a fairly high number of “no” votes from a group that generally believes that an armed society is a polite society.

We will await its fate in the Senate.