Thursday, April 24, 2014
Welcome to the Virginia General Assembly
Legislator Contact Information
General Assembly Committee Information
2014 Veto Session completed
The General Assembly returned to the Capitol for its annual veto session on April 23.
Legislators considered 60 bills that Governor Terry McAuliffe amended and four of the five he vetoed. (The fifth veto had been sustained during the regular session.) Many of the amendments were technical or enacted a clause making the provisions subject to state appropriations.
There was a great deal of discussion on the overdue $96 billion state budget but no action was taken. The budget has been deadlocked by an impasse over Medicaid Expansion.
Governor McAuliffe’s successfully vetoed two religious expression bills and legislation that would have granted people who receive red-light tickets the right to contest citations in circuit court. The religious expression bills would have codified a student’s right to pray at school and prohibited censorship of sermons given by chaplains of the Virginia National Guard. The other veto was technical adjustments to Senate boundaries.
Of particular interest to local governments was an amendment to HB199 (Landes), which requires the Division of Legislative Services to identify and forward to the Commission on Local Government introduced joint resolutions calling for a study of local government expenditures or revenues. The purpose of referral would be to assess the fiscal impact of legislation. The bill also authorizes the Department of Planning and Budget and the Department of Taxation to forward to the Commission on Local Government introduced bills that require additional local government expenditures or a reduction in local government revenues. Governor McAuliffe’s amendment inserted an enactment clause that makes the provisions of the bill contingent on funding being included in the budget. The amendment was rejected in the House 69-28.
VACo Contact: Dean Lynch, CAE