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WHAT'S ON THE HORIZON?
By the time you read this, the 2024 Session of the General Assembly will have been in session for about a week. A number of bills have been in introduced and some have been assigned to a committee. As I write this on January 10, the committees and committee chairs have been appointed. Since the Democrats have a very thin majority in both chambers, the committees will have a Democratic majority, but if they use proportional appointments, their majority will be small. Committee membership is important because that’s the first hurdle in getting good legislation passed and bad legislation killed. You may check committee membership at http://leg1.state.va.us.
To lobby effectively and efficiently, the Legislative Committee needs to know who your senator and delegate are. Please see the information requested on the Legislative Liaison form found on the website (www.vrta.org) and send it to Tina Whitaker or Bea Morris, Legislative Co-chairs, as soon as possible if you are willing to contact your legislators when there is a specific, urgent need.
In this 60-day session, which ends March 9, the biennial budget, the only one in four years actually written by Governor Youngkin, is the overriding issue. Most other legislation has some cost and will have to be factored into the budget finally approved by the House and Senate and then signed by the Governor. It seems that the makeup of the legislature with a razor thin Democratic majority and a Republican Governor with veto power without the Democratic votes to override it, will lead either to compromising to get meaningful legislation passed that gives everybody something but not everything they wanted or to a stalemate that leads to nothing getting done. Information on specific bills will soon be sent to my legislative lists as it was in previous years, but don’t miss the fun of looking up bills on many topics that interest you.
Lobbying done using the name of VRTA is focused on legislation dealing with education, teachers and their benefits, the well-being of retirees including the work with AARP on improvements in nursing homes, etc. These are huge issues that are very demanding, so we do not get embroiled in cultural issues that may be divisive in our membership and are unlikely to have a conclusion anytime soon. Certainly, all of us have preferences on some legislation not in the VRTA focus and we should be knowledgeable about these bills and lobby on them as a constituent.
VRTA focuses on state elections and issues, but we must also be alert to the actions of the federal government because of its effects on state governments. We must support NRTA/AARP in their lobbying activities on issues that affect the elderly. Although we had a state election in Virginia barely two months ago, the presidential primary is on the horizon. The primary date in Virginia is Tuesday, March 5. However, we have early voting that begins January 19. At this point, both Democrats and Republicans will have more than one candidate. Virginia has open primaries, meaning that anyone can vote for candidates in either party but can’t vote for candidates in both parties. Voters will be asked if they want a Republican ballot or a Democratic ballot, but they can’t have both. In November, voters will be given one ballot with both the Republican and Democratic nominee. Every registered voter should take the opportunity to vote in the primary, and voting should be made accessible and convenient to as many people as possible; however, 45 days early seems too long. Too much can happen in that length of time that could affect your vote, and you don’t get a do-over. It’s expensive and unnecessarily time consuming for a busy registrar’s office, and it requires more from poll workers who are becoming harder to get. Legislation has been introduced to shorten early voting. HB 44 (Green) would limit early voting to 30 days and SB 42 (Peake) would limit it to 21 days before the election.
Lots of education bills have been introduced and assigned to a committee. We are pleased that VRTA’s request for a JLARC study of the teacher workforce crisis has been introduced in both chambers and the bills have been assigned to the Education Committees. We should thank Senator Sturtervant for SJ 9 and Delegate Amanda Batten for HJ 53.
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