Panel approves bill -
then kills it 10 minutes later
The first time Sen. Thomas
Norment, R-Williamsburg, walked out of the House Militia and Police
Committee yesterday, he was a happy man. The
committee had approved his bill, which would ban open containers of
alcohol in vehicles.
But the committee's approval
was a squeaker - the vote was 11-10. According to The
Lynchburg News & Advance, the bill's opponents knew not every
committee member was present. So an aide was dispatched to retrieve
Del. Lacey Putney, I-Bedford, a committee member who would vote against
the bill.
Within minutes, while Norment
was outside the committee meeting talking to reporters, Putney swept
by and into the meeting room.
Putney's vote created a
tie, and Delegate Glenn Weatherholtz, R-Harrisonburg, changed his
vote from yea to nay. In the space of 10 minutes, Norment's victory
had become a defeat.
‘In God We Trust’ won’t
be posted next year
Public schools won't be required to post the words
"In God We Trust'' this year.
The Virginian-Pilot
reported that the Senate Education and Health Committee effectively
killed a bill that would have required display of the nation's motto
amid concerns that it would inject religion into public schools.
The vote was 9-6 to send HB1613 to the Finance
Committee - which won't meet before the session ends - for a review
of the potential costs schools would incur in posting the signs.
"Paper and Magic Marker would suffice,''
the bill's sponsor, Delegate Robert G. Marshall, R-Prince William,
protested.
Afterward, Marshall blasted the committee for
avoiding an up-or-down vote on the bill. "It's a little bit pathetic,
the disingenuousness,'' he said.
He said he couldn't understand why the committee
that has twice passed legislation requiring students to say the Pledge
of Allegiance each day wouldn't pass a bill to require posting the
nation's motto in schools.
Hager helps teen driving
bill stay on course
A dramatic tie-breaking
vote by Lt. Gov. John H. Hager helped keep alive a bill restricting
teen drivers.
The Senate voted 30-8 to
pass the measure that would increase by three months the legal age
that a teen-ager could receive his or her driver's license, the Richmond
Times-Dispatch reported today.
The age for receiving a
learner's permit would be raised from 15 years to 15 and a half. Teens
would have to hold their permits for at least nine months before being
able to earn a "provisional" driver's license, which they would have
until age 18.
The measure is in response
to a recent rash of fatal accidents involving high school students.
The bill also imposes a
curfew, prohibiting driving by teen-agers with a previous violation
between midnight and 4 a.m., and limits the number of passengers in
a car driven by a teen-ager.
It was how to enforce the
new law that almost proved its undoing.
As passed by the House
of Delegates and a Senate committee, the passenger limits and curfew
would be secondary offenses, meaning police could cite drivers for
those offenses only if they stop them for another violation.
Sen. Kenneth W. Stolle,
R-Virginia Beach, said this would make enforcement impossible. He
proposed an amendment that would make the offense a primary offense,
meaning the police could stop teen-agers if they see them breaking
the curfew or passenger limits.
Sen. Bill Mims, R-Loudoun,
argued this would kill the bill because the House would never accept
the amendment. The Senate voted 20-20 on the Stolle amendment.
Hager, a candidate for
the Republican nomination to run for governor, cast the tie-breaking
vote against the amendment. The curfew and passenger limits remained
secondary offenses.
