Editorial
Charlottesville Daily Progress
Call it the gulag of lawmaking.
Proposed bills go into the darkness and there they are killed, no spotlight, no fingerprints.
The General Assembly continues to cloak in secrecy some of its most basic decisions, those concerning the life or death of proposed laws. A bill to change this was defeated on a largely partisan vote during the very first hour the legislature was in session.
Here's the background:
Two years ago, the GOP majority in the House of Delegates used its new power to change the legislative rules under which the House operated. Bills that went to subcommittee for evaluation could be killed there - with no recorded vote.
Previously, subcommittees had recommended the fate of legislation to their full committees.
Although the committees often accepted those recommendations with little or no discussion, at least there was a chance for further discussion. And there was a record of who voted for or against sending the bill forward to the House.
Constituents could find out not only what happened to a bill, but who made it happen. The old system provided openness and accountability.
Proponents of the change argued that the new system streamlined the handling of bills. Certainly, the Assembly carries a heavy load. Bad legislation has been slipping through more often of late, perhaps because lawmakers lack sufficient time to scrutinize legislation effectively.
Maybe lawmakers should self-regulate and simply not submit so many bills.
Proponents also pointed out at the time that the subcommittee meetings were open to the public. Members of the public pointed out that the subcommittee members huddled together at tables set at a sufficient distance that spectators seldom could hear what was happening. There were no microphones and scant effort by the subcommittee members to make their voices heard.
Another key criticism was that the new system gave small subcommittees vast and unwarranted power. A handful of legislators, acting without accountability, continue hold life-and-death power over all the bills that come their way.
A recorded vote is the only way members of the public could know which lawmakers voted to kill legislation. Even citizens with the time and hardihood to trek to Richmond and sit in on meetings couldn’t find out what was happening.
Nearly 800 bills died in this way last year, said Del. Kenneth R. Plum, D-Fairfax, who presented this year’s unsuccessful bill to prevent proposed laws from being anonymously killed in subcommittee.
The public's right to know is a basic tenet of all we do, said Del. Kenneth R. Plum, D-Fairfax, harking back to the foundational principles established by Jefferson, Madison and others.
At least, it ought to be a basic tenet of the legislature.
But this legislature makes a more ominous choice. It sends proposed laws to secret, silent deaths at the hands of shadowy subcommittees.
Laws go in, but they may not come out - and no one will admit at whose hands they died.
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