2007 Virginia General Assembly bills

Via both Richmond Times Dispatch, and Pilot Online here's a brief look at some of the bills that Virginia's General Assembly will tackle in 2007 (bills are in bold, my comments are not):

- Revisions to the state's two-year, $78 billion budget, including a 3 percent teacher pay raise and an income tax cut for the state's poorest earners.

- Increase vehicle registration fees and the state sales tax on new cars to raise money for transportation. I talked about this in depth yesterday.

- Allow certain sex offenders to choose surgical castration instead of commitment to a secure treatment facility upon release from prison. This is ridiculous, and barbaric.

- Prohibit sex offenders from entering school or day-care center property without court permission. This bill is garbage, and will serve no purpose but to negatively impact the lives of the CHILDREN OF SEX OFFENDERS (keep in mind, there are WIDELY varying degrees of sex offenders too).

- Relax the capital murder statute's "triggerman rule" by allowing the death penalty for accomplices who share the intent to kill but do not actually commit the slaying. I'm against the death penalty, so obviously oppose this bill.

- Tighten restrictions on payday lenders.

- End the state's five-year experiment with electric utility regulation.

- Allow embryonic stem-cell research at Virginia's colleges, universities and laboratories and ban the use of the cells for cloning. Support the first part, oppose the latter.

- Require that facilities where abortions are performed be licensed and comply with state regulations that apply to outpatient-surgery centers. Shocked to learn this wasn't a requirement to begin with.

- Prohibit the use of cell phones by drivers who hold provisional licenses, learner's permits and motorcycle learner's permits except in an emergency or if the vehicle is parked or stationary.

- Make it harder to have no-fault divorce. I'll be shocked and disgusted if this passes.

- Expand the definition of adultery. Clarify that offenders may be guilty of adultery regardless of the gender of the person with whom they engage in such conduct. First thing that I thought of when I read this was they want to write in hate amendments banning gay marriage, and defining marriage as "one man, one woman" but also want to write ridiculous laws just to be sure gay affairs "count" as adultery. Republicans are hateful, hateful people indeed.

- Ban any open container of alcohol from the passenger areas of trucks or cars.

- Let localities adopt ordinances to ban guns at local libraries. Why not just ban guns in libraries? Why do people need to be carrying weapons into libraries?

- Designate the ginger gold apple as the official fruit of Virginia. Not sure why they're wasting their time with this.

- Require the Virginia Retirement System, under certain circumstances, to divest itself of investments in companies meeting criteria gauged to be related to the genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan.