In an act of unbridled partisan heavy-handedness, last week the House Republican majority manipulated the rules to force a bill to the House floor despite the sponsor’s desire to pull the bill – a standard request heretofore granted nearly universally as a matter of courtesy. House Democrats objected to this disgraceful treatment of one our members and refused to vote on the measure, so House Republicans used an obscure rule to cast a negative vote on our behalf. Despite this unfavorable environment, I was able to work through the gridlock and move forward on several of my legislative efforts, including my bill to allow military and overseas voters to receive absentee balloting materials electronically, which passed the House unanimously and even picked up several Republican co-sponsors along the way.
Sometimes merely putting in a bill can produce the desired effect on public policy even when the bill does not immediately pass. Parents of special education students from across Virginia traveled to Richmond on Monday to support my bill to protect existing regulations that require parental consent for changes to special education services. As parents, teachers, and foster care advocates testified before the Students and Day Care Subcommittee, the current parental consent requirement promotes partnership between parents and school officials, and eliminating it could make expensive legal action a family’s only avenue for appeal. This bill was intended to be a preemptive move against a proposed change to the current regulation. Therefore, the subcommittee voted to carry over the bill until next year to give the Board of Education an opportunity to preserve the parental consent requirement without legislation. However, subcommittee members made it clear that they would use my bill next year to codify parental consent if necessary.
On Wednesday, the Housing Subcommittee again unanimously approved the bill I have been working on with the Virginia Coalition to End Homelessness, Social Action Linking Together, and the Virginia Catholic Conference that would create a rental assistance pilot project to help the working poor transition from homelessness to work-based financial independence. Like last year, the bill was referred to the Appropriations Committee with unanimous bipartisan support, but it is not yet clear whether funding for the idea will make it into the budget.
In 2006, I co-sponsored successful legislation to allow small businesses to band together into health insurance cooperatives to lower health care costs. Unfortunately, we have discovered over the past year that very few small businesses have the in-house technical expertise necessary to take advantage of this opportunity. Therefore, I have sponsored legislation to designate a position within the Department of Health to provide the technical assistance to empower small businesses to form these cooperatives. Members of the Housing Subcommittee were intrigued by the idea and decided to send the bill to the Small Business Commission for further study over the summer.
Unfortunately, two of my bills to address the threat of climate change did not fare so well. After a frustrating discussion during which senior Republicans on the Rules Committee questioned whether climate change is even a legitimate scientific phenomenon, the committee killed my bill to create a permanent Commission on Climate Change. Later in the week, another House subcommittee killed my bill to set greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets in line with the recommendations of the Nobel-prize winning International Panel on Climate Change. Every week, we learn more from scientists about damage from climate change, and despite these legislative setbacks, I will continue fighting in the General Assembly for Virginia to do our part to protect the future.
Thank you for all of the visits – I truly enjoy seeing constituents in Richmond, and I apologize if my hectic legislative schedule means you end up meeting with my aide instead of me. If you would like the latest information about my efforts for our community, I hope you will visit www.DavidEnglin.org and sign up for my email list.
