Senators want to tighten
campaign finance rules
Are some legislators lining
their pockets with campaign donations? Maybe, according to lawmakers
studying Virginia's campaign finance laws. They want to crack down
on such practices. [Story by Kevin
Crossett]
Women legislators criticize
'informed consent' bill
Women lawmakers lambasted
the General Assembly’s approval of bills that require a 24-hour waiting
period for abortions.
"It says to women that you are too dumb to know what you are
doing," said Sen. Leslie Byrne, D-Falls Church. [Story
by Jennifer Lawhorne]
Claims committee OK's
money for former sheriff
When Harold Taylor, former
sheriff of Isle of Wight County, responded to an ominous call in 1963,
he had no way of knowing that 35 years later he would need a wheelchair
to get around and would have to ask the state of Virginia for financial
assistance. [Story by Jessica Brown]
Don't split communities,
redistricting committee is told
The public’s message was
simple and clear Friday night as the General Assembly held a public
hearing on redistricting: Don’t
split communities of interest.
[Story by Nathan Hanger]
House keeps power deregulation
on track
The House of Delegates
voted, 77-20, to proceed with deregulating Virginia's electrical utilities
by 2007, the Richmond Times-Dispatch
reported.
The bill, sponsored by
Sen. Thomas K. Norment, R-James City County, keeps the state's deregulation
plan on schedule, even though some lawmakers held back because of
the current crisis in California.
The bill would allow the
state to provide default service providers for power customers who
have not chosen an electric company, a provision that legislators
grappled with before implementing deregulation.
More deregulation: Bill
would let banks set loan fees
Deregulation fever swept
through the House of Delegates yesterday after the banking industry
lobbied for passage of a bill that would allow banks to charge whatever
they want, The Virginian-Pilot
reported.
The bill was designed
to help local banks compete against out-of-state banks.
Panel won't dilute role
of SOLs in graduation rules
The Gilmore administration
scored a victory yesterday when a Senate committee tabled three bills
that would have diluted the role the state's Standards of Learning
tests play in high school graduation requirements, according to the
Richmond Times-Dispatch.
The committee decided it
did not have the time to sort through the intricacies of the bills
and passed the dirty work onto the State Board of Education.
Attorney General wants
to meet with drug maker
In an effort to better
understand recent surges in the abuse of the prescription drug Oxycontin,
state Attorney General Mark L. Earley drafted a letter to the drug's
maker requesting a meeting.
Oxycontin, a synthetic
morphine, has been attributed to 30 fatal overdoses in Southwestern
Virginia during the past four years, reports the Daily
Press of Newport News.
In his letter, Earley
said the drug, "is now routinely described as the 'street drug' of
choice in this part of Virginia."
The Rev. Pat Robertson
leads House prayer
In his first appearance
at the General Assembly, Pat Robertson, founder of the Christian Coalition,
led the House of Delegates in prayer yesterday.
The Daily
Press said Robertson's legislator, Delegate Robert Tata, R-Virginia
Beach, invited him. During his prayer, Robertson asked the lawmakers
to pray that their legislation would be in accordance with "holy will."
