By DAVE RESS AND TRAVIS FAIN,
Daily Press
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The official opening of the 2016 General Assembly session started, as ever, with elaborate introductions of newly elected legislators, uncontested elections of officers, clerks and pages — and a squabble over rules in the state Senate.
But the real session got started two days ago, as the crowds of dark-suited, smiling lobbyists began their never-ending circling through the General Assembly’s aging office building.
By TRAVIS FAIN,
Daily Press
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Senate Majority Leader Thomas K. "Tommy" Norment led a rule change today that moves reporters off the Senate floor, shifting them to a perch in the Senate gallery.
For years, reporters have worked at a pair of tables on the Senate floor itself.
Why the change? No comment, Norment said. "No comment needed on it," he said this afternoon,.
By JENNA PORTNOY,
Washington Post
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A top Virginia lawmaker wants the state to protect what he calls religious freedom as same-sex marriage and transgender awareness become more accepted across the United States.
Del. C. Todd Gilbert (R-Shenandoah), deputy majority leader in the House of Delegates, filed a bill that he says would prevent government discrimination against those who believe that marriage is between a man and a woman and that an individual’s sex is determined at birth.
By DAVID MCGEE,
Bristol Herald Courier
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Legislation that would impose sweeping changes to the BVU Authority and its board of directors is now before the Virginia General Assembly.
Filed this week, Senate Bill 329 would radically alter the makeup and representation of the board, eliminate all charitable donations and define how and where OptiNet should expand. Chief patron Sen. Bill Carrico, R-Galax, says it is in response to the long-running public corruption scandal.
By PATRICK WILSON ,
Virginian-Pilot
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The tables where reporters sit to work and report in the Virginia Senate have been removed from the floor, and media representatives were told to go to the upper gallery on Wednesday’s opening day of the General Assembly.
Several reporters from outlets including The Associated Press, The Washington Post and the Daily Press of Newport News were turned away from the entrance to the chamber Wednesday as the session convened . The chairman of the Senate Republican Caucus, Sen. Ryan McDougle, R-Hanover County, later said on the floor that the rules were being changed to allow more space for lawmakers and pages, the teenage assistants who serve food to senators and run errands for them.
By JIM NOLAN,
Richmond Times-Dispatch
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Virginia Senate Majority Leader Thomas K. Norment Jr., R-James City — whose disdain for the media has roots in the political and personal — on the first day of the 2016 General Assembly used a newly affirmed GOP majority to ban reporters from the Senate floor, where they have covered the chamber for decades. Norment instructed Senate Clerk Susan Clarke Schaar to have press tables removed from the chamber as part of a change to the Senate rules approved Wednesday that effectively revokes media privileges from the floor of the Senate when it is in session.
By JENNA PORTNOY,
Washington Post
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The House of Delegates on Wednesday quietly clarified the rules of succession for the speaker — a move some read as a sign that Speaker William J. Howell (R-Stafford) is thinking about retiring.
Howell is approaching three decades in the General Assembly and last summer decisively bat down a primary challenge from the right from a former protege.
By SARAH KING AND MATT CHANEY,
Daily Progress
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The Virginia General Assembly opened Wednesday by squabbling briefly across party lines and courting a fight with the media.
Curiously, the press tables located on the Senate floor as recently as Tuesday afternoon were no longer available for use by the media. According to the Richmond Times-Dispatch, Senate Majority Leader Thomas Norment, R-James City County, made the decision to relegate the press to the upper balcony.
By ALEX TRIHAS,
Progress Index
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At 29-years-old, Del. Lashrecse Aird was the youngest woman ever elected to the House of Delegates when she was sworn in during the opening day of the 2016 session of the Virginia General Assembly on Wednesday.
By PATRICK WILSON ,
Virginian-Pilot
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State Sen. Bill DeSteph, R-Virginia Beach, has introduced a bill that would fix a loophole quietly opened in the state’s conflict of interest law last year.
Lawmakers made a tweak in conference committee that grants immunity from prosecution over alleged conflict violations to local officials who seek and follow legal opinions from their town, city or county attorneys, the same as the law does concerning such opinions from elected prosecutors or the attorney general.
By ALICIA PETSKA,
Roanoke Times
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Del. Joseph Yost and Sen. John Edwards are renewing efforts to repeal a controversial 2004 law at the center of a heated debate about pipelines and property rights.
Yost, R-Pearisburg, introduced a bill Wednesday to scrap Code Section 56-49.01 — a law that allows natural gas pipeline companies to do surveying and other initial work on private land without the owner’s consent provided that advance notice is given.
By MICHAEL MARTZ,
Richmond Times-Dispatch
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Legislators from the Richmond area picked up seats on the General Assembly’s powerful budget committees, helping to soften the loss of seniority for the region in the state Senate.
Sen. Siobhan S. Dunnavant, R-Henrico, was named on Wednesday to the Senate Finance Committee, which had been led by the man she replaced, Sen. Walter A. Stosch, R-Henrico. On the other side of the Capitol, Del. Delores L. McQuinn, D-Richmond, joined the House Appropriations Committee.
By MEGAN WILLIAMS,
News Leader
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Del. Ben Cline, R-Rockbridge, announced today that he has been appointed vice-chairman of the House Finance Committee. The purpose of the Finance Committee is to oversee the tax and revenue policy of the Commonwealth of Virginia.
