Delegate Bloxom reports from the General Assembly in Richmond

Listen to this report:

Hi, this is Rob Bloxom with this week’s report from Richmond.

First I want to apologize for not reporting the last two weeks. VPap.org says I have the most committee assignments of anyone in the state legislature. I have been assigned fifteen different committees. Luckily, all the bills I choose to carry are assigned to the committees on which I serve, except for one. That bill is House Bill 843. It creates a state tax credit to “stack” with the federal tax credit for low income housing. There was a similar bill last year but the stackability of the two different credits was not allowed due to a mistake during the conference committee in the last minutes of the 2021 session. One could take one or the other but not both. When I was approached to carry the bill this year, it was an immediate “Yes”. It is a good approach to get private equity investing in low income housing. I also am putting my slant on the distribution of the state credit to require a percentage to go to rural localities. I bring this bill to everyone’s attention because it was sent to a “kill” committee, but to my surprise, it passed the subcommittees with only one dissenting vote. I presented it last Friday at 7:30 am and had to finish my 7 am Privilege and Elections meeting before running to the Finance Committee meeting in which I presented the bill.

In the Privilege and Elections Committee, I have a few bills that are being considered this year. I consider them all common sense election security bills. House Bill 175 eliminates the permanent absentee voter list. This list was approved last year and if one chooses to be on this list, an absentee ballot will be sent for every election until the person takes him/herself off the list or the registrar removes him/her. In my mind, there would be an official ballot sent to an address forever. If someone moves out of state or just to another part of the city or town and does not notify the registrar, an official election ballot will be sent to that address forever. My bill says the registrar will send a yearly absentee ballot application to that address and the recipient will need to apply annually. The other bill I am carrying for election integrity is an absentee ballot voter verification bill. It simply requires a voter to include the last four numbers of his social security number as well as the birthdate after the his signature. This is information that the registrar’s office already has on file and may be used to verify that the voter is the correct person.

The final bill that I will report is not one of mine. It refers to Delegate Tran’s bill which would outlaw coal tar use in Virginia. If one listened to the testimony, he would believe it is the most dangerous chemical existing. In the past, we have had many bills similar to this one and the Department of Environmental Quality found no trace of the coal tar chemical in water samples when the product was used correctly. Currently I have asked the Chesapeake Bay Commission staff to verify the DEQ’s findings.

As always, I welcome you to contact me with any questions or concerns at my district office at (757)824-3456, my Richmond office at (804)698-1000 or email me at [email protected].

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