Delegate Bloxom’s weekly report from Richmond

By Delegate Rob Bloxom

Hi. This is Rob Bloxom with this week’s Capitol Report.

All the committees have completed their work. The bills have either failed in one chamber or the other or are on the floor of the opposite chamber to be voted on. The floor sessions do not seem as long as in the past. There were a lot of bills submitted that had no chance of passing. I call them “Brochure” bills. The patron can stand and pontificate on the measure and to my amusement they are shocked when the majority in the other chamber dismisses their argument quickly with a vote to kill the bill.

I have had much success with my bills this year. I had fifteen bills under my name. One, on voting procedure, I did not pursue and got the committee chairwoman to “pocket” the bill. The bill was never docketed so I effectively killed it myself. Another bill that I knew had no chance of passing, was a bill to make the permanent absentee voter list an annual one. I told the Senate committee about the bill and basically told them to entertain a motion to kill it. There is no reason to postpone the obvious. The only other measure that did not make it through the other body was a measure that we both handled in the budget so there was no need to have such a bill.

The other twelve bills are proceeding to the Governor’s desk. I will report on them as the Governor signs them into law. I categorize most as “making Government function better” bills.

My main work this week has been on the budget as a conferee. We started with all the budget conferees getting our overviews in a side-by-side comparison from the staffs on Friday night. The next step was to break into small groups to discuss in detail the differences. The small group is made of three delegates paired with three senators with the appropriate staff member from each chamber around a table going line by line on the different priorities. The language to direct agencies to do something or have a particular project funded is all open for discussion. We met in small groups from 1:00 pm to 8:30 pm on Sunday, depending on the different segment of the budget. The budget is broken into subject matter such as Natural Resources, Public Safety, Capital Outlay, Health and Human Resources, etc. We meet whenever the two bodies are not meeting, usually after the floor sessions, and through dinner into the late evening. These discussions are not open to the public. There are some discussions that are decided at the Chairmen level, such as major tax or major expenditures that affect the money, but the line-by-line execution of the budget is the conferees’ decision. It has been my honor to be in this discussion, and I view it as where I bring the most value to the district.

This is week seven and our last week in Richmond conducting business for the people of Virginia. This session has passed quickly, but it has been a successful one. It has been a pleasure to represent you, and I look forward to seeing you in the upcoming months as I return to the district. As always, if you need to contact me, please call the district office at (757) 824-3456 or email me at [email protected].

Rob