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Many Bills Will Affect Virginians' Daily Lives
Feb 24th - 4:51pm

By LARRY O'DELL
Associated Press Writer

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) - It was the "transportation session," but the 2007 General Assembly dealt with a host of other issues, including measures that will affect Virginians' electric bills and their safety on Virginia highways.

The 46-day session was scheduled to adjourn Saturday, with a hotly contested proposal to address the state's transportation problems largely through borrowing and general operating revenues among the final measures still on the agenda.

Earlier in the week, lawmakers signed off on legislation pushed by Dominion Resources to end the state's failed experiment with electric utility deregulation and establish a "hybrid" form of regulation that critics say gives state regulators too little control over rates.

Opponents and supporters the complex legislation agree on one point: Virginians' electric bills are going to increase. They disagree, however, on how much more consumers will pay and whether the "re-regulation" bill will result in higher rates than otherwise would be allowed.

Joining Dominion in legislative victory lane are traffic safety advocates, who are celebrating the passage of bills to prohibit drivers under age 18 from talking on cell phones and to allow localities statewide to use cameras to catch red-light runners.

"It was a banner year for Virginia motorists," said AAA Mid-Atlantic spokeswoman Martha M. Meade. She said legislators "can go home to their districts knowing that their actions will save lives for years to come."

Approval of the bills was not a sure thing. Legislators had repeatedly rejected bills to reinstate local "photo red" pilot programs that expired in July 2005, or to expand those programs statewide. Also, the teen cell phone ban had failed two years in a row.

Meade also praised lawmakers for increasing the age requirement for using booster seats from through age 5 to through age 7, and for rejecting attempts to weaken Virginia's motorcycle helmet law.

Advocates of tougher laws on teen drinking were less successful. Bills requiring six-month driver's license suspensions for underage drinkers put on probation and for those illegally providing alcohol to those under age 21 died in committee.

"Teen drinkers and their providers were each given a reprieve in Virginia this year," said Kurt Gregory Erickson, president of the Virginia-based Washington Regional Alcohol Program.

Legislators also again rejected legislation prohibiting passengers from having an open container of alcohol in a vehicle on a public highway.

Several measures targeting illegal aliens were rejected. Among them were bills making it illegal for an employer to hire or harbor an immigrant who is in the country unlawfully and to prohibit in-state tuition rates for illegal aliens attending Virginia public colleges.

"We were very grateful that we were able to get folks to focus on facts and reality instead of fear," said Claire Guthrie Gastanaga, a lobbyist for the Virginia Coalition of Latino Organizations, which fought the anti-immigrant proposals.

With all 140 legislative seats up for election in November, tough-on-crime bills were popular. The assembly passed bills banning sex offenders from entering school or child-care center property, expanding the capital murder statute to cover anyone who kills a judge or a witness and eliminating the "triggerman rule" by allowing the death penalty for accomplices who have the same intent to kill as the person who delivers the fatal wound.

In education, lawmakers passed measures requiring state health and school officials to work together to combat childhood obesity and directing the state Board of Education to continue to seek waivers from certain provisions of the federal No Child Left Behind Act. A bill requiring schools to give parents an opportunity to deny their children's participation in extracurricular clubs failed after opponents argued it targeted gay-straight alliances.


(Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)