January 2024 legislative update

On Jan. 23, the House Procurement and Open Government Subcommittee of the House General Laws Committee unanimously approved the two bills we opposed that will increase the number of times a public body can meet all-virtually, and that essentially created a hybrid meeting system without the guardrails of the all-virtual meetings. You can watch the video of the subcommittee's discussion of the bills, which, ironically, included failed audio preventing the subcommittee from hearing comments in support of allowing caregivers to count towards a quorum when participating remotely.

The Senate counterpart to the bill allowing caregivers of those with disabilities to count towards the physical quorum passed that chamber the day before on a vote of 28-11.

On Jan. 24, the Senate General Laws & Technology Committee unanimously advanced SB 36, filed in response to the Gloss v. Wheeler Supreme Court case last spring that deals with situations where three or more members of a public body find themselves at the same social or community event. No one on the committee was moved by our and the Virginia Press Association's argument that the definition of "public business" in the bill -- that is written for public business in the context of meetings -- will also impact (negatively) the definition of public business in the context of records. The likely result will be fewer records available to the public.

On a 14-1 vote, the committee also advanced SB 415 to exempt political party meetings from the definition of public meetings (we opposed), and they approved SB 244, which gives finality to decisions made during the first year of the pandemic before new rules for electronic meetings during emergencies went into effect (we supported).

The committee passed SB 215, which says victims and their families can't be denied requests for their case records simply because they live out of state.

Finally, the committee approved a fee reform bill, SB 324, that is still a work in progress, but which has a critical enactment clause forcing a FOIA Council-run workgroup study of FOIA fees in the coming year.

A subcommittee of the House Finance Committee defeated a bill ton Jan. 29 that would have established local journalism sustainability credits, as well as tax credits for advertisers. Without discussion, but after positive comments about the link between local journalism and accountability from the Virginia Press Association, VCOG and an enthusiastic citizen, the subcommittee used an unrecorded voice vote to "continue" the bill to 2025. "Continuing" a bill sounds like the subcommittee will be studying it or will otherwise bring it back up, but practically speaking, there is no bringing the bill back unless the patron refiles it next year.
HB 961 -- Lopez (D)

There was no such ambiguity about continuing a bill later that morning when a subcommittee of the House Rules Committee unanimously -- and without taking any public testimony -- tabled the VCOG-inspired resolution directing the FOIA Council to establish a workgroup to study the high cost of getting records under FOIA.
HJ 54 -- Batten (R)

The bright spot came later in the afternoon when a subcommittee of the House Privileges & Elections Committee voted 6-1 to advance another bill VCOG suggested, which aims to make sure citizens know who a local school board, city council, etc., is considering to fill a vacancy on their board. Unfortunately, some appointments to fill these vacancies are made without any public disclosure before the vote.
HB 69 -- Bulova (D)

A shout-out to Sen. Rouse for offering a new version of his bill on name, image and likeness contracts for student-athletes (SB 678) that addressed VCOG's concern.

On Jan. 30, the House Subcommittee on Procurement and Open Government tabled two bills and sent them to the FOIA Council: HB 579 - Simonds, has to do with the price of obtaining records related to federal violations of laws regulating animal testing at public universities; and HB 1378 - Kent, has to do with records of minors who participate in state internship programs. The subcommittee passed HB 1412 - Cherry, which adds email addresses to what constitutes contact information in the exemption on zoning law complaints.

And on Jan. 31, the Senate General Laws & Technology Committee affirmed the bill (SB 734 - Marsden, identical to the House bill mentioned above) to up the number of allowable all-virtual meetings for certain public bodies from 25% to 50% of their total. The vote was 14-0-1, with Sen. Danica Roem abstaining (a "no" vote or a vote to abstain has the effect of sending the bill to the regular calendar where it will receive an individual vote on the Senate floor instead of being added to the block of bills that have been unanimously approved).