Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, February 7, 1991 TAG: 9102070566
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-4 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Medium
The bill's sponsor, Del. Kenneth Melvin, D-Portsmouth, said the uniforms are needed in inner city schools where poor children compete with each other to wear expensive fashions.
"These kids often come to school dressed to the nines but only have a quarter in their pocket," Melvin told the Senate Education and Health Committee.
Some committee members said students would still face peer pressure even if they are wearing uniforms and others worried that uniforms would suppress freedom of expression.
"It reminds me a little bit of Russia," said Sen. Frank Nolen, D-Augusta. "I think this is a terrible bill."
Melvin said schools would have the option of deciding whether to adopt uniforms and students who chose not to wear them would not be punished.
The committee approved the bill 10-2 with two members abstaining.
In committee unanimously approved a bill to add $1 to nursing license fees to pay for a nursing scholarship fund. The sponsor, Del. Mary Marshall, D-Arlington, said the scholarship program would help alleviate the nursing shortage.
Elsewhere, bills that would expand instant criminal background checks of gun buyers are working their way through the Senate and House of Delegates.
But the two chambers disagree on how much gun buyers should pay for the records checks.
The Senate Courts of Justice Committee voted 8-6 Wednesday to approve a House bill that would expand the records checks to cover purchases of all guns except antiquities. The vote came after the committee amended the bill to raise the fee paid by the gun buyer from $2 to $8.
A bill already passed by the Senate and sent to the House would expand the checks to cover all handgun purchases and raise the fee to $8.
Elsewhere, a senator said a bill that would remove offensive words from the state song, "Carry Me Back To Old Virginia," could cause racism to resurface in Virginia.
Sen. Benjamin Lambert, D-Richmond, noted the state song has rarely been played in public since Gov. Douglas Wilder objected to the lyrics when he was a state senator 20 years ago,
Wilder "just about wiped this song out," Lambert said at a meeting of the Senate General Laws Committee. "Why bring it back now?"
Lambert said he would prefer a new state song.
The bill's sponsor, Del. Howard Copeland, D-Norfolk, said public school students would be taught the new lyrics but he conceded there is no way to prevent people from singing the old words.
The bill, which passed the House of Delegates 80-15, was sent to a subcommittee. The committee did endorse a bill to make square dancing the official state folk dance.
by CNB