Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, January 31, 1994 TAG: 9401310055
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Medium
Virginia legislators hear that preface to constituents' complaints all the time, and it's one of the reasons they are facing a record 2,551 new bills and resolutions this year.
The workload has become so heavy that some legislators say there ought to be a law to limit the number of bills they can submit.
Del. Harry Purkey, R-Virginia Beach, has proposed a bill that would allow a legislator to submit only 12 pieces of legislation each session. Sen. H. Russell Potts, R-Winchester, has suggested a five-bill limit.
"We're being overwhelmed with legislation," Purkey said. "We don't have enough time to read all the bills and give them careful consideration."
Potts agreed. "It's not humanly possible to adequately consider everything," he said.
House of Delegates Majority Leader Richard Cranwell, D-Roanoke County, estimated that the General Assembly will have 2.9 minutes to consider each bill and resolution.
"The workload is unrealistic," he said.
Cranwell said most legislators who dump dozens of bills into the hopper are just responding to constituents' concerns.
"I don't go around dreaming up bills to introduce," he said. "When a constituent comes up and asks me to put in a bill, what do I do, tell them no, I can't do that?"
That's why a limit is needed, Potts said.
"It's like saying `no' to your children," he said. "You hate to do it, but you have to set priorities."
There are other reasons for the annual bill avalanche, Purkey said. Many of the bills are duplicates or near-duplicates because individual legislators want credit for the legislation. This year, for example, there are several bills dealing with term limits and tougher punishment for a third violent felony conviction.
"A limit would force us to look at whether someone else put the bill in first," Purkey said. "If someone did, you could sign on as a co-patron."
Other bills are little more than "fluff," Purkey said. "If we had a limit, we'd think long and hard before putting in those types of bills. We don't need to be cluttering up the code like that anyway."
Bill limits already are in place in legislatures in California, Colorado, Florida, Hawaii, Indiana, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, North Dakota and Tennessee.
Potts said some bills do nothing more than "send a message" on the General Assembly's thinking on a particular issue. Such legislation would be sharply reduced if a limit were imposed, he said.
He admitted introducing one of those message bills himself this session.
Potts' proposal to ban the use of state funds to convert highway signs to metric measurements cleared the Senate Transportation Committee 7-6 despite some members' questions about whether it is needed.
Potts said he proposed the law because 90 percent of Americans oppose switching to metric measurements.
If the assembly had a five-bill limit, Potts said, he probably would not have introduced the metric bill. He filed 11 bills.
Purkey, too, said he introduced more bills than he intended. His total ran to more than 20.
"I've stricken four or five already" because they duplicate other measures, he said.
Despite their complaints about the workload, some assembly leaders say restricting the number of bills is not the answer.
"I don't see how we can constitutionally," said Senate Majority Leader Hunter Andrews, D-Hampton.
"People elect you to come up here to do a job and if it takes a certain number of bills to do it, you have the right," he said.
Keywords:
GENERAL ASSEMBLY 1994
by CNB