2015 General Assembly = 30, 45, 1918, 17 and 1 + 1

By Jillian Sherman, ACP

30, 45: This was a short session for the General Assembly, which happens every odd-numbered year.  Short sessions are 30 days long and nominally are only to deal, but frequently the first order of business in a short session is to extend the session.  The 2015 session was 45 days long, adjourning Sine Die on the 46^th day. 


1918: Not including resolutions, legislators introduced 1,918 bills this year, 799 of which were sent to Governor McAuliffe for consideration.  The Governor signed The Appropriation Act— the “budget bill”— with no amendments.  This was the first time since 1998 that a Virginia governor not in his first year of office signed the budget bill without amendments.  It was a welcome change from the past few years when the budget has been a point of contention well past the normal session. 

17 and 1: Reconvened session, or the “veto session”, is a one day session six weeks after adjournment— this year on April 15.  The Governor vetoed 17 bills and amended 68 others.  All 17 vetoes were sustained, meaning the General Assembly did not achieve the 2/3 votes in each chamber to overturn any of the vetoes.  The amended bills were a mixed lot— some amendments were accepted, some rejected.  In some cases, only one chamber agreed to an amendment, in which case the bill is sent back to the Governor to sign into law as the bill was originally passed by the General Assembly (without his amendment/s) or to veto entirely.  The Governor has 30 days to sign or veto but if that time passes with no action, the bill(s) not handled will automatically become law on July 1.

+1: This year the reconvened session was itself reconvened for a one-day special session to deal with a technical error in one of the Governor’s amendments to the ethics bill.

A fun article by Capital News Service about legislators’ “batting average” is http://rvanews.com/news/whats-the-batting-average-for-virginia-legislators/124058.  You can also join us on Tuesday, April 21 for our annual Legislative Review brown bag lunch meeting.  Virginia legislators will join us to share their insights into this year’s session.