Virginia's General Assembly and the New Voter Identification Law

On Friday, Governor McDonnell signed into law one of the most contentious bills from this year's General Assembly:  a revision of Virginia's voter identification law.

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Currently, Code of Virginia Section 24.2-643 allows an individual without identification to vote if he signs a statement attesting to his identity:

If a voter is entitled to vote except that he is unable to present one of the forms of identification, he shall be allowed to vote after signing a statement ...that he is the named registered voter who he claims to be.

A number of Republican legislators argued that the current version of the law is too lenient and that every voter should be required to produce identification. They posited that if a person is determined to commit election fraud, the signature requirement (and the potential of felony charges for lying) was not a sufficient deterrent.

The Republicans proposed legislation that amended Section 24.2-643 by deleting the possibility of a signed statement in lieu of identification.

Democratic legislators opposed the bill, stating that (1) there is little evidence of voter fraud in Virginia and (2) a stricter identification requirement would especially burden poor and minority voters, who are less likely to possess the necessary identification documents.

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The language signed by Governor McDonnell (HB 9, also filed as SB 1) does remove the possibility of a sworn statement, but it makes a concession to the bill's opponents by adding a number of new documents that can be presented to establish one's identity, including:

1. A student id card from a Virginia college or university
2. A utility bill
3. A bank statement
4. A pay stub

If the individual cannot present any identification at the voting booth, he or she may still cast a vote, but it's a provisional vote -- only counted if he subsequently mails one of the permitted forms of identification to the registrar.

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I'm not sure how I feel about voter identification laws. On one hand, I think that voting should be made relatively easy, in order to encourage people to participate in elections (to this end, I wish that elections were spread out over two or three days, including at least one weekend day).  Identification requirements could hinder some people from voting, and in this respect perhaps a signed statement should suffice.

On the other hand, asking voters to produce some kind of document to verify their identity does not seem all that onerous, particularly if the list of permitted documents includes non-photo identification such as a utility bill. From a civics perspective, the identification requirement reinforces the seriousness of voting, and this is a good thing.

So, I am torn. At first glance, I think the new law does a fair job of balancing the competing concerns, but I'll want to see whether it decreases voter turnout prior to making a final judgment.

General Assembly 2012: Let's Get Ready to Legislate!

Virginia Tech fans are disappointed (again) this morning, following last night's Sugar Bowl defeat to Michigan.

Legislative geeks, on the other hand, are jazzed: the Virginia General Assembly convenes just one week from today.

It should be an interesting year in Richmond, with the Senate split 20-20 between Republicans and Democrats and a Governor with possible national aspirations (see our post here).

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Matt Deegan of C-Ville Weekly has an interview (here) with our colleague at the Bar (and neighbor across High Street), Delegate David Toscano. 

Toscano, who was recently selected as the Democrats' House Minority Leader, predicts that the Assembly's allocation of education funding could be particularly contentious in 2012.

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Toscano's new leadership role, along with Delegate Rob Bell's recently announced intention to seek the Republicans' nod for Attorney General in 2013, mean that Charlottesville's and Albemarle's representatives will be in the spotlight in 2012.

Del. David Toscano

Virginia General Assembly: Senator Petersen's Mortgage Assignment Bill (SB 838) is Defeated

There was disappointing news from Richmond yesterday: the Senate rejected Chap Petersen's bill to require the recordation of mortgage assignments. The vote was 26 to 14 against the bill.

Senator Petersen's bill was an attempt to bring some order to the legal framework that governs mortgage transfers -- a framework which, according to critics, is insufficiently regulated and may have contributed to the housing industry crisis. 

SB 838 would have provided for public notice (by virtue of requiring the recordation of a "certificate of assignment" in the County Clerk's Office) as a prerequisite for a bank or other lending entity to transfer a promissory note to another institution. 

Petersen's bill makes good sense, for the same reason that requiring recordation of the original deed of trust makes sense: public notice provisions facilitate order and structure by enabling all interested parties to search the public records and determine the status of a real estate-backed loan.

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According to the Virginia Lawyers Weekly (here), Petersen did not mince words in arguing for the bill: “This is a bill whose time has come. The mortgage-backed security industry damned near bankrupted this country.”

The defeated bill would have amended the current statute as follows:

§ 55-66.01. Duty of assignee of debt secured by real estate to record certificate of assignment; form.

Effective July 1, 2011, whenever a debt or other obligation, or partial interest therein, that is secured by a deed of trust, mortgage or vendor's lien on real estate is assigned, the assignor or the assignee of the debt or other obligation shall (rather than "may") cause a certificate of assignment to be recorded in the clerk's office of the circuit court where such deed of trust, mortgage or vendor's lien is recorded ...

Albemarle County's Circuit Court: The Clerk's Office and its helpful staff are on the second floor -- but you won't find any mandatory certificates of assignment, there or elsewhere.

Virginia General Assembly: Updates on the Rob Bell Budget Amendment and Other Items

The 2010 session of the General Assembly adjourns on March 13.

SO, if you want to watch your legislators in action, it's time to turn off the computer and get moving towards Richmond -- you've only got a couple of weeks left!

Here is the latest on some of the legislation that we've been tracking:

1. The bill to abolish adverse possession (our post is here) has been continued to the 2011 session and referred to the Virginia Bar Association for comment.
   


2. In the House of Delegates, a subcommittee recommended tabling the bill to prohibit homeowners' associations from completely banning the use of clotheslines (our post is here). This means that the odds of the bill passing are very low.
   


3. Delegate Rob Bell's proposal for adjusting the composite index to reflect payments under the revenue-sharing agreement from Albemarle to Charlottesville was included in the budget bill approved by the House of Delegates. Bell's amendment was included in the "Unified Amendment," the full text of which you can read here. The Daily Progress reported on February 25 (here) that County and City leaders have announced an April 24 meeting to discuss funding issues and "future collaborative efforts."
   


4. After passing the Senate, the controversial bill to raise court fees (our post is here) has been referred to the House's Courts of Justice Committee.
   


5. Just today, the House Finance Committee has tabled Senator Hanger's bill to expand the reach of the sales tax to online transactions (our post is here).

Virginia General Assembly: House Bill 778 and Legislators' Voting Records

The Virginia Legislative Information System website (here), which is funded by the Commonwealth, provides a wealth of information about both (1) the content and (2) the status of pending and approved legislation.

From the perspective of this commentator, the LIS site holds up quite well (in terms of user-friendliness) when compared with other states' legislative databases and with "database websites" more generally.

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LIS does not provide, however, an easy mechanism for reviewing all of an individual legislator's votes. Instead, assembling a list of a legislator's votes requires downloading the roll-call votes for each bill -- in other words, doing the legwork oneself.

Two freshmen members of the House of Delegates -- Republican Jim LeMunyon (from Chantilly) and Democrat Mark Keam (from Vienna) -- have proposed House Bill 778 to mandate that the state make the legislative database searchable by individual legislator.

It is difficult to object to HB 778's goal of increasing the transparency of the legislative process.

That said, Richmond Sunlight's excellent site (here) currently enables users to generate a spreadsheet -- with the push of one button -- that lists all of a legislator's votes for that session (or prior years' sessions), in addition to each bill's title, committee assignment, and status. In fact, Waldo Jaquith tells me that one of the reasons he created Richmond Sunlight was to offer the individual-legislator-functionality that's lacking at the LIS site.

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The text of HB 778 reads in part:

The Legislative Support Commission ... shall publish on the legislative electronic information system a record, organized by member name (emphasis added) of the recorded committee, subcommittee, and floor votes of each member of the House of Delegates and the Senate on all legislation acted upon by each house. Electronic access to this information shall be made available to all agencies of the Commonwealth, its political subdivisions, and the public.

Delegates LeMunyon and Keam articulated the rationale for improving access to individual legislators' voting histories in a Washington Post editorial yesterday, here.

HB 778 passed the House of Delegates by a vote of 86-13 last week, and it's now been referred to the Senate's Rules Committee.

Virginia General Assembly: The "Amazon Tax" on Online Sales Passes the Senate

When you purchase a book at amazon.com, a DVD at overstock.com, or a comfy new dog bed at petco.com, should you be required to pay sales tax on the transaction? Should the online retailer be required to charge for and collect the sales tax?

In Virginia (as in most states), online retailers have long-benefited from an exception to the requirement that bricks-and-mortar stores must register with the state and remit sales tax collected on all transactions.

Some states -- including New York and North Carolina -- have enacted laws that extend the reach of their sales tax to online transactions. New York's law was protested vigorously by certain online outlets but ultimately was upheld by the state's courts.

The legal rationale for excluding online retailers from the sales tax is that they have no physical presence in the state, and the policy rationale for excluding them is that customers are not used to conducting business online and that they need to be incentivized as they become accustomed to doing so.

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Now, there is legislation pending in the General Assembly -- sponsored by a Republican, to the surprise of some -- that would require any online retailer which does more than $10,000 in Virginia business per year to collect and remit sales tax. If enacted, expanding the sales tax is esimated to generate $18 million per year, initially, for the state.

The legislation -- Senate Bill 660, the full text of which you can read here -- was introduced by Senator Emmet Hanger, Jr. and would amend Code of Virginia Section 58.1-612.

Senator Hanger represents the 24th Senate District, which is primarily in the Shenandoah Valley but also includes a portion of Albemarle.

Currently, the relevant portion of Section 58.1-612 reads as follows:

C. A dealer ["dealer" is the statutory term for those individuals and entities from whom sales tax is collectible] shall be deemed to have sufficient activity within the Commonwealth to require registration under § 58.1-613 if he:

1. Maintains or has within this Commonwealth, directly or through an agent or subsidiary, an office, warehouse, or place of business of any nature;

2. Solicits business in this Commonwealth by employees, independent contractors, agents, or other representatives.

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Senator Hanger's bill would change the phrase "solicits business in this Commonwealth" to "solicits or transacts business in this Commonwealth," and it would add the following presumption:

A dealer is presumed to be soliciting or transacting business by an independent contractor, agent, or other representative if the dealer enters into an agreement with a resident of the Commonwealth under which the resident, for a commission or other consideration, directly or indirectly refers potential customers, whether by a link on an Internet site or otherwise, to the dealer if the cumulative gross receipts from sales by the dealer to purchasers in the Commonwealth who are referred to the dealer by all residents with this type of agreement with the dealer are in excess of $10,000 during the preceding four quarterly periods.

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Yesterday, SB 660 passed the Senate by a vote of 28-12, with a mix of bipartisan support and bipartisan opposition.

Its supporters say that the change in law would (1) level the playing field (between traditional and online retailers) and (2) provide revenue that the state desperately needs, but its detractors argue that it would make Virginia less business-friendly than the majority of states which still do not tax online transactions.

Now the bill heads to the House of Delegates, where it is expected to face greater opposition. You can track its progress on the Legislative Information System's website, here.

Virginia General Assembly: A Bill to Raise Fees in General District and Circuit Courts

This week, Senate Bill 329 was voted out of the Finance Committee, 13-2. It now awaits action by the full Senate.

SB 329 revises the fees charged in connection with filing actions in Virginia's general district and circuit courts. You can read the full text of the proposed bill at the Legislative Information System's website, here.

The fee increases are significant:

• The cost of filing unlawful detainers, warrant in debts, garnishment, and a number of other actions in general district court would rise from $27 to $75.


• The cost of filing a claim for less than $1 million in circuit court would rise from $60 to $500 (an increase of 1,200%!).


• The cost of filing a claim for more than $1 million in circuit court would rise from $160 to $1,000.

Under the proposed legislation, all of the revenue from the increased general district court fees would be earmarked towards the funding of sheriff's offices, and the revenue from the increased circuit court fees would be earmarked 85% to sheriff's offices and 15% to Commonwealth's attorneys offices.

Sheriff's and Commonwealth's attorneys offices have been hit with significant funding decreases recently (as have Clerk's offices -- their funding is addressed in other proposed legislation), and SB 329 is one proposed remedy to the lack of funding.

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Interstingly, former Democratic gubernatorial candidate Creigh Deeds and current Republican 5th district candidate Robert Hurt both voted against an early draft of SB 329 in the Courts of Justice Committee.

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If SB 329 garners enough support to pass in the Senate and then the House of Delegates, it will then be up to Governor McDonnell to determine whether raising fees to fund the sheriff's and CA's offices is consistent with his January pledge not to raise taxes on Virginians during the recession.

Rosalind Helderman had a good piece in the January 24 edition of The Washington Post (here) that examines the difficulty in drawing a clear (and consistent) line that distinguishes a "fee" from a "tax."

Virginia General Assembly: Rob Bell's Budget Amendment Pits Albemarle Versus Charlottesville

There's no doubt about which proposal in this year's General Assembly is receiving the most attention in Charlottesville and Albemarle during the snowy winter of 2010: the clear winner is Delegate Rob Bell's budget proposal for tweaking (or -- depending on one's perspective --significantly revising) the state's composite-index education funding formula.

Delegate Bell's proposal would have the effect of transferring $2.6 million in state funding from the City to the County in fiscal 2012.

Rachana Dixit and Brandon Shulleeta have a good summary of the debate surrounding the proposal in last Saturday's Daily Progress, here.

Delegate Bell's position is that that Albemarle County is unfairly losing out on state education funding because the composite index fails to account for the yearly amounts that are transferred from the County to the City under the 1982 revenue sharing agreement. In the most recent year, for instance, Albemarle transferred more than $18 million to the City -- but for purposes of the composite formula, that $18 million was deemed to be available to the County, not the City.

The stakes are high, as both the County and City (along with localities nationwide) are experiencing significant declines in revenue from real estate and transfer taxes and a range of other fees.

For the legislative process buffs out there, Delegate Bell's budget amendment reads as follows:

On Page 79, after line 24, insert:

"11. In recognition of Albemarle County and the City of Charlottesville being in an active annexation and revenue sharing agreement that requires a revenue transfer from Albemarle to Charlottesville, with a maximum transfer amount capped at ten percent of the applicable real estate tax base year for Albemarle, Albemarle shall have an equal percentage amount excluded from the local true property value total amount used in calculating Albemarle's composite index for the 2010-2012 biennium. For the purposes of the composite index updates for the 2010-2012 biennium, Albemarle's true property value shall be reduced by ten percent from $19,007,534,323 to $17,106,780,891. The City of Charlottesville shall have its Standards of Quality Basic Aid payment reduced by an amount equal to the increase provided to Albemarle pursuant to the local composite index adjustment."

The controversial part of Delegate Bell's amendment is the portion highlighted in red, which provides for a decrease in Charlottesville's funding comparable to the increase in Albemarle's.

Delegate David Toscano has offered an alternative proposal that would acknowledge the revenue transfer from Albemarle (thereby decreasing the County's "true property value" and increasing their share of funding from the state) but without "punishing" the City of Charlottesville by reducing its aid payment by an equal amount.

Delegate Bell argues that Delegate Toscano's proposal would be wonderful in an "everybody wins" world but that in the budget-cutting reality of 2010 it does not have any chance of garnering the necessary support in Richmond.

It will be very interesting to see how this issue evolves at both the local and state levels and, in particuar, whether the City and County are able to arrive at a compromise position that both can live with.

Virginia General Assembly: No Thanks to Internet Notices

Last week, the Virginia General Assembly pushed back against the increasing use of the internet as a mechanism for mass communication.

More specifially, the House of Delegates' Committee on Counties, Cities and Towns rejected a bill (HB 586, the full text of which you can read here) which would have permitted local governments to advertise a range of public matters online and by other "non-traditional" means.

The traditional statutory mechanism for a publication is via a "newspaper of general circulation."

A broad range of matters would have been covered by the change in law, including (1) hearings about real estate tax assessments and licensing taxes, (2) advertisements for public sales of unclaimed property, and (3) notices regarding the proposed adoption of local ordinances.

HB 586 mandated that at least two of the following five alternative mechanisms be used in each case:

1. A newspaper of general circulation in the locality, including such newspaper's online publication


2. Any website of the locality
   
3. Any public access channel operated by the locality
   
4. Any automated voice or text alert systems used by the locality
   
5. Posting at the local public library

The bill, which was co-sponsored by Delegate Toscano and which strikes this blogger as recognizing the public's increasing reliance on forms of communication other than just the local paper of record, was voted down in Committee, 8-3.

Virginia General Assembly: Homeowners' Associations and Clotheslines

As we wrote about in a post last November (here), homeowners' associations often play a significant role in regulating what people can and cannot do with and on their property.

The Code of Virginia includes a number of provisions (though not as many as you might expect) that govern the relative rights of the associations and their members.

In the current General Assembly session, State Senator Linda Puller (Democrat - Fairfax) wants to restrict one aspect of association govenance: Puller is the sponsor of Senate Bill 221, which would prohibit associations from establishing outright bans against the use of "natural drying devices" (in common parlance, clotheslines and the like). Associations would be permitted to establish reasonable restrictions on the use of the devices.

You can read the entire text of SB 221 on the Legislative Information Website, here. It reads, in part:

Effective July 1, 2010, no community association shall prohibit an owner from installing or using a natural drying device on that owner's property. However, a community association may establish reasonable restrictions concerning the size, placement, and manner of placement of such natural drying device.

It is not uncommon to hear clients complain about their association being either too intrusive or not intrusive enough in terms of regulating their -- and their neighbors' -- rights. It can certainly be a difficult line to draw, as neighbors try to be good neighbors but also express their own preferences for what is or is not reasonable.

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It will be interesting to see whether Senator Puller's bill makes it through the House of Delegates; it passed the Senate by a vote of 37-3. Perhaps granting a glimpse into his political philosophy (or just a glimpse into his attitude about natural drying devices?), potential 5th District Congressional candidate Robert Hurt was one of the three Senators to vote against Senator Puller's legislation.

Have you done your laundry today?

Virginia General Assembly: A Bill to Abolish Adverse Possession

Last February we wrote about the (often fascinating) law of adverse possession — and the Supreme Court of Virginia's decision in Helms v. Manspile — here.

Adverse possession is a common law cause of action, which means that it is rooted in judicial precedent rather than a statute passed by the General Assembly.

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Now comes an update: at the start of this year's General Assembly session, Donald McEachin (Democrat - Henrico) introduced Senate Bill 67, which would abolish the common law cause of action for adverse possession.

SB 67 would add to the Code of Virginia new Section 8.01-218.1, as follows:

No action or defense shall lie or be maintained in the Commonwealth for adverse possession upon which the action or defense arose on or after July 1, 2010.

The bill has been referred to the Senate's Courts of Justice Committee. You can track its progress on the Legislative Information System website, here.

The Virginia General Assembly's 2010 Session; HB 22 and Texting While Driving

The 2010 session of the Virginia General Assembly opened on Wednesday, and the list of proposed bills is growing (rapidly!)by the day.

You can track each day's new bills on the Assembly's Legislative Information System, here. The LIS also includes an excellent status feature that enables you to keep track of a bill's progress as it wends its way through the Capitol's halls and committee rooms.

Meanwhile, in the executive branch, Governor McDonnell's inauguration takes place tomorrow on the steps of the Capitol.

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Much of the Assembly's time and energy will be devoted to addressing the budget shortfall, however a number of "high visibility" issues are sure to generate controversy of their own. One of those issues has become a perennial focus of attention: the degree to which the state should regulate cell-phone and mobile device use by drivers.

Currently, Virginia (like a number of other states) prohibits texting-while-driving.

The applicable statute is Code of Virginia Section 46.2-1078.1 (you can read the entire section here), which includes this language:

A. It shall be unlawful for any person to operate a moving motor vehicle on the highways in the Commonwealth while using any handheld personal communications device to:

1. Manually enter multiple letters or text in the device as a means of communicating with another person; or

2. Read any email or text message transmitted to the device or stored within the device, provided that this prohibition shall not apply to any name or number stored in the device nor to any caller identification information.

The currently-effective prohibition loses some its sting, though, because Section 1078.1 also includes language that prevents enforcement unless a driver has been otherwise stopped -- ie, for a reason other than the texting ban:

C. No citation for a violation of this section shall be issued unless the officer issuing such citation has cause to stop or arrest the driver of such motor vehicle for the violation of some other provision of this Code or local ordinance relating to the operation, ownership, or maintenance of a motor vehicle or any criminal statute.

Delegate Algie D. Howell has introduced HB 22, which would amend Section 1078.1 in two ways that would make it significantly more restrictive.

First, HB 22 would delete subparagraphs 1 and 2 from paragraph A, which means that the ban would become a general ban on the use of hand-held mobile devices:

Second, HB 22 would delete paragraph C, and that would mean a police officer could pull over and cite a driver solely on the basis of violating the hand-held ban.

To date, we have not located any analysis of HB-22's chances of passage. It reflects a nationwide trend of stricter regulation of cell-phone use and texting while driving, and it will be interesting to see whether Virginia remains on the leading edge of that trend.

Frank Atkinson on the 2009 Gubernatorial Election

Frank B. Atkinson, author of two books on Virginia politics and an attorney at McGuire Woods, has an insightful piece in this morning's Washington Post about the state of the Virginia gubernatorial election between Democrat Creigh Deeds and Republican Bob McDonnell. You can link to the piece here.

Atkinson argues that Virginians have demonstrated considerable political independence in the past several decades by electing a governor from the opposite party of the President elected nationally the prior year (for example: Reagan in '80 then Chuck Robb in '81; Clinton in '92 then George Allen in '93; Bush in '00 then Mark Warner in '01).

Atkinson says that Virginians' repeated decision to balance a President from one party with a governor from the other (even when a majority in the state had voted for the President the prior year, as with George W. Bush in 2000) is a reflection of our commitment to the Madisonian principle of checks and balances:

Independent voters pay some attention to party labels, but they dislike partisan preoccupations and bickering. In Virginia, independents are especially wary of the concentration of political power. Heirs to the Madisonian tradition of checks and balances, they regard divided government as a virtue because it guards against excess.

Atkinson believes that Virginians' tendency toward balanced government bodes well for Bob McDonnell in this fall's election -- particularly as some Virginia independents who voted for President Obama may be wary of the ambitiousness of the agenda he's pursued since his election:

[Virginia's ] independents see one clearly dominant party in Washington pursuing an aggressive agenda in areas from health care and energy to labor and economic policy. Centrist, cautious and libertarian-leaning, these swing voters find ample cause for worry in national leadership that seems left-of-center and bent on bigger government. They also don't care much for the current tone, which bears little resemblance to the conciliatory talk that made Obama so appealing to them last fall.

The Legal Aid Justice Center's JustChildren Program

The Legal Aid Justice Center is holding their "Java for Justice" series this week.

LAJC, whose Charlottesville office is located at the corner of Preston and Grady Avenues, describes their mission as follows:

The Legal Aid Justice Center provides legal representation for low-income individuals in Virginia. Our mission is to serve those in our communities who have the least access to legal resources. The Legal Aid Justice Center is committed to providing a full range of services to our clients, including services our federal and state governments choose not to fund.

LAJC's website is here.

During the lunchtime "Java for Justice" sessions (from noon until 1 PM, each day this week, free and open to the public), LAJC's staff talk about their work and the projects with which they are involved. Today's session focused on the efforts of the JustChildren program.

As articulated by Andy Block during today's "Java" session, JustChildren strives to (1) generally, improve Virginia's public education and juvenile justice systems and (2) specifically, provide representation and advocacy for individual children and families.

In terms of JustChildren's systematic efforts, Andy talked today about ensuring that policy-makers are aware of -- and are compelled to address -- the particular perspective and interests of children. Because children have not traditionally "had a seat at the table" in the policy-making process, it has been too easy for their perspectives to be ignored, while the interests of the various adult stakeholders receive more attention. Thus, for instance, staff member Angela Ciolfi has become a regular presence at the state Board of Education meetings and frequently raises questions and concerns -- from the perspective of what is best for children -- that previously went unmentioned or unanswered.

In a compelling example of the importance of JustChildren's work, the Virginia General Assembly this year passed legislation that, for the first time, prohibits school systems from suspending a child for the sole reason that he or she has been repeatedly absent from school. This law seems like a complete no-brainer -- and yet the JustChildren staff explained that, until they and others highlighted the foolishness of suspending students based on their having skipped too much school, there had been no movement within the legislature to address the issue.

It was inspiring to listen to the JustChildren staff today and I hope that the remaining Java for Justice sessions this week will be well-attended.

Virginia's Smoking Ban is Passed

As a follow-up to my February 5 post, the General Assembly passed an amendment to the Code of Virginia which prohibits smoking in all restaurants in the state. The law will take effect on December 1, 2009 and the sanction for violating the law is a civil fine of $25.

There is an exception that allows smoking in rooms that (1) are separately ventilated from the rest of the restaurant and (2) are separated from the rest of the restaurant by a door.

The legislation adds new language to Title 15.2 ("Counties, Cities, and Towns") of the Code, at 15.2-2820 through 15.2-2833. The operative language is as follows

Effective December 1, 2009, smoking shall be prohibited and no person shall smoke in any restaurant in the Commonwealth or in any restroom within such restaurant, except that smoking may be permitted in:

1. Any place or operation that prepares or stores food for distribution to persons of the same business operation or of a related business operation for service to the public. Examples of such places or operations include the preparation or storage of food for catering services, pushcart operations, hotdog stands, and other mobile points of service.
2. Any outdoor area of a restaurant, with or without roof covering ....
   
3. Any restaurants located on the premises of any manufacturer of tobacco products.
4. Any portion of a restaurant that is used exclusively for private functions, provided such functions are limited to those portions of the restaurant that meet the requirements of subdivision 5.
5. Any portion of a restaurant that is constructed in such a manner that the area where smoking may be permitted is (i) structurally separated from the portion of the restaurant in which smoking is prohibited and to which ingress and egress is through a door and (ii) separately vented to prevent the recirculation of air from such area to the area of the restaurant where smoking is prohibited ....
   
6. Any private club.

The press is heralding the new law as a significant achievement for Governor Kaine; he had tried unsuccessfully for similar legislation in 2007 and 2008.

Certain interest groups on both sides of the smoking-regulation debate (ie, Phillip Morris (on one hand) and certain anti-smoking advocates (on the other)) expressed dissatisfaction with the law.

Potential Statewide Smoking Ban in Restaurants

According to today's Richmond Times-Dispatch, Governor Kaine and a bipartisan group of legislators have reached preliminary agreement on a statewide smoking ban in bars and restaurants.

Both Phillip Morris and the American Cancer Society expressed initial skepticism about the contours of the agreed-upon language, so it remains to be seen whether the bill will be tweaked as it works its way through the General Assembly.

I was at a social gathering this past weekend at which there was a significant amount of smoking, and it struck me how rare the "smoke-filled room" has become -- even in restaurants and bars -- in the past few years in Virginia.

It will be extremely interesting to see if this bill actually makes its way through both chambers and becomes law -- according to the RTD article, 23 states have laws banning smoking in restaurants/bars, but I imagine none of them have quite the same close ties with tobacco -- both historically and economically -- as does Virginia.