Virginia Crossover update

 

Having opined on a number of bills affecting civil procedure in the 2011 General Assembly Session Crossover is an excellent time to update people on the status.  Links below under each bill number refer back to my posts addressing each topic.  For the uninitiated I am using the Photosynthesis tool at Waldo Jaquith’s amazing public service project, Richmond Sunlight, to track legislation.

 In the Virginia House of Delegates

HB1499 - Would have required landlords to store tenant’s property and the landlord’s expense upon eviction.  This was a horrendously bad idea.  I never managed to write a blog post about it.  Failed in the Civil Subcommittee of the House Courts of Justice committee on a 7-4 vote.  The interested fact about this is that the subcommittee vote was actually recorded rather than allowing the bill to be killed without any accountability.

HB1590 - Increases the jurisdiction of General District Court civil cases.  It is about time.  Faster and less expensive litigation for slightly larger cases, means greater access to the civil justice system.  Passed the House of Delegates.  Fundamentally the same as SB774 that has passed the Senate.

HB1640 - This would have created a modified loser pays rule that only benefits Defendants.  This bill was so bad it would have required pages of criticism.  Luckily this bill was killed by inaction in the House Courts of Justice Civil Subcommittee.

HB1787 - This bill would have created an automatic presumption about division of custody in child custody cases.  All things considered, creating an automatic presumption is probably slightly better than the current system.  Bill allowed to  fail by inaction in the House Courts of Justice Civil Subcommittee.

HB1807 - This bill would have fixed a procedural problem in child custody cases, would have lessened the workload of litigants, attorneys, and clerks, and would also have avoided procedural confusion.  Left to die in the House Courts of Justice Civil Subcommittee.

HB2199 - One of the more interesting civil justice bills of the session, this bill would have created a reverse privilege to protect journalists.  Mired with procedural problems, the bill was allowed to wither in the House Courts of Justice Civil Subcommittee.

HB2289 UPDATE - This bill increases the powers of HOA’s to sue residents in General District Court without extending similar rights to property owners.  Good for HOAs, good for attorneys, bad for property owners.  As an attorney and a property owner in an HOA I am opposed to this bill, but will still be collecting fees representing property owners who suddenly have far more to lose.   Passed the House with cosmetic changes.  Senate version SB1327 passed the Senate with identical cosmetic changes.

In the Virginia Senate

SB774 - See HB1590 above.

SB798 - The most interesting of the foreclosure bills for suggesting movement to a judicial foreclosure system, this was defeated in the Senate Courts of Justice Committee. 

SB831 - This is the weaker of the Senate attempts to reign in the investigative powers of the Attorney General.  This bill passed the Senate on an almost party line vote.  Can you guess the Republican that crossed the aisle without looking?  Recorded vote here.

SB851 - Fixes a procedural problem in civil cases by setting a standard to obtain preliminary relief.  Necessary, and useful.  Passed the Senate.

SB1314 - Sen McEachin’s overreaction to perceived problems with our current Attorney General.  He quietly gave up this bill, and covered up his capitulation with procedural tactics.  The LIS reports that this bill passed the Senate as part of another bill.  Read my post, read the drafts of the bill  and SB831, and the procedural voting history.  This bill was abandoned by agreement in the Senate Courts of Justice Committee.

SB1327 - See HB2289 above.

Updates on passed legislation

I will take a look at some of the other civil justice legislation that survived crossover through the coming weeks.

So Virginia, who came up with this Crossover thing anyway

I have been following the Virginia General Assembly for years, but mostly to tell when it begins and ends, because it had a particular effect on my job.  One thing that happened every year is something called “Crossover.”  Crossover is the point during the legislative session in which each house may no longer consider its own bills, and may only consider legislation passed by the other house in the General Assembly.  Notice there is no citation for the definition of Crossover.

Doing a web search for “crossover” one finds a few vague references to the date of Crossover, or legislative updates based on Crossover, mostly from years past.  People involved with the general assembly know what Crossover is, know how to identify when it from either the legislative calendar, or by doing math.  Why?  Because crossover is half way through the 45 (odd years) or 60 (even years) day session. 

If you are looking for a definition, a few folks have a decent definition readily understandable to someone vaguely familiar with a general legislative process.  

The Virginia Association of Realtors has a good definition here.

Northern Virginia Transportation Alliance has a definition here.

The best recently published definition I found here.

We know what Crossover day is, but not a soul references its origin.

As with everything in the legal world the idea came from somewhere so I continued my search for the authority behind Crossover day.  Virginia has an online system designed to allow you to review rules, statutes, and legislation from the comfort of your high speed internet connection called the Legislative Information System.  Doing a keyword search for Crossover in the LIS does not result in an explanation of the authority for Crossover. 

Next I went back to the Virginia Constitution.  The Constitution does not reference Crossover, and does not indicate when bills may no longer be considered in one house, and only considered in the other house.  Of interest in the legislative process, the Constitution on the other hand does indicate that to become legislation bills must be referred to and approved by a Committee, and that its title must be read in a daily calendar on three different days.  Constitution Article IV, Section 11.  In other words these items can not be changed by the mere passage of rules.  

I then Checked the Rules of the House of Delegates and the Rules of the Senate.  There is no reference to Crossover, and no reference to a date in which either house may only consider bills form the other house.

Moving on to an entity called Legislative Services, I thought for sure here is the secret repository of information regarding the timing of each session.  Legislative Services is the entity that actually drafts legislation so that it conforms to the rest of the Virginia code, and makes some logical sense when read aloud.  These folks actually do us quite a big favor by taking the actual writing of laws out of the hands of legislators.  I just could not find any authority there either.  But it was hiding.  On the Publications page there is a link to Session Calendars.  Although I had previously clicked on links for Session Calendars on the Legislative Services page before, I tested again.  I had reached the promised land.