In case you haven’t heard enough about the state of Virginia’s budget, the Commonwealth has even more bills due on December 7.
 
No, these are not those types of bills.  December 7 is actually the bill drafting deadline for prefiling legislation.  After the prefiling deadline, a legislator can only file five bills.

A typical legislator will file 15-20 bills total, with more senior – or enthusiastic – members filing upwards of 40 bills (in shorter sessions, delegates are limited to 15 bills total).  The prefiling deadline is important because Virginia has one of the shortest legislative sessions in the nation (45 calendar days in odd-numbered years/60 in even-numbered years).  And, but for George (40 legislative days), certainly has the shortest session of any large state.
 
For example, the North Carolina legislative session typically runs five months.  Pennsylvania has a full time legislature.  And West Virginia meets for sixty days every year.
 
It is also important to remember that of the 15-20 bills, the vast majority are “housekeeping”. What this means is legislators need to do their homework before going to the Capitol.  For example, Department of Game and Inland Fisheries currently allows hunters to add a $2 contribution to Virginia Hunters for the Hungry when they obtain their hunting license.  When a hunter asked why they couldn’t donate more, it was discovered this was the way the law was written – the Code specifically set the amount of $2.
 
Wanting to allow hunters to make larger donations, my staff inquired with DGIF who, after reviewing their sales processes, realized they could allow for other specific dollar contributions but not random amounts.  This requires different language than just adding the common phrase ‘or more’ after $2 in the Code.
 
None of this is heavy intellectual lifting, but this is the kind of homework you have to do in order to maximize efficiencies and fight the slow crawl to becoming a full time legislature.
 
Of course, fighting this trend does come without cost.
 
Every year I have a good number of measures which are brought to me by citizens that want to better their government.  Most are “housekeeping” measures, like the Hunters for the Hungry bill.  Unless folks get to me by December 7, it is increasingly difficult to accommodate their ideas.  This is because invariably some of the “big legislation” cannot be prefiled.  Typically, these are ideas (from constituents, the administration, myself or a combination of any of these) that create new policy and, thus, have many more moving parts than “housekeeping” measures.    
 
I must admit the prefiling system works better than I had expected.  But, as we continue to streamline the legislative process, we need to make sure we don’t forget the whole reason we are in Richmond – to represent the people who elected us.