Fun day at the GA

I went to Richmond primarily to attend an afternoon reception for Senator John Miller. After receiving an invitation to Senator Don McEachin’s open house, scheduled for the morning before session, I decided to head up early. I arrived around 11am, just as the Democratic Senators were headed off for a caucus meeting. I caught Senator Louise Lucas as she passed out of the door, Senator Creigh Deeds as he was doing a TV interview, and Senator George Barker as he headed out but I missed Senator Ralph Northam and Senator John Miller as they had both left their offices before I got upstairs. I did manage to chat briefly with Senator McEachin, but only because he was running a little late.

As it turns out, the Democratic Delegates had a caucus meeting at 11:30 so I only got to wave to Delegate Bobby Mathieson as he headed out. I also saw Delegate Kris Amundson as she headed for the elevator. I had planned to watch the start of session from one of the rooms where they have the monitors set up but Mathieson had an extra ticket so I was able to sit on the floor of the house chambers to watch the proceedings. 😎

As we gathered in the room, I had the opportunity to at least say “hi” to a number of familiar faces: Kenny Alexander, Lionell Spruill, Ken Melvin, Mamie BaCote, Jeion Ward, Algie Howell, Adam Ebbin and Brian Moran. I also got a wave in to David Englin (who I have not met), Joe Bouchard, Dave Marsden, Ward Armstrong and Paula Miller. At one point, Del. Ben Cline came over and introduced himself.

As The Shad Plank reported, it was a funny moment when Del. Chris Saxman voted “no”on making Bill Howell speaker of the house. But the funniest thing to me was what the Delegate who I was sitting behind was doing the whole time I was there: surfing the web. When I first noticed the delegate’s computer, he was looking at motorcycles. Then he was looking a shotguns. At one point, he was looking at recipes for shrimp and rice. Oh, and there was the time he was looking at a site about chitterlings 🙂 I guess he was bored with the proceedings.

I wasn’t bored, though. Even though a lot of the session was procedural, it was interesting. As Assembly Access reported, once again we will not have recorded subcommittee votes, despite the claims of some House Republicans that they would support such a change in the rules.

I was under the impression that the Senate session that also started at noon would be a proforma one so I left the House session to grab a bite to eat before heading to the Miller reception. There, I ran into Ollie Bates, VBDC chair, along with Rita Bouchard, with whom I had a wonderful chat. I also ran into Julia Marsden.

I headed over to Miller’s reception. Sharron Miller greeted guests, as the Senator had not yet arrived. I had a chance to chat with Miller supporters from both sides of the water as well as a few others. The spread was lovely (although I was too busy chatting with folks to get anything to eat) as was the music. As time wore on, guests started leaving and there were only a few of us there when the Senator arrived at about 5 minutes before 4. Del. Brian Moran, his wife Karyn and their two children had made it over by this time. Miller spoke briefly, and then made his way around the room.

When I had a chance to speak with him, he said that he has introduced legislation today that address some of my legislative agenda: nonpartisan redistricting, payday lending reform and real estate tax relief for homeowners. While I’m not a direct constituent of the 1st Senate district, I was quite pleased that the Senator has introduced these bills. He also said that he is supportive of restoration of voting rights. (I forgot to ask about verifiable voting.)

All in all, it was a fun day at the General Assembly. There was one person that I really wanted to get a chance to speak with but I guess I’ll have to catch him on my next trip.