Tuesday, February 10, 2004

House of Delegates votes General Assembly out of FOIA

Incredibly, the House of Delegates voted 52-48 to add new protections from applicability of the FOIA open meeting laws for proceedings of the General Assembly, as reported here ("House puts assembly outside law," 2/10/2004) in the Richmond paper, here ("Va. House Relaxes Open Meetings Act," 2/10/2004) in the Washington Post (registration required), and here ("House votes to exempt Assembly from FOI act," 2/10/2004) in the Roanoke paper. Among the locals, Del. Kilgore voted in favor, Delegates Johnson, Stump, and Phillips voted against it. Delegate Robert Marshall voted against it. The vote count is shown here.

Why wouldn't the governor veto this? Nobody outside of General Assembly would have a good word to say for it. Heck, it's worse than a pay increase for legislators.

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