Delegate Mark Cole
P. O. Box 6046
Fredericksburg, VA 22403
(540) 752-8200 Delegate@MarkLCole.com
Paid for and authorized by Mark Cole for Delegate
Delegate Mark Cole
It has been my honor to represent the citizens of the 88th District in the Virginia House of Delegates since 2002. The House of Delegates is one half of the Virginia General Assembly, the other half being the Virginia Senate. The General Assembly convenes annually in January for about two months to consider legislation and the state budget. I welcome your input on any issues that may come before the General Assembly. I also encourage you to contact me should you have questions or difficulties in dealing with state agencies. I look forward to hearing from you!
THE 2010 SESSION CONVENES
The General Assembly is now in session, and will be until the middle of March. I have moved out of my office on Route 17 and will be in Richmond each day for the next two months. Our office is in room 808 of the General Assembly Building at the corner of Broad and 9th Streets. The phone number in Richmond is (804) 698-1088. If you would like to come down to visit the State Capitol during session, please let us know. We would be happy to set-up tours.
OPEN HOUSE
I would like to invite you, your family and your neighbors to spend the day with us at the General Assembly for our “Richmond Open House” on Monday, February 15th (President’s Day). There will be coffee and doughnuts in the morning along with an explanation of how the General Assembly works. Depending on your schedule, you are welcome to sit in on committee meetings and attend Session. We will be gathering from 9:30am to 11:00am in 8th Floor West Conference Room of the General Assembly Building, which is located at the corner of 9th and Broad Streets in Richmond. If you will be attending, please call my office at (804) 698-1088 or email us at Delegate@MarkLCole.com. If you are not able to attend on February 15th, but would like to visit on another day, please give us a call.
NEW GOVERNOR
Virginia inaugurated a new governor, Bob McDonnell. Not surprisingly, he got to work very quickly. In an address to a joint session of the General Assembly on Martin Luther King Day, he laid out his priorities; making it clear that job creation and economic growth would be the chief focus of his new administration for the year ahead.
Specifically, Governor McDonnell is asking the General Assembly to pass measures and changes to the budget that will strengthen Virginia’s economy. He also made clear that he will not support tax increases, pledging to veto bills that raised taxes or a budget based on higher taxes. This marks a significant change from the previous administration. The budget proposed by former Governor Kaine included a large hike in the income tax. Last week, the House voted on that plan.
Most delegates, myself included, had already indicated they would not support higher taxes. So, it wasn’t entirely surprising that the House rejected former Governor Kaine’s plan to raise the income tax. What was somewhat surprising was the margin, as the House rejected the tax hike by a vote of 97 to 0. Not a single member of the House of Delegates voted to raise the income tax.
While the Senate has yet to weigh in on the issue of taxes, it is clear that the House and Governor McDonnell will not support higher taxes. For people already struggling to make ends meet in the current economy, this is very good news.
LEGISLATION
While the state’s budget will receive most of the attention in news pages during this session, we’re considering a lot of other legislation as well. Among the hundreds of bills that will be considered by the General Assembly are several that I am submitting. Here is an overview of some of the legislation I am sponsoring:
House Bill (HB) 576 is in response to the Federal government’s plans to force individuals to buy health insurance. It simply states that residents of Virginia shall not be required to obtain a health insurance policy. It is similar to Delegate Bob Marshall’s HB 10 and I would expect these two bills to be combined.
House Joint Resolution (HJ) 88 is a resolution asking the US Congress to adopt an amendment to U.S. Constitution to require a balanced Federal budget. The Federal budget deficit has just ballooned in the last few years and I believe threatens our long term economic stability.
HB 18 Provides that goods and services made, sold, and retained in Virginia , shall be the jurisdiction of the Commonwealth and not the Federal government. The US Constitution gives the Federal government the ability to regulate interstate commerce, commerce that crosses state boundaries. The original intent was that states would regulate commerce within their borders. Over the years Congress and the Courts have expanded Federal reach to all commerce whether it crosses a state boundary or not. It is time for the states to begin pushing back and restrict the Federal government to its original mission. The states are perfectly capable of regulating commerce within their boundaries without Federal intrusion.
HB 50 would tighten the requirements to process absentee ballots in a timely manner. In recent years some localities have had problems sending out absentee ballots and the previous administration even argued in Federal court that they had no obligation to process absentee ballots in accordance with regulations. This legislation will make it clear that absentee ballots must be handled in a timely fashion.
HB 57 would freeze the Business, professional, and occupational license (BPOL) tax on businesses. Localities that have not imposed the tax would not be permitted to impose it in the future and localities that do impose the tax could not increase their rate. The BPOL tax is a very unfair tax on businesses because it is based on their gross receipts and not on profits or income. So a company could be losing money and still have to pay the tax. The BPOL tax was originally imposed to pay for the War of 1812. I think all the bills from that war were paid off a long time ago.
HJ 11 and HB 16 would place an amendment to the Virginia Constitution on the ballot that would give localities great flexibility in granting property tax relief to senior citizens and the disabled.
HB 17 reduces period of limitation for collection of delinquent state taxes from 20 to 10 years. Currently the Virginia Department of Taxation can go back 20 years to collect taxes. I think this is excessive and it is unreasonable to expect individuals and businesses to retain records for 20 years in order to defend themselves from an accusation that they may owe back taxes.
HB 55 would limit the amount of money that the Virginia Railway Express (VRE) can assess member localities to not more than the localities collection from the 2 percent gas tax that they impose to pay for VRE. This would keep member localities from having to use their general fund to pay the VRE subsidy and provide some incentive for VRE to control costs.
HB 106 would repeal the restaurant ban for concealed handgun permit holders and clarify that a permit holder could carry in a church with the church’s permission. The current law is confusing and open to interpretation. Guns are banned in church unless someone has a good reason to carry in church. But it never states what a good reason might be. What might be a good reason to one judge or Commonwealth Attorney might not be a good reason for another.
HB 107 corrects an oversight in the code. Currently school superintendents are supposed to be informed whenever one of their minor students is arrested or charged with a crime; this is so that the school may take action to protect other students in the school. However, the notification does not apply if the student is 18 or older. Some high school students are 18 or older and this bill would require that the superintendent be notified if they are arrested or charged as well.
HB 110 is another bill dealing with the BPOL tax. It would allow localities to decide to impose on business's gross receipts or its State taxable income, making the tax a little fairer.
HB 575 would give school systems flexibility in meeting specific state education mandates when their state funding is being reduced. This would give local school boards greater flexibility in dealing with state budget cuts.
HB 577 would extend the time to appeal real estate property assessments.
HB 580 Allows localities to exempt long time members of the sheriff's volunteer citizen support units from local vehicle license fees.
STATE BUDGET
The economy and state budget will dominate the session. Due to the prolonged economic recession, state tax revenues are running under projections by about $ 4 Billion. This will require cuts to be made to all areas of state government. As one of his last acts as Governor, Tim Kaine submitted a budget proposal to the General Assembly which attempts to close the budget gap with a mixture of spending cuts and tax increases. I am concerned that passing any tax increases at this time will aggravate our weak economy and cost more jobs and money in the long run.
HAITIAN RELIEF
I know we have all been concerned by the tragic events and human suffering following the earthquake in Haiti. If you would like to help with the relief efforts, here are links to the American Red Cross and Salvation Army web sites:
http://www.redcross.org/
http://www.salvationarmy.org/ihq/www_sa.nsf
OLD CARTOON WITH A MESSAGE FOR TODAY
Below is an old cartoon made in 1948. While it is dated, it still has a message for today. Just click on the arrow below to watch it. It lasts about 9 and a half minutes, but is worth a look.
CONCERNS WITH WASHINGTON
I normally keep these updates focused on state issues and what is going on in the Virginia General Assembly, however, I have heard concerns from many constituents about what the Federal government is doing. Spending billions bailing out Wall Street, increasing the national debt by trillions of dollars, and then proposing a huge expansion of government to run our healthcare system; the Federal government seems to have no regard for Constitutional limits on government or sound fiscal policy. I am concerned that their actions are making our economic problems worse and will saddle our children and grandchildren with huge debt payments. I would encourage you to contact your Congressional representatives and let them know your thoughts regarding these issues. The Congressional delegation for our area may be contacted at:
RECENT TRANSPORTATION ACCOMPLISHMENTS
The Governor and others have been quick to claim that nothing has been done to address our transportation problems in 20 years. This is because they equate raising taxes with doing something; unless taxes are increased significantly, nothing has been done. The 2004 tax increase (the largest in Virginia history) does not count because none of that money was dedicated to transportation, the biggest problem in our area.
The fact is that a lot has been done to try to address transportation in recent years. Funding for transportation has increased significantly, taxes and fees were increased for transportation just last year (but those tax and fee increases were not big enough for the Governor to count as doing something). Here are some seldom-publicized facts:
- 2005, increased transportation funding by more than $ 1.4 Billion, the largest increase in nearly 20 years, including $ 850 million in additional transportation funding to reduce congestion on major thoroughfares like I-95 (HB 1500). The House of Delegates had proposed $ 1.2 Billion for congestion relief, but the Senate and Governor Warner wanted significantly less, so we had to compromise on $ 850 million.
- 2006, built upon the previous year's actions by directing an additional $ 568 million in surplus dollars and ongoing funding to transportation (HB 5002).
- 2007, financed largest transportation investment in two decades, including $ 3 billion in bonding authority, increased vehicle registration fee, heavy truck fees, and the diesel fuel tax. Also required that at least half of any future budget surpluses go to transportation (HB 3202); nearly $ 500 million in ongoing, new transportation funding (not counting any future surpluses).
In 2008 we successfully restored $180 million in transportation funding that Governor Kaine had diverted to other programs. It seems that no matter how much more we spend on transportation, we keep falling further behind. We have already provided big funding increases for transportation. Now is not the time to reach deeper into the taxpayers pockets, now is the time to demand results for the big investments we are already making.
During the recent special session the House advanced a reform agenda, focusing on streamlining our transportation processes and adopting new, more cost-effective ways of providing transportation services (which have shown proven results in other states); while the State Senate and Governor simply called for more tax increases (including raising the Gas Tax) despite the fact that our economy is in recession and businesses and families are struggling to make ends meet. We were able to defeat the tax increase proposals, several on large bi-partisan votes; unfortunately all but two of our reform proposals were defeated in the State Senate. We have already significantly increased transportation funding. I believe now is the time to focus on transportation reform and improving efficiency, not reaching deeper into the taxpayers pockets.
