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This evening we sent out our inaugural e-mail newsletter in what is destined to be an irregular series of occasional updates about the General Assembly and Richmond Sunlight. It’ll probably go out week or two during session, and maybe a couple of times during the rest of the year. (You don’t want to read it more often than that, and I don’t want to write it more often than that.) The audience for this is the folks on the edges: the hard-core legislature watchers who want to know about all of the latest features on Richmond Sunlight, and those of you who could use a reminder every year when the session starts. If that’s you—or if you like what you see with this first installment—then sign up to receive future installments!

Prefiled Bills are Flooding In

We’re five days away from the beginning of the 2010 legislative session, and the bills are coming in quickly now. (Over 200 bills have been filed in the past three days alone—409 in total.) There are two great ways to see what’s being proposed, and each is good for totally different types of people.

If you find the whole business of the General Assembly overwhelming, you’ll want to browse proposed legislation by topic. That provides an at-a-glance view of what sorts of things that legislators are proposing doing. Clicking on any word in the listing will show you a listing of all of the bills on that topic. This is definitely the best approach for newcomers.

But if you’re dogged in your tracking of legislation—you want to see every single bill that comes in—try our day-by-day listing of incoming legislation. You can browse back as many days as you want, and follow the link to each bill to get details.

In a couple of weeks, when all of the bills are in, we’ll look at the tools that allow you sort through them all to see which bills are important, which bills people are really paying attention to, and which bills are going places. Right now, let’s all just try to keep our heads above water as the tide rises.

Legislature’s Twitter Feeds

The clerks of the Senate and the House are now maintaining Twitter feeds for each chamber. They’re not very exciting, but for a just-the-facts account of each day’s session—and the odd explanation of what’s going on—they can’t be beat. VaHouse and VaSenateofVirginia are their handles.

While I’m on the topic, we started incorporating Twitter into Richmond Sunlight last year. Legislators with Twitter feeds have a “Twitter” tab on their page (example 1, example 2) with their latest tweets included. And, of course, we’ve got our own Twitter feed.

2010 Session Prefiling Has Begun

The prefiling of bills for the 2010 session is now underway. Beginning this week, legislators will be submitting bills for consideration in the session that will begin January 13. Advance filing of bills will continue right up until 10 AM that morning. It’s during the prefiling period that the bulk of bills are filed; those filed during the session are frequently commendations or other resolutions. You can follow the bills as they roll in on the 2010 bills page.

Delegate Manoli Loupassi (R-Richmond) got the top spot in his chamber with HB1: Unsolicited commercial electronic mail (spam); penalty. Senator Roscoe Reynolds (D-Martinsville) did the same in the Senate with SB1: Relief for purchaser of property sold at treasurers’ sales; Charles L. Kingrea.

New Laws Go Into Effect Today

Many of the bills that passed in this year’s legislative session enact new laws, and most of those go into effect today, July 1. Lots of those are of only of interest to lawyers, but a few dozen affect the public. The Division of Legislative Services has helpfully produced a summary of notable legislation “that is of interest to the citizens of Virginia and is likely to have an impact on their daily lives.” That includes a ban on text messaging while driving, a prohibition on smoking in restaurants, and an exemption of the first five digits of social security numbers from FOIA requests.

Legislature Adjourns for the Year

The General Assembly adjourned for the year yesterday, on time and without need to adjourn for a special session later in the year. The technical term for this is adjourning “sine die,” a term that legislative insiders use to mean “we can finally go home.” The phrase is Latin, generally pronounced “SEE-nei DEE-ei,” meaning “without day,” as in to adjourn indefinitely. Of course, they will be convening again—in January 2010, for an eight-week budget year session. Between now and then, though, every member of the House of Delegates is up for reelection. Republicans are defending their majority, while Democrats are looking to win the half-dozen seats necessary to control the legislature for redistricting, in 2011.

In the weeks and months ahead, we at Richmond Sunlight will be crunching some numbers on legislation, the video of the session, and adding some new features for folks looking to keep study what happened during this and past sessions.