Courthouse; posting of notices, website. (HB143)
Introduced By
Del. Randy Minchew (R-Leesburg)
Progress
✓ |
Introduced |
✓ |
Passed Committee |
✓ |
Passed House |
✓ |
Passed Senate |
✓ |
Signed by Governor |
☐ |
Became Law |
Description
Courthouse; posting of notices; website. Provides that documents required to be posted by a clerk on or at the front door of a courthouse or on a public bulletin board at a courthouse may instead be posted on the public government website of the locality served by the court. Read the Bill »
Outcome
Bill Has Passed
History
Date | Action |
---|---|
12/20/2013 | Committee |
12/20/2013 | Prefiled and ordered printed; offered 01/08/14 14101989D |
12/20/2013 | Referred to Committee for Courts of Justice |
01/10/2014 | Assigned Courts sub: Civil |
01/13/2014 | Subcommittee recommends reporting with amendment(s) (9-Y 0-N) |
01/20/2014 | Reported from Courts of Justice with amendments (21-Y 0-N) (see vote tally) |
01/22/2014 | Read first time |
01/23/2014 | Read second time |
01/23/2014 | Committee amendments agreed to |
01/23/2014 | Engrossed by House as amended HB143E |
01/23/2014 | Printed as engrossed 14101989D-E |
01/24/2014 | Read third time and passed House BLOCK VOTE (95-Y 0-N) |
01/24/2014 | VOTE: BLOCK VOTE PASSAGE (95-Y 0-N) (see vote tally) |
01/27/2014 | Constitutional reading dispensed |
01/27/2014 | Referred to Committee for Courts of Justice |
02/19/2014 | Reported from Courts of Justice (13-Y 0-N) (see vote tally) |
02/21/2014 | Constitutional reading dispensed (40-Y 0-N) |
02/24/2014 | Read third time |
02/24/2014 | Passed Senate (40-Y 0-N) |
02/26/2014 | Enrolled |
02/26/2014 | Bill text as passed House and Senate (HB143ER) |
02/26/2014 | Signed by Speaker |
02/28/2014 | Signed by President |
03/24/2014 | G Approved by Governor-Chapter 269 (effective 7/1/14) |
03/24/2014 | G Acts of Assembly Chapter text (CHAP0269) |
Comments
This may work reasonably well if everyone had internet access, if internet access was consistently available, and if everyone in Virginia had a computer. Those are not things found throughout Virginia. If a bill like this ever makes it through, I can only hope an pray that local jurisdictions will be cognizant of the needs of their citizens and use the out of the "may" word to continue to provide information to as many citizens as possible by posting such notices.
Wait, what? We're literally posting notices on the front door of the courthouse and deciding that qualifies as public notice? That's totally absurd.
I don't think posting notices to the website is sufficient. Notices need to be posted to the website as both human- and machine-readable data, so that the private sector (e.g., me) can write software to harvest those notices and disseminate them broadly. Dumping some PDFs on a web server is the technical equivalent of posting notices on the courthouse door—and that is not an endorsement of the practice.
This is a good bill as amended.
Minchew amended his bill to allow for local circuit court clerks to keep with the current antiquated system (Courthouse Door kiosk) paper posting, internet posting, or both. Personally, I like both. Courthouse posting is great for one-page documents, but worthless for documents with more than one page because the kiosk is locked and you only can see the first page.