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

DateAction
12/20/2013Committee
12/20/2013Prefiled and ordered printed; offered 01/08/14 14101989D
12/20/2013Referred to Committee for Courts of Justice
01/10/2014Assigned Courts sub: Civil
01/13/2014Subcommittee recommends reporting with amendment(s) (9-Y 0-N)
01/20/2014Reported from Courts of Justice with amendments (21-Y 0-N) (see vote tally)
01/22/2014Read first time
01/23/2014Read second time
01/23/2014Committee amendments agreed to
01/23/2014Engrossed by House as amended HB143E
01/23/2014Printed as engrossed 14101989D-E
01/24/2014Read third time and passed House BLOCK VOTE (95-Y 0-N)
01/24/2014VOTE: BLOCK VOTE PASSAGE (95-Y 0-N) (see vote tally)
01/27/2014Constitutional reading dispensed
01/27/2014Referred to Committee for Courts of Justice
02/19/2014Reported from Courts of Justice (13-Y 0-N) (see vote tally)
02/21/2014Constitutional reading dispensed (40-Y 0-N)
02/24/2014Read third time
02/24/2014Passed Senate (40-Y 0-N)
02/26/2014Enrolled
02/26/2014Bill text as passed House and Senate (HB143ER)
02/26/2014Signed by Speaker
02/28/2014Signed by President
03/24/2014G Approved by Governor-Chapter 269 (effective 7/1/14)
03/24/2014G Acts of Assembly Chapter text (CHAP0269)

Video

This bill was discussed on the floor of the General Assembly. Below is all of the video that we have of that discussion, 1 clip in all, totaling 1 minute.

Comments

Carol Lindstrom writes:

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.

Waldo Jaquith writes:

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.

Pete Fundsten writes:

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.