Every two years the General Assembly sets the budget for the next two years. This is one of those years. Rather than a 45 day session, it goes on for 60, with the understanding that it’ll take an extra couple of weeks to sort out the budget. (Often it has gone substantially longer, not because of extra work, but because House and Senate Republicans have found themselves at an impasse, and had to stare each other down and see who would blink first.)

The tricky thing about the budget is that it’s all in one fat bill. When a senator or a delegate wants $50,000 for a project in their district, she doesn’t file a bill, but a budget amendment. Those end up as amendments to the House budget and the Senate budget. You can’t track those on Richmond Sunlight. But you can keep up with budget amendments on the General Assembly’s website, which lists every budget amendment filed by every legislator. You can even check to see what your own legislators have requested from state coffers. It’s a great little system that they have set up. A whole lot of money gets spent in this process, so it’s well worth taking a peek at the figures.

Republicans introduced a measure that would create a unified system to track the final budget, keeping a ten year history, SB585 in the Senate and HB1360 in the House. But each bill was passed by for the year in their committees yesterday, effectively killing them.

As media outlets across the state are reporting this evening, Del. Lionell Spruill (D-Chesapeake) has introduced a bill that prohibits the display of “objects or devices representing or resembling genitalia on motor vehicles.” A Wikipedia entry for just such an object explains precisely what Del. Spruill has in mind:

Truck balls, also known as Truck nuts, are accessories for pickup trucks and other vehicles. Capitalizing upon the association of trucks with machismo, truck balls resemble oversized human testicles inside scrota of various colors. This trend began in the United States in 1998 and first sold on the internet in 1999.

It was during the 2005 General Assembly session that the House made international news for passing a bill that would ban low-slung pants, in what became known as “the droopy drawers bill.” That bill was introduced by Del. Algie Howell (D-Norfolk). It failed in the Senate, preventing it from becoming law. Ironically, Del. Spruill derided that bill, and was widely quoted describing it as “foolish” and asking his fellow legislators to “let these kids express themselves.”

These are the ten most-watched bills — those bills that the largest number of people have in their Photosynthesis portfolios:

1. HB55: English; designating as official language of State.
2. HB12: Payday lending charges; establishes maximum annual interest rate.
3. SB38: Bipartisan Redistricting Commission; created.
4. SB25: Payday Loan Act; repealing Act referring thereto.
5. SJ7: Constitutional amendment; restoration of civil rights for certain felons.
6. HB81: Abortion; illegal upon overturning of Roe v. Wade.
7. SJ5: Constitutional amendment; establishing Redistricting Commission.
8. HB92: Standards of Quality; requires that average teacher salary be not less than annual national salary.
9. SB8: Absentee voting; qualified voters may vote absentee without providing a reason.
10. HB20: Primary elections; voter registration by political party.

Since last April’s Virginia Tech shootings, there’s been a lot of talk of mental health being the leading issue for the 2008 General Assembly session. Today, a slew of mental health bills were pre-filed, largely by Sen. Janet Howell and Sen. Ken Cuccinelli. More are surely in the pipeline.

The first prefiled bills — those bills filed before the session begins — started rolling in a month ago now. But legislators are just now hitting their stride, with 66 of the 187 bills having been filed in the past two working days alone. Some themes have emerged, as you can see in this graph of bill topics (or “tag cloud,” as it’s known):

Of course, they’re just getting warmed up. When all’s said and done, somewhere around 3,500 bills are likely to be filed. You can keep up with them all on our bills page or, if you prefer, just choose the tag of your choice from the above list and bookmark that page — new bills on that topic will appear as they’re filed.