Legislative Support Commission; publication of House and Senate voting records. (HB778)

Introduced By

Del. Jim LeMunyon (R-Oak Hill)

Progress

Introduced
Passed Committee
Passed House
Passed Senate
Signed by Governor
Became Law

Description

Publication of House and Senate voting records.  Provides that, beginning with the 2011 Regular Session of the General Assembly, the Legislative Support Commission, through the Division of Legislative Automated Systems, from information and data provided by the Clerk of the House and the Clerk of the Senate, must post on the electronic legislative information system (LIS) the recorded committee and floor votes of each member of the General Assembly on legislation acted upon in each house. The information pertaining to the voting records of legislative members must be electronically accessible to state agencies, political subdivisions, and the public. Read the Bill »

Outcome

Bill Has Failed

History

DateAction
01/12/2010Committee
01/12/2010Prefiled and ordered printed; offered 01/13/10 10101578D
01/12/2010Referred to Committee on Rules
02/11/2010Reported from Rules with substitute (12-Y 3-N) (see vote tally)
02/11/2010Committee substitute printed 10105353D-H1
02/14/2010Read first time
02/15/2010Read second time
02/15/2010Committee substitute agreed to 10105353D-H1
02/15/2010Engrossed by House - committee substitute HB778H1
02/16/2010Read third time and passed House (86-Y 13-N)
02/16/2010VOTE: --- PASSAGE (86-Y 13-N) (see vote tally)
02/17/2010Constitutional reading dispensed
02/17/2010Referred to Committee on Rules
03/05/2010Continued to 2011 in Rules (14-Y 2-N) (see vote tally)

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 3 minutes.

Comments

Waldo Jaquith writes:

What this bill proposes to do (if I understand it properly) is add another dimension to the data available on the General Assembly's website. Right now, it's possible to look at who voted how on a given bill, but it's not possible to look at a history of how a given legislator voted. That is, to see how a legislator has voted over the course of a year, one would need to look at every single vote held in the legislature, an exhausting task.

We've solved this problem on Richmond Sunlight by gathering up every single vote and reindexing it by legislator, which is how we provide a file for every legislator (available on each legislator's page) to download their voting record.

It seems to me that Del. LeMunyon is seeking to have the legislature replicate this functionality on the General Assembly's website. Which is really great, and here's hoping that it passes. It strikes me as unlikely that it'll ever make it out of the Rules Committee—I expect it'll sit there, never voted on, until the end of session. That way it will remain difficult for the public to figure out legislators' voting records, but nobody will have to take the blame for voting against it.