A three-county marriage is in the midst of a divorce, senators said Monday.
Members of the Senate Committee on Local Government discussed Senate Bill 1355 during a Monday morning session. The bill would allow any member locality of the Rapidan Service Authority (RSA) to withdraw from the authority regardless of any outstanding bonds. The locality would need to meet certain requirements in order to do so including obtaining the unanimous consent of all holders of any outstanding bonds unless all such bonds have been paid or cashed or United States government obligations have been deposited for payment. Any written obligation to RSA incurred by the locality while a member of the authority would remain and the withdrawing locality would assume ownership and management of any RSA asset located within its limits and assume any debt related to said asset.

The bill was introduced by Senator Emmett Hanger, Jr. who represents the 24th District of which both RSA members Madison and Greene counties belong. Third RSA member Orange County is represented by Senator Bryce Reeves in the 17th District. The introduction of the bill came months after Greene County Supervisors passed a resolution asking to withdraw from the authority. Orange and Madison counties declined. In September, Greene County Supervisors filed two lawsuits against RSA.

November elections are more convenient and less confusing for voters, have massively higher voter turnout, and save taxpayers money compared to standalone May local elections. SB 1157, sponsored by Sen. Lionell Spruill (D-Chesapeake), would consolidate all Virginia local elections to November. It was successfully reported out of the Senate’s Local Government committee on Monday morning, January 18. Del. Cliff Hayes, Del. Kelly Convirs- Fowler, and Del. Nancy Guy are co-sponsoring the bill in the House of Delegates. In the last two days, Del. Shelly Simonds and Del. Clint Jenkins have also agreed to complete co-sponsor paperwork for the bill as well.

Despite separate May local elections costing Virginia taxpayers more, 115 Virginia localities – representing hundreds of thousands of Virginians – hold local elections in May, when voter turnout is abysmally low compared to November elections. Four of the Virginia localities that hold these anti-democratic, low-turnout May elections each have more than 89,000 registered voters: Chesapeake, Norfolk, Newport News, and Hampton.

Standalone municipal elections developed as efforts to decrease immigrant and minority voting. Historically and today, voters in low-turnout May elections tend to be whiter, wealthier, and older than November voters.

The Senate version of Jones’ bill, sponsored by Saslaw, initially contained a clause making it retroactive to March 1, 2020. But Senate committees ultimately stripped retroactivity from all three measures after the state’s Department of Planning and Budget warned the fiscal impact was “indeterminate.”

Localities, especially, have long argued that dating the bill back to March could lead to hundreds of additional COVID-19 claims from their employees, who would now be presumed to have contracted the virus on the job. That’s a financial burden that they — and their insurers — aren’t prepared to shoulder, representatives from cities and counties argued.

“Local governments and risk insurance providers haven’t budgeted for an expansion of the liability to cover additional presumptions related to COVID-19,” Jeremy Bennett, the director of intergovernmental affairs for the Virginia Association of Counties, said during a committee hearing last month, adding that it could have a “multi-million dollar impact.”

Lawmakers in the Virginia Senate stripped Sen. Amanda Chase, R-Chesterfield, of her last committee assignment Tuesday.

The post — a seat on the chamber’s typically sleepy panel on local government — is hardly sought after. But the decision, pushed by Democrats seeking to punish Chase for her support of the mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol, prompted a half hour of debate as some in the GOP worried about the precedent the decision might set.

“A concern that I have is, I am not certain where the boundaries will be drawn in the future,” said Senate Minority Leader Tommy Norment, R-James City. He had prefaced his comments by observing that he would not “be defending some of the controversial behavior of the senator from Chesterfield.