I am pretty angry with myself right now (well, I have been for a while, which is what started me working on this blog). I have spent most of my adult life working, reading, fishing, gardening, tv watching, and a horde of other things to pass the time allotted me in this life. Like many other people, I got out and voted on each and every election, looking closely at the character of the person for whom I cast my vote. Unfortunately, this left a huge gap in my knowledge.
It is not enough to vote for someone you believe to be honest, competent, and capable. You have to know how the inner workings of government function in order to understand the whole system, not just the individual pieces.
For instance, say you wanted a bill passed that would make it mandatory for every child in Virginia to be provided a college education at a fixed, affordable fee with funding provided by the state in the way of state sponsored loans. You are thinking that this would be a good way to help today's youth, it would get the State involved in making sure the education provided is adequate to meet the needs of the graduate who then must find a job to repay that loan.
Now, let's pretend that a whole lot of other people support your idea. You get together and start writing your Delegate to see about getting a bill introduced. Wow! He/she loves this idea and starts work immediately.
.......multiple undiscussed steps here in working out a written form of a bill.....
Here comes the big day when it could be passed? NOT ON YOUR LIFE! Nope, there is a Committee that decides if THEY want to allow the bill to proceed. The people on the Committee are a select portion of the elected officials that would ultimately vote on the bill. These committee members may or may not be people you voted for, they may represent a different area entirely. These are the people that ultimately decide what is IMPORTANT enough to go forward. NOT THE VOTERS, NOT THE CITIZENS, but a handful of selected officials.
Of course, they don't do all of that hard work themselves, farm out work to sub-committees for evaluation. Ultimately, a decision is made to: do something (refuse or accept the bill) or do nothing (let the bill sit until interest dies).
So, if you've every blamed your elected official for not getting a bill passed that you cared about, then don't until you check to see how the Rules Committee handled it.
Here are some examples of
Bills that failed to pass the Rules Committee. More information on Bills that were presented to the Rules Committee and the outcome of those bills can be found at the
House Rules Committee website.
Delegate Al Eisenberg, representing the 47th District has a website where he lists many of the bills he has brought forth and what happened to them. (PLEASE READ THIS IF YOU READ NOTHING ELSE!!!)Since many of these committee and subcommittee meetings are not documented and are often held at times inconvenient for the public to attend (to say nothing of being held somewhere that could require citizens to have to take days off from work and travel long hours just to get to them).
Perhaps the most important issue in this is that none of our elected officials can function to their full potential unless WE - citizens and voters - get involved and show support.
Among some of the issues this whole process could impact are
redistricting and the voting rights of students. Aren't there some students out there who would like to come up with some more information on how Bill's are passed? I would love to have some interesting educational pages to add to the website
Town Information.