A proposed constitutional amendment to strengthen property rights protections in Virginia cleared a major hurdle yesterday as the Democrat-controlled Virginia Senate approved the measure 35-5. But buried inside this lopsided vote are a couple of very surprising stories…including the central role played by Democratic Sen. Creigh Deeds.
As I wrote last week, it was Deeds who insisted on the bill being as strong as possible – a position he’d taken in past years, but was largely seen by property rights supporters as a ploy to keep any property rights measure from winning full Senate approval.
But Deeds succeeded in committee in bulking-up the bill – far beyond what the House had approved – and moving the previously left-for-dead measure back to the full Senate.
That’s when the negotiations began in earnest. Some senators, including a few republicans, were concerned about specific points in the bill – even down to the nuances between “adjacent” and “contiguous.” Others were worried that a provision to compensate land owners for lost good will was too nebulous to go into the constitution. Those concerns ultimately carried the day, and, as Steve Rossie notes, some of the “iron clad language on just compensation” was removed. Senator Mark Obenshain, the key Senate leader on property rights, said the changes don’t make the bill any less stringent than the one he earlier proposed (and saw defeated) in the session.
Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, who led the effort for a property rights law back in 2007 while still a member of the Senate, issued a press release on the bill, calling it “a step in the right direction.” He cautioned, though, that the changes made to the bill on the Senate floor have to be addressed through legislation as quickly as possible, otherwise, the changes would make the rest of the amendment “meaningless.”
It’s interesting to note that both Obenshain and Cuccinelli thank Sen. Deeds for rescuing the bill at the committee level. On his Facebook page, Obenshain says Deeds deserved a “big shout out” for his efforts.
So Mr. Deeds gets kudos from the right and the bill that was passed had Del. Johnny Joannou – a Hampton Roads Democrat – as its main sponsor. Even Dick Saslaw, who fought tooth and nail against such amendments in the past, and Janet Howell, who used her rather unique interpretation of the Senate’s rules to scuttle Obenshain’s earlier property rights measure, voted for it.
It’s funny what a difference an election year can make in the General Assembly.
