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ACROSS SESSIONS
- Subject Index: Since 1995
- Bills & Resolutions: Since 1994
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Developed and maintained by the Division of Legislative Automated Systems.
2007 SESSION
Chairman: Emmett W. Hanger, Jr.
Date of Meeting: February 2, 2007
Time and Place: 8:30 a.m., Senate Room B
Patron: Devolites Davis
Earned sentence credits for rehabilitative programs. Allows five additional sentence credits for each 30 days of participation in a rehabilitative program (e.g., earning a high school diploma or an equivalent degree, college credit, or a certification through vocational training) or in an interventional rehabilitation program (e.g., mental health treatment, sex offender treatment, and other interventional rehabilitation programs).
Patron: Devolites Davis
Department of Corrections; physical examination of prisoner; ability to work. Requires the Department to examine each prisoner within 30 days prior to any work assignment in food services, medical services, or cosmetological services, or any change in work assignment. The bill also allows the Department to limit a prisoner's duty and housing assignments only if his disease could be transmitted despite the use of certain controls, personal protective equipment, or precautionary measures.
Patron: Ticer
Mandatory cross-reporting by protective services agencies. Adds animal control officers to the list of persons required to report known or suspected child or adult abuse or neglect. Requires mandatory cross-reporting of known or suspected animal abuse by individuals required to report child or adult abuse or neglect.
Patron: Norment
Adoption; exception to requirement that spouses file a joint petition. Provides that in its discretion, upon good cause shown, a court may exempt any spouse from the requirement to file a joint petition.
Patron: Watkins
Alcoholic beverage control; nonresident winery distributor license. Creates a new nonresident winery distributor license that authorizes the licensee to sell and deliver the wine produced by the licensee, in accordance with ABC Board regulations, in closed containers, to (i) persons licensed to sell the wine at retail for the purpose of resale, § 4.1-326 notwithstanding, (ii) the Board, and (iii) persons in Virginia to whom alcoholic beverages may be lawfully sold. The bill provides that, for purposes of § 4.1-234 and Chapter 6 (§ 58.1-600 et seq.) of Title 58.1, each delivery of wine by such licensee to a consumer or a retail licensee shall constitute a sale in Virginia. Licensees are required to collect the taxes due to the Commonwealth and remit any excise taxes monthly to the Board and any sales tax to the Department of Taxation. The bill defines "nonresident winery distributor" as any winery located outside the Commonwealth and licensed as such in the state where the winery is located and whose total wine distribution to all Virginia licensees does not exceed 3,000 cases in any calendar year. The bill also grants these same privileges to certain winery and farm winery licensees. The bill also requires the ABC Board to quarterly audit and inspect all licensees with the privilege of self-distribution to ensure they meet the requirements for the license. The bill sets the state license tax for this new license and requires the ABC Board to adopt emergency regulations to implement the provisions of the bill.
Patron: Williams
Alcoholic beverage control; tastings conducted by manufacturers or wholesalers. Clarifies that the $100 limitation on the purchase of alcoholic beverages by a manufacturer from a retail licensee for a tasting conducted by the manufacturer or wholesaler does not include any applicable taxes.
Patron: Puller
Insane defendants; restoration of competency. Clarifies the role of the director of the community services board or behavioral health authority in restoring the competency of a defendant who is receiving treatment on an outpatient basis. It also provides that the director is to make and receive reports regarding the competency of the defendant.
Patron: Wagner
Alcoholic beverage control; government stores; sale of mixers. Removes the authority of the Alcoholic Beverage Control Board to sell mixers at government stores. The bill contains technical amendments.
Patron: Hanger
Criminal history check for providers of services to adults. Allows public agencies that are required to do so by federal or state law to obtain criminal history record information of any individual seeking approval as a provider of home-based services or adult foster care and all adult household members. The bill also allows local boards of social services to obtain, in emergency circumstances, such information from a criminal justice agency.
Patron: Hanger
Background check required; children's residential facilities. Strengthens criminal background check requirements for employees, volunteers, and providers of contractual services to children's residential facilities. Requires Departments to obtain the results of the background check before allowing an applicant to work with children. Adds numerous statutory offenses, including abduction, carjacking, threats, stalking, use of a machine gun, child pornography, incest, and felony drug possession, to the list of crimes that preclude employment at children's residential facilities. Additional offenses parallel those identified as "barrier crimes" in § 63.2-1719. Permits a children's residential facility to hire applicants with a misdemeanor conviction for assault and battery, provided 10 years have elapsed and the offense did not occur in the context of former employment or volunteer work. Prohibits state children's residential facilities from hiring employees or accepting volunteers who have a founded case of child abuse or neglect. The new requirements only apply to persons who were not working or volunteering at the facility prior to July 1, 2007.
Patron: Hanger
National criminal records background check to prevent sex offender access to children and others; costs and penalties. Provides that any business or organization required to conduct a national criminal background check also must bear the costs, unless it recoups such costs from the applicant. Assesses a civil penalty of up to $500 for knowing, willful failure to comply with background check requirements and may impose additional statutory measures to revoke the licensure of facilities or other entities.
Patron: Herring
Alcoholic beverage control; equine sporting event licenses. Clarifies that for equine sporting event licenses, the licensee may own or operate the premises where the equine event is held. The bill contains an emergency clause.
EMERGENCY
Patron: Marsh
Good conduct allowances; mandatory functional literacy requirement. Provides for good conduct allowance for prisoners, depending on their performance and conduct, in which escalating credits toward good conduct allowance are available in four class levels. The highest level available is 30 percent credit for those prisoners who have demonstrated exemplary behavior and who have earned or are making progress toward earning their general educational development (GED) certificate. Creates a mandatory functional literacy program for all mentally capable inmates that offers testing at a ninth-grade level. The bill also provides, for certain prisoners, credits for reading and passing examinations on books approved by the Department of Correctional Education.
Patron: Wagner
Child Day-Care Regulations. Establishes staff-to-child ratios, activity space guidelines, and training and qualification guidelines for program directors, program leaders, and general staff for regulated child day-care centers.