Senate advances repeal of fees

Repeal of abuser fees advances

By Chelyen Davis

Date published: 1/17/2008

RICHMOND--A Senate committee yesterday approved bills to repeal the abusive driving fees.

The bills will now go to the Senate Finance Committee, since they would reduce state revenue.

The 10 bills--sponsored by senators from both parties--were rolled into one bill by Sen. Edd Houck, D-Spotsylvania.

Another bill, from Sen. Philip Puckett, which repeals the fees and raises the gas tax 2 cents, was also approved--with much less debate than the other bills.

The Houck bill as it now stands does not include repayment of the fees to any driver who has already been subjected to them. Legislators said they do not typically refund fines when they repeal a law that charged those fines. It also does not contain an "emergency clause," a legislative provision that would make the law go into effect as soon as it's signed by the governor, rather than July 1 as most bills do.

The bills were the subject of lengthy debate in the Senate Courts of Justice Committee, although none of it was about whether the fees should actually be repealed.

The fees were part of a large transportation package approved last year, but quickly became the object of public outcry because they apply only to Virginia drivers and because they could be applied to traffic offenses the public didn't consider terribly egregious. Lawmakers quickly vowed to revise the fees and, by this point, many lawmakers on both sides of the aisle seem to support repealing them entirely.

"I have never, never in my entire legislative career, had the amount and volume and intensity of the outpouring from the public that I heard once this law went into effect. And we deal with some very controversial measures down here," said Houck, who voted for the fees last year. "I'm not casting any stones anywhere other than toward myself. I think we violated the public trust. I'm trying to respond to it because I think they were right."

While both Republican and Democratic lawmakers on the committee support repeal--and had sponsored some of the bills--they argued for over an hour over whether to add that emergency clause.

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Date published: 1/17/2008