Greetings from your State Capitol!  It’s been a true joy to have had so many local visitors this week.  I always welcome your visits and the opportunity to discuss the bills before us as well as the legislative process.  This is your Capitol and I encourage you to visit this beautiful and historic site.

It’s been a slow start, but we are finally getting up to speed.  About 1/3 of my bills have been heard and I’ll give a specific update on all of them next week after more of them have been considered.  I will share that the process this year is currently more partisan in its actions, which, I hope will change.  We’ve already seen member’s bills that passed out of committee, without opposition, killed on the floor as “pay back” for questioning someone else’s bill.

We’ve also seen legislation passed that mandates farm workers must be paid the minimum wage.  The federal law exempts farms because of the fact that farm work isn’t a nine-to-five job and many farm owners provide compensation in the form of housing, vehicles, fuel, farm products and many other tangible, non-monetary benefits.  The statement was made in defending the bill that if a farmer couldn’t manage his farm well enough to pay fair wages then maybe they should just quit.  This is just one example of legislation being considered that doesn’t take into account the full effect of its implementation.

Over the next two weeks, the remaining 1,500 bills introduced in the house will have to be dealt with.  This will mean a hectic schedule and much longer floor sessions.  Our sessions will be even more intense with our most controversial measures still to be heard.

I welcome your phone calls to (804) 698-1066 and your emails to delborrock@house.virginia.gov to share your views, answer questions, or schedule a visit.  All legislative work may be watched live on-line at virginiageneralassembly.gov and going to the proper link.  All committee and floor sessions are also archived and accessible.

Thank you again for the opportunity to represent you and I’ll continue to keep you updated.