HoodaThunk?

I’ve mentioned that the General Assembly has convened today to consider actions on several vetoes and amendments returned to them by the Governor. I have taken notice of the House minutes today and find that the House has overridden vetoes on 2 of the bills I was speaking of.

HB1851, which would allow members of the US military and the VA National Guard to be exempt from Virginia’s “1 handgun a month” limitation was vetoed by the Governor. The House has voted 72-26 to override. It now goes to the Senate.

HB2528 which requires localities wishing to perform a “gun buyback program” to pass a specific ordinance authorizing it and to sell guns received in this manner to federal firearms licensed dealers whenever possible was also vetoed. The House overrode that veto by a vote of 71-28. It will also go to the Senate.

More to come as I hear more.

Update: Interestingly, there’s a real kerfuffle going on over in the Senate around SB1070. The issue doesn’t appear to be the Governor’s amendments to this bill but, rather, the question of whether the amendments offered are “severable.” I came in a little late on the matter but the Republican caucus appears to be arguing that the Governor’s stance that these amendments are not severable (which means considered separately, I’m guessing) is a breach of the Constitutional duties assigned to the Senate. They are arguing that the Constitutional matter should be considered and dealt with before the amendments to the bill are considered. The Democrat caucus is merely trying to force the amendments through.

More to come as I hear more.

Update 2: The House has completed it’s 1st set of business which was dealing with the House bills vetoed or amended by the Governor. They stand in recess for the moment. (Until 5:00 pm EDT, as of now.) They are awaiting the Senate to complete their run of bills. The Senate’s calendar dealt with the Senate bills that were amended first and they appear to be stuck on SB1495, again over whether or not the amendments offered by the Governor are to be considered “separate and severable” and, therefore, subject to being debated separately. Counting SB1495, they have 4 more bills to consider before moving to the issues vetoed by Gov. Kaine. There are 7 of those bills, including SB877, SB1528, and SB1035 which I’ve written about before. The Senate needs to act on those bills before the House can consider them. More to come, folks.

Oh, by the way, the Senate’s minutes are here. If you’re extremely bored and want to go watch either session in progress, go to the G.A.’s web site and click on one of the links for video. There’s audio-only links, too.

Update 3: OK, apparently the issue was a matter of whether the amendments are separate and severable meaning that if they were not, the whole bill had to go back to committee. The Senate has voted along party lines to say that they are and, therefore, are moving ahead to determine whether to accept the Governor’s amendments again.

Update 4: The Senate has finished the amendments phase and is now taking up the Governor’s vetoes. At 5:50PM they overrode the veto on SB877.

Update 5: SB971, the “Triggerman” veto has been sustained in the Senate. SB1035 is being discussed now. (6:12PM)

…And as of 6:15PM, the Senate has failed to override the veto of SB1035. The vote was 24-16 in favor of the override, but that’s not the 3/4ths 2/3rds vote necessary to get it done.

I’ll have more on that later but, for now, I’m headed to dinner.

(Edited my Update 5 to correct the passage ratio required for a veto override. It’s 2/3rds or 27 of 40 Senators.)

Update 6: The House is starting on the Senate responses to the Kaine vetos. They’ve passed by SB877 and are working on SB1528, the issue of permitting on-line instruction for the purposes of qualifying for a concealed carry permit.