Feb. 21-Del. Charles Poindexter gives a public report on the Virginia Assembly goings on.

On Valentine's Day, the House and Senate completed processing their respective bills and sent them to their opposite chambers. From this point forward, the House will only consider Senate bills plus House bills that the Senate proposes to modify. Misinformation and misinterpretation regarding the contents of bills continues to run rampant. The best solution for this problem is for concerned citizens to read the bills for themselves. Be sure to read the final version of a bill, since changes often occur during the legislative process. Bills can be accessed and read online at http://lis.virginia.gov An example of social network and media generated misinformation is the charge that the House is concentrating on bills regarding social and gun issues. Actually, an enormous amount of time has been devoted to the Budget, which is the primary bill. From a 'number of bills processed' perspective Jobs, Education, Government Reform and Public Safety make up 42.3% of the bills, followed by Judicial at 12.3%, Transportation 5.3%, Healthcare 6.3%, Veterans 3.8%, Local 10.8%, Energy and Environment 4.8%, Other at 12.3%--which leaves about 2.2% for Social and Gun bills. Other examples include HB 1, the so-called Personhood bill and HB 462, the Ultrasound bill. When the caveats in HB 1 are considered, the bill simply allows for someone such as a drunk driver who kills a woman's fetus/unborn child to be sued. HB 462 adds an ultrasound information requirement to the long-established Informed Consent law. Ultrasounds are already standard practice in the National Abortion Federation's Clinical Guidelines for doctors' use for purposes such as determining fetus age and position prior to conducting the invasive abortion and life termination procedure. Two of my bills have already been heard in Senate Committees, and I hope these will pass on the Senate Floor next week. These are HB 1037, which requires convicted meth lab operators to pay clean-up costs, and HB 541, the Governor's DMV Service and Safety Improvement legislation. I expect my other bills to be heard in Senate Committees next week. Much of my time has been dedicated to assessing and preparing the House budget amendments to the Governor's proposed budget. Caution and restraint on spending are necessary due to continuing uncertainty in the economy and proposed federal spending reductions for DOD.Non-Defense federal spending cuts are not expected to have a large impact on Virginia, but DOD cuts would hit Virginia's critical revenue producing NOVA and Tidewater areas hard. In this light, we must assure fiscal liquidity to retain our AAA Bond rating, spend prudently for core services, and deliver a structurally balanced budget reflecting balanced spending on core government services. I anticipate us setting aside some funding, possibly $20-30Million, in case this scenario develops. Other bills I supported that passed the House this week dealt with school choice, transportation, increasing the penalties on repeat drug dealers, the Governor's Reform proposals, several economic development proposals, and requiring law enforcement to determine citizenship of all those arrested. At Registrars' request to reduce split precincts, we also made a slight adjustment in the 9th and 22nd House District boundaries. The remainder of the Dudley precinct was moved into the 9th District and a small section of Rocky Mount East was moved to the 22nd House District. Thus, Dudley no longer will be a split precinct. Other changes did not work out due to their exceeding the 1% populationdeviation limit on House Districts. The House Appropriations Committee will vote on our proposed budget on February 19. I expect key components will be additional funding for VRS, K-12, higher education, local governments, and economic development-including tourism-while providing protection for the Health Safety Net, healthcare providers, and aid for those with mental health disorders.We will also propose reductions in job-killing fees and further steps to eliminate the unfair Advanced Sales Tax payments on retailers. What we legislators don't do is often as important or more important than what we do. I am pleased to report that, so far, the Republican controlled House has killed proposals for tax hikes that potentially could have cost taxpayers up to $2Billion. I was pleased to see the U.S. House of Representatives passed HR 3408 this week. That bill includes provisions that require the Interior Department to offer oil and gas leases off Virginia. This is very much a part of what I have in mind in my HJR 227, which requests the President and Congress explore and develop all our vast domestic supplies of energy in order to provide jobs, more energy, and reliable and affordable power. On a lighter note, I invite you to view a video clip of remarks I made on the House Floor in response to inaccurate statements made by a NOVA Delegate concerning the history of public high schools in Franklin County. The clip is available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4Fuir0Nt0U or on my Delegate Charles Poindexter Facebook page. Among our visitors this week were Realtors Betty Kingery, Adam Lynch, Bitsy Davis, and Donna Greer, Carilion's Bill Jacobsen, Martinsville Hospital's Skip Phillips, and Rocky Mount Town Manager James Ervin. To schedule a meeting with me or arrange for a tour of our Capitol, contact Alex Thorup or Tom Wells at DelCPoindexter@House.Virginia.Gov or (804)698-1009.