Freshman lawmaker taking his job by the horns

When James Edmunds headed to Richmond to begin his first term in the House of Delegates, he brought along some mementos from his Halifax County farm.

Little did he know he was hauling contraband.

Every time he plows his fields, he turns up antlers that have been shed by white-tailed deer. They're a nuisance, he said: He spends $3,000 to $4,000 a year repairing the damage they cause to his tractor tires.

At least, he figured, a few of the pesky things would make a nice decoration in his eighth-floor office in the General Assembly building.

On the way, antlers in hand, he was accosted by someone on the elevator who said, "Did you know those things are illegal?"

No way, he thought. Couldn't be.

But sure enough, he checked into it and there it was, right there in the Code of Virginia: It's unlawful to possess "any wild bird or wild animal or the carcass or any part thereof, except as specifically permitted by law."

What to do?

Wait, he's a lawmaker now, Edmunds thought.

So he put in a bill, HB1283, that carves out an exception for the "possession of shed antlers."

What he didn't know at the time is that the House has an old tradition of hazing freshman delegates when their first piece of legislation comes to the floor.

The antlers bill made as tempting a target as a 10-point buck.

When it appeared on the docket Friday, Edmunds' fellow delegates had a field day.

"This antlers bill is foundational to our freedoms," Del. Mark Sickles, D-Alexandria, thundered in fulsome praise. He imagined the scene back in Halifax County where a grateful constituent stood in his field ankle-deep in antlers, exclaiming, "I was lookin' at five to 10 in the Big House until Delegate Edmunds put that bill in."

The question remains, why is it illegal to possess antlers? According to the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, it's all about enforcing the state's hunting laws. The existing statute is intended to make sure nobody bags a trophy animal without the proper permits.

But in the end, nobody objected to the antlers exception. Well, almost nobody.

Edmunds' bill gained final House passage Monday, 95-1, to a rousing round of cheers from his House colleagues.

Bill Sizemore, (804) 697-1560, bill.sizemore@pilotonline.com