Subcommittee No. 3: It's the boneyard of rejected bills

RICHMOND

Guns in airports? College professors packing heat on campuses?

Among the blizzard of gun-friendly bills in this General Assembly session, a few go too far for the Republican leadership calling the shots.

When those bills pop up, there's a place to bury them: the death-star committee.

That's what Philip Van Cleave, president of the pro-gun Virginia Citizens Defense League, calls Subcommittee No. 3 of the House Militia, Police and Public Safety Committee.

That obscure panel has its own role to play in the choreography of lethal-weapon lawmaking.

All in all, with the entire legislature now under Republican control, the gun lobby is having a good year in Richmond. Its top priority - the repeal of Virginia's two-decade-old law limiting handgun purchases to one per month - has been achieved. That measure has passed both chambers of the Assembly and will soon be on its way to the desk of Gov. Bob McDonnell, who has said he will sign it.

In addition, several other pro-gun bills seem well on their way to passage. One would prohibit localities from requiring fingerprints with applications for concealed-handgun permits. Another would close off public access to those applications. Still another would let local government employees keep guns and ammunition in their cars at work.

Among the dozens of gun bills in the hopper, however, some have fallen by the wayside. Republicans say that's because they need more study. Some Democrats suggest it's because Republicans are worried that voters will decide they've overplayed their hand and punish them at the polls.

Enter Subcommittee No. 3.

It is a curiosity in the Assembly. In the overwhelmingly Republican House, it is the only subcommittee with a Democratic majority.

The Republican speaker of the House, Del. Bill Howell, appoints the committees. And the panels' Republican chairmen select the members of the subcommittees.

That's where Del. Bob Marshall's bill, HB91, got sent last week. The measure would allow college professors with concealed-handgun permits to carry their weapons on campuses, overriding gun bans now in place at nearly every state college and university.

After hearing vociferous objections from universities, gun-control advocates and the Virginia State Police, the subcommittee killed the measure on a 3-2 party-line vote.

Van Cleave, the pro-gun lobbyist, was disappointed but not surprised.

"Whenever a bill gets sent here, that tells me the leadership didn't want it to see the light of day," he said after the vote.

Next up was Del. Rich Anderson's bill, HB1052. It would overturn the state's prohibition on firearms and other weapons in airport terminals. Airport lobbyists begged the panel to kill it.

But this time, one of the Democrats, Del. Patrick Hope of Arlington County, switched sides and the bill was approved, 3-2, advancing it to the full committee. Nearly everyone in the room was shocked, including the bill's patron.

"I thought for sure I was going to be grounded," Anderson said.

Hope said later that he decided to force the committee's Republican majority to debate the measure.

When the bill came before the full committee, the result was not so much a debate as death by a thousand cuts. Republicans picked it apart, complaining that its language was vaguely worded, its terms poorly defined.

The measure needs more work, the committee chairman, Del. Scott Lingamfelter, R-Prince William County, finally announced.

"I think most people on this committee would agree with the underlying policy," he told Anderson. "But this has now become an explosive bill - no pun intended."

The measure was carried over to the 2013 Assembly session.

Pro-gun lobbyists were disgusted. "I'm getting a little seasick from the tap-dancing," said Bob Sadtler, a member of Van Cleave's group.

Andrew Goddard, president of the Virginia Center for Public Safety, a gun-control group, was amused. "They squirmed like worms on a hook," he said.

Hope, the vote-switching Democrat, said the airport bill was too much for the committee to swallow. "They chickened out," he said. "They're embarrassed by it - and they ought to be."

Democrats have been developing a campaign narrative in which they accuse Republicans of overreaching - of using their majority to muscle through extreme measures on issues like abortion, gays and guns at the expense of such things as education and transportation. Republicans, in response, are starting to pull back, Hope suggested.

Another gun-friendly bill has died without ever making it to Subcommittee No. 3. That measure, HB139, from Del. Mark Cole, R-Spotsylvania County, would allow any lawful owner of a firearm to carry it concealed, essentially negating the state's decades-old permit system.

Lingamfelter, the committee chairman, never assigned the bill to a subcommittee, leaving it to simply wither away from inaction. Asked why, he said it would have been an overly ambitious undertaking at a time when other gun-rights issues are more pressing.

"We've got some big things to fix, and I want to be sure we're doing them in the right order," he said.

And what of Subcommittee No. 3? Is it a convenient killing ground for overly aggressive gun-rights bills, as the lobbyists contend?

"That's their opinion," Lingamfelter said.

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