Front Page News: Senate Passes Abuser Fee Repeal
Posted by Chap at 1/31/2008 8:22 AM and is filed under uncategorized 
The Richmond Times Dispatch article has a good synopsis:
http://www.inrich.com/cva/ric/news/politics.apx.-content-articles-RTD-2008-01-31-0117.html
Here's the back story:
There were several repeal bills including my SB 443 which were "rolled into" Senate Bill 1, patroned by Senator Edd Houck (D-Spotsylvania). The bills reported out of the Transportation, Courts and Finance Committees before coming to the floor last week. All the votes were unanimous.
However, there was both a complication and a controversy.
The complication was that the Senate Democrats wanted to give relief to those already hit with the fees. However, under our state constitution, the legislature cannot force judges to reverse a legal order. Without a reversal, the convicted driver has no choice but to pay the fine.
The controversy was that the original amendment to SB 1 by Senator Stolle (R-Va Beach) limited judicial relief to only certain convicted drivers. In my mind, that only set up further litigation about what drivers "deserved' relief.
From Monday-Wednesday, we worked on this issue behind the scenes. Eventually, after several false starts, we set up the following procedure to take place upon repeal:
1. The DMV will contact all drivers charged with an abuser fee to notify them of their rights.
2. Those drivers can file a court petition without charge on a preprinted form to have the order reversed.
3. Judges will have discretion to grant or deny petitions.
4. If the judge reverses the abuser fee penalty, then the driver can notify DMV and will receive a refund.
I drafted the final amendment language with Senator Stolle's input and Senator Houck's concurrence. My intention was to make the reversal process as simple as possible, so that no one needs to hire a lawyer to get a refund. Senator Stolle's idea of judicial discrection remains so as to keep the separation of powers.
Based on the unanimous vote (39-0) to approve the amendment, the other Senators agreed with our compromise.
Note that a reversal of the "abuser fee" penalty DOES NOT change the underlying conviction. In other words, if you were convicted of reckless driving in the past 6 months, that conviction remains as do the standard criminal penalties. This repeal only affects the extra civil payment.
The abuser fee law was a bad idea. I'm glad we were able to pass a comprehensive repeal in the first 20 days of the legislative session.
Greetings,
The legislature should not bow to the bench on this. CHange the law, and then refund the fee if paid. No judicial approval is required. Private restitution bils are traditional and normal. No court approval is required for this and the legislature should make it plain to the bench that the BENCH was a part of the tyranny that let this problem roll forward. Forget the conviction part. That is not relevent. A private bill that enables every victim to get a refund from the Governor is direct and proper. The bill was never needed - the governor could have pardoned each fee. Pardons can be full or partial. Do not bow to the courts. They should be embarassed by this and held to public account per the last election. The bill should not burden people in having to file and beg the court to please, pretty please forgive the fee - up to the discretion of a government official. No. Wrong. The courts were part of the problem on this, too. No judge should have discretion! Take it away from the courts. Call the refund a "liberty" payment. In fact, you could fund it by taking the funds from the retirement benefits and salaries of the legislators who voted for it. Or from the judicial budget. It is about checks and balances. I agree with the repeal. I disagree with the begging remedy for the victims. The legislature should take on the courts on this.
Patrick Finegan
pgfwriter@yahoo.com
Thanks Patrick for your comments. I'm not disagreeing with you. In fact, our original Dem bill took that position (and my original compromise had a refund for every payment). However, we cannot unilaterally repeal a court order. Not repealing the original order would put the state in the position of forcing folks to pay $$ (and suspending their license if they don't) and then turning around and paying back the $$. Under separation of powers, we have to give the judges discretion to review an order. As it is, I made the process of refunding and vacating the order as simple as possible.