University of Virginia Library

Annual State Assemblies
Advised By Researcher

Virginia must amend its Constitution
to provide for annual
sessions of the General Assembly
if legislators are to give adequate
attention to important issues affecting
the state, according to a
researcher in the University's Institute
of Government.

More than 1,800 bills and resolutions
were introduced during
the 1968 biennial session of the
legislature, says Mrs. Judith L.
Palkovitz, institute research assistant.
"Yet even those measures
which were extremely important
were afforded only scant public
hearing" because of the constitutional
limitations of the 60-day
assembly, she says.

Mrs. Palkovitz, who writes of
her research findings in the current
issue of "Virginia Town &
City,' says that traditionalists will
"note that the biennial sessions
have served the Commonwealth
well in the past and should be
continued." Others will argue,
she says, that "the problems accompanying
rapid urbanization
have increased the scope and
scale of 'legislative business.' "

Yet, probably neither group
recognizes fully that a shift to
annual sessions of the legislature
would not be new to Virginia,
says Mrs. Palkovitz. "In fact,
delegates and senators have gathered
annually in Richmond for
half the State's history." Beginning
with the 1776 Constitution,
annual sessions of the legislature
were held off and on until 1901
when "biennial sessions were
stipulated and the General Assembly
has so met since then,"
she writes.

An outgrowth of the constitutional
constraints placed on the
General Assembly through biennial
sessions is the extensive use
in Virginia of the study commission.
"State senators and delegates
simply lack the time to
conduct in-depth studies within
the limits of the legislative session.
One must sympathize with
the harried legislator and must
vote on measures to which he
has only been able to devote
limited study,' says Mrs. Palkovitz.

Mrs. Palkovitz writes that
"Events in other states indicate
that annual sessions are being
recognized as the best way in
which a state legislature can effectively
discharge its responsibilities.