2014 was a harrowing year for the University of Virginia, with the alleged kidnapping and murder of one student and charges of rape against many more. Such tragedies are not unique to UVA, but state lawmakers will likely use Charlottesville’s troubles to try and reform Virginia’s criminal code.
Hannah Graham was allegedly killed by someone whose DNA was found on an earlier victim of sexual assault. What’s more, he’d been convicted of trespassing and several serious traffic offenses. That’s why Delegate David Toscano will introduce a bill that could have cost Matthew his freedom, long before he met Graham.
“New York recently enacted a bill that requires all misdemeanor convictions to have a swab of DNA sample taken. If that had happened, it’s quite possible Jesse Matthew would never have met Hannah Graham, because he had been convicted of a serious misdemeanor, and then his DNA would have been found in that Fairfax case several years later.”
State Senator Creigh Deeds will offer another reform to Virginia’s criminal code - taking the responsibility for dealing with rape cases away from universities, but requiring them to report such cases to police.
“My bill says basically that higher education institutions shouldn’t be in the business of investigating crime. You’ve got to give the public assurance that you’re doing things properly, and some of the public think that people who commit these acts sometimes get coddled by higher education institutions, and my bill says no coddling.”
It’s not clear whether this and other controversial measures have a prayer of passing in this year’s legislative session, which runs just 46 days. Unlike other states where lawmakers are paid for year-round work, Virginia’s legislators are part-time, and Delegate Steve Landes says they won’t stick around to debate anything too complex.
“Most legislators want to complete our business in a timely fashion, because they are on the ballot this fall. Most folks either want to get out to start campaigning or get back to their full time jobs, and so I think the controversial stuff in my experience, generally unless there’s built support for it over the past year, just doesn’t usually go anywhere. It’s usually for political posturing on both sides.”
Instead, lawmakers are likely to pass what some consider easy stuff. Delegate Dickie Bell, for example, wants all high school students to take the test on U.S. history and government given to immigrants seeking American citizenship. It consists of ten questions from a pool of 100, and students would need to get at least six right. Delegate Landes adds they’d be allowed to take the test as many times as necessary to pass.
"In other states where they’ve looked at this, they have found that the immigrant population who takes the test - they score about 92% on average. The students that took it the first time in one of the states that looked at this and implemented it, the first go around only 4% passed."
Similar measures are under consideration in 15 states, according to the Civics Education Initiative, an Arizona-based group lobbying for the civics test nationwide.
Some of the questions are tough? How many voting members are there in the House of Representatives - 435. And in what year was the constitution written - 1787. Yet another reason why higher education and public schools will also be keeping a close watch on Richmond, hoping their budgets won’t be cut. Virginia already ranks 39th in state per pupil funding, and teacher salaries rank 37th.
