The Senate Courts of Justice Committee advanced a bill Monday that would put regulations on license plate readers across the commonwealth.
The legislation, sponsored by Del. Charniele Herring, D-Fairfax, would limit automatic license plate readers to be used; only as part of a criminal investigation where there is a reasonable suspicion that a crime was committed; as part of an active investigation related to a missing or endangered person; or to receive notifications related to a missing or endangered person, a person with an outstanding warrant, a person associated with human trafficking, a stolen vehicle or a stolen license plate. It already passed in the House of Delegates 59-39.
This legislation hit a brief roadblock last Monday before receiving a second chance at the end of the meeting. The committee initially voted to kill the bill on a 6-9 vote, but Senate Minority Leader Ryan McDougle, R-Fairfax, brought it up for reconsideration at the end of the meeting, which allowed for changes to be made and then another vote to take place.
In the original legislation, data from the readers would be destroyed after 30 days. It was amended Monday to reduce the time to 21 days.
The original legislation also allowed for the expansion of camera use on Virginia’s highway system, but Sen. Barbara Favola, D-Arlington, successfully added an amendment to the bill Monday that would require a reenactment vote from the General Assembly next year to allow for this.
This change to the bill turned law enforcement groups who initially supported the bill against it.
“We’ve worked closely with the patron, with the advocates, and we were supporting the 30 days, but we can no longer support the bill because the retention time has been reduced to 21 days, and that lessens the effectiveness of the program,” said John Jones from the Virginia Sheriff’s Association.
The legislation also allows localities to reduce the number of days that data is saved from the cameras to less than 21.
Charlottesville already has a law in place limiting the retention of data to seven days.
A representative of the Charlottesville Police Department said that the system was working well that week when speaking to the committee.
When asked if he would like to see that time increased, he said: “You don’t know what you don’t know.”
Democrats on the committee previously expressed concerns about the data from these cameras being used by other states and the federal government for their own reasons, like searching for a woman who may have come to Virginia for an abortion from a more restrictive state.
Herring acknowledged that the legislation does not completely alleviate some of those concerns, but it will add restrictions to a system that is already in place with no limits.
“This bill limits the way data can be shared in all feasible ways, though it cannot wholly avoid federal warrants and subpoenas,” she said to the committee.
“This bill does not allow LPR data to be shared with other states or the federal government, except for subpoena duces tecum or search warrants, which requires authorization by a judicial officer,” she continued.
Herring also said that this bill would make Virginia the most restrictive state in the country for storing data from license plate readers. However, that is not true.
“[This bill] still makes Virginia the most restrictive data retention state in the nation,” she said. “To give the committee some perspective, Alabama is five years, Colorado three years, Florida three years, North Carolina 90 days and Minnesota 60 days. Without this bill, there are absolutely no limitations set by this legislature.”
Herring did not mention New Hampshire, however, which requires records to be purged from the system within three minutes.
The bill passed 10-4-1, with Sens. Bill Stanley, R-Franklin, Mark Obenshain, R-Rockingham, Ryan McDougle, R-Hanover and Richard Stuart, R-King George, voting against it and Sen. Creigh Deeds, D-Charlottesville, abstaining
It will now need to be heard in the Senate Finance Committee before advancing to the full Senate floor.
If the bill advances out of the full Senate, it will have to go into conference to work out the differences between the House version due to the amendments made in the Senate Courts Committee.
Prior to the bill’s passage, Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell, D-Fairfax, discussed the work that went into this bill over the last 14 months and the lack of engagement until this legislative session.
“We have a commission process in this body, and this bill has been pending for 14 months now. We had multiple commission hearings, and most of the people who have had problems with it have not bothered to show up at the commission to speak out,” he said. “I attended a commission meeting a day before session – we had an opportunity for public comment and there wasn’t a single piece of comment… If we’re going to have a commission process, the commission process needs to be honored, and we can’t have people coming in torpedoing bills during session.”
“Just want to say that to the people who’ve chosen not to participate in the commission process, but instead, have decided to come here and try to make an issue of the bill here,” he continued. “Because I’m starting to wonder why you even have commissions anymore.”