Webert's HB1163 Greatly Improves Reciprocity Agreement Overturning Herring Action

Last Friday, VSSA posted on Twitter that the legislative team had serious concerns about changes to the bills (SB610 and HB 1163) that are the vehicles for overturning Attorney General Herring's unilateral action on recognition of out of state permits:

Breaking: Yesterday's floor changes to SB610 bill overturning Herring concealed carry actions may render bill useless.

— VSSA (@VSSA) February 5, 2016

Section 2 of SB610 was added yesterday. It basically voids rest of the bill if AG does not enter into new agreements https://t.co/Foh1gzQCeO

— VSSA (@VSSA) February 5, 2016

The specific language stated:

That within 60 days of the effective date of this act, the Attorney General shall enter into agreements for reciprocal recognition of concealed handgun permits or licenses with states where such agreements were in existence as of December 1, 2015, as required by the provisions of this act; otherwise the provisions of this act shall not become effective.

Also on Friday, HB1163 was amended in committee to mirror SB610 with the bad changes at the end of the bill. The VSSA legislative team went to work on Friday working with patrons and alerting friends to the problems in Friday's changes.  This work continued into Monday.

 Today, a floor substitute to HB1163 was offered by the patron and was agreed to on the floor and engrossed setting up final passage tomorrow.  The floor substitute removes the enactment clause that was added on Friday and makes the State Police the entity to enter into reciprocity/recognition agreements and the Attorney General will only be involved if another state requires the signature of that office on the agreement.

VSSA will continue to monitor these bills as they continue to move through the process.  The House will likely amend SB610 to mirror HB1163.  The Senate will then have to agree to the changes.

Update:  The enactment clause was also in HB1391, the vehicle for the protective orders part of the McAuliffe deal and HB1386, the bill for the voluntary background check portion of the deal.  It appears to be someone's way to make sure the Governor did not go back on his word.  Unfortunately, while the enactment clause could have been appropriate in the case of the protective order and voluntary background check portions of the agreement, it would have completely destroyed the reciprocity part of the agreement.