The Pocahontas Building, new housing in an old building for state legislators while the General Assembly Building undergoes renovations. Photo credit: Richmond Times-Dispatch
Long overdue but welcome nonetheless: The House of Delegates and the State Senate will livestream video of committee hearings in the 2018 session of the General Assembly. Reports the Richmond Times-Dispatch:
On the House side, staff operating cameras will work in two committee rooms and the speaker’s conference room in the Pocahontas Building and two committee rooms in the Capitol to record all full committee hearings. The cost for equipment and staff to start the program in the House was $511,000. …
For the Senate, committee hearings will be broadcast and archived from the three rooms where full committees will meet — two in the Pocahontas Building and one in the Capitol. The Senate is using automated video equipment and the cost to start the program in that chamber is about $225,000….
The General Assembly will not broadcast subcommittee hearings. However, ProgressVA, a liberal advocacy group that paid people to make video of committee hearings last year, has indicated that it will broadcast subcommittee hearings.
The long overdue measure, which lags that of many other states, came at the instigation of the bipartisan Transparency Caucus created in 2016 by Del. Mark H. Levine, D-Alexandria, and Sen. Amanda F. Chase, R-Chesterfield.
