Repeater
Regular Member
imported post
Marsh stood in way of pro-gun legislation
Repeal the one-gun-a-month statute. Allow concealed guns in bars and in cars. Expand the death penalty to accomplices in capital murders. Prohibit public access to records of holders of concealed-handgun permits. Prohibit localities from requiring fingerprints to apply for concealed handguns. Change the restrictions on hunting near subdivisions.
The only obstacle was the Democrat-dominated 15-member Senate Courts of Justice Committee and its chairman -- a soft-spoken, stubborn, septuagenarian senator and noted civil-rights lawyer from Richmond, Sen. Henry L. Marsh III.
Marsh turned out to be carrying a big stick.
As the flow of House gun bills became a wave, Marsh, a former Richmond City Council member and Richmond mayor who has served the past 18 years in the Senate, created a special subcommittee to hear them.
He stacked the subcommittee with himself, one centrist Republican and three Democrats from urban areas with long-standing opposition to gun-rights expansion. The move drew fire from the pro-gun lobby and also Republican lawmakers, some of whom stomped out of committee hearings.
Marsh has spent much of his public life opposing the expansion of gun rights.
In 1997, his 59-year-old brother, Richmond lawyer and substitute Judge Harold M. Marsh Sr., was fatally shot while stopped at a South Richmond traffic light.
The senator said the tragedy reaffirmed his stance against gun violence and cemented his opposition to the death penalty -- two positions he has advocated consistently on the Senate Courts of Justice Committee.
This year, few of the significant House gun bills advanced to the full committee. The exceptions were bills allowing holders of concealed-weapons permits to bring their guns into bars, as well as a bill allowing people without the permits to lock their guns in a container or glove compartment of their vehicles.
Both bills, however, had been companions to Senate legislation that had been approved by the full committee earlier in the session and likely will receive Gov. Bob McDonnell's signature.
Marsh said in an interview that it was clear this year that the gun advocates didn't want to stop there. "They want the whole enchilada," he said. "There has to be some balance."
"The pro-gun forces made an all-out attack," he added. "I think there was a pent-up desire to unleash this effort to establish Virginia as the [most] pro-gun state in the union."
Marsh defended his decision to create the subcommittee and decide its composition. He said it was "not unprecedented and does not trespass the protocol" for considering legislation, noting that the tactic has been used numerous times in the past by committee chairmen of both parties to hear legislation on issues such as mental health and immigration.
"You will find that a majority of House subcommittees include only one minority-party member, and often the ratio is 9 to 2 in favor of majority-party members," he said.
The senator said organizations such as the Virginia State Police and the state Alcoholic Beverage Control Commission -- which traditionally appeared before the committee to oppose certain gun bills, such as guns in cars and guns in bars -- were conspicuously absent from hearings this time, with a new administration in charge.
"I'm not saying they were muscled, but it was strange to see them go from strongly opposing to having no opinion," he said.
"I've been elected to exercise judgment, and I'm going to do what I think is right," said Marsh, who gives no indication of giving up his chairmanship or his seat, which is up for election in 2011. He said he is having fun and said he looks at his position as "an opportunity to do justice."
"I survived George Allen, and I survived Jim Gilmore," he said referring to former Republican governors. "And I was able to be fairly effective. I might be able to survive Bob McDonnell."
Marsh stood in way of pro-gun legislation
Repeal the one-gun-a-month statute. Allow concealed guns in bars and in cars. Expand the death penalty to accomplices in capital murders. Prohibit public access to records of holders of concealed-handgun permits. Prohibit localities from requiring fingerprints to apply for concealed handguns. Change the restrictions on hunting near subdivisions.
The only obstacle was the Democrat-dominated 15-member Senate Courts of Justice Committee and its chairman -- a soft-spoken, stubborn, septuagenarian senator and noted civil-rights lawyer from Richmond, Sen. Henry L. Marsh III.
Marsh turned out to be carrying a big stick.
As the flow of House gun bills became a wave, Marsh, a former Richmond City Council member and Richmond mayor who has served the past 18 years in the Senate, created a special subcommittee to hear them.
He stacked the subcommittee with himself, one centrist Republican and three Democrats from urban areas with long-standing opposition to gun-rights expansion. The move drew fire from the pro-gun lobby and also Republican lawmakers, some of whom stomped out of committee hearings.
Marsh has spent much of his public life opposing the expansion of gun rights.
In 1997, his 59-year-old brother, Richmond lawyer and substitute Judge Harold M. Marsh Sr., was fatally shot while stopped at a South Richmond traffic light.
The senator said the tragedy reaffirmed his stance against gun violence and cemented his opposition to the death penalty -- two positions he has advocated consistently on the Senate Courts of Justice Committee.
This year, few of the significant House gun bills advanced to the full committee. The exceptions were bills allowing holders of concealed-weapons permits to bring their guns into bars, as well as a bill allowing people without the permits to lock their guns in a container or glove compartment of their vehicles.
Both bills, however, had been companions to Senate legislation that had been approved by the full committee earlier in the session and likely will receive Gov. Bob McDonnell's signature.
Marsh said in an interview that it was clear this year that the gun advocates didn't want to stop there. "They want the whole enchilada," he said. "There has to be some balance."
"The pro-gun forces made an all-out attack," he added. "I think there was a pent-up desire to unleash this effort to establish Virginia as the [most] pro-gun state in the union."
Marsh defended his decision to create the subcommittee and decide its composition. He said it was "not unprecedented and does not trespass the protocol" for considering legislation, noting that the tactic has been used numerous times in the past by committee chairmen of both parties to hear legislation on issues such as mental health and immigration.
"You will find that a majority of House subcommittees include only one minority-party member, and often the ratio is 9 to 2 in favor of majority-party members," he said.
The senator said organizations such as the Virginia State Police and the state Alcoholic Beverage Control Commission -- which traditionally appeared before the committee to oppose certain gun bills, such as guns in cars and guns in bars -- were conspicuously absent from hearings this time, with a new administration in charge.
"I'm not saying they were muscled, but it was strange to see them go from strongly opposing to having no opinion," he said.
"I've been elected to exercise judgment, and I'm going to do what I think is right," said Marsh, who gives no indication of giving up his chairmanship or his seat, which is up for election in 2011. He said he is having fun and said he looks at his position as "an opportunity to do justice."
"I survived George Allen, and I survived Jim Gilmore," he said referring to former Republican governors. "And I was able to be fairly effective. I might be able to survive Bob McDonnell."