Del. Frank D. Hargrove Sr., R-Hanover, won't be in office to claim success, but he thinks that in eight to 10 years the General Assembly will put an end to the death penalty.
Hargrove's bill to end capital punishment met its usual fate this year at the hands of a House Courts of Justice Committee, but Hargrove found encouragement after the vote.
"Twenty to 25 people came up to me and said they would like to vote for it but are scared politically," said Hargrove, who is retiring at the end of this year.
Other failed measures have received more attention in this year's session, such as a proposed increase in the tax on cigarettes and bills to close the "gun-show loophole" or to require insurers to provide autism coverage. But Hargrove's bill and other defeated bills of note fall into the same category. None survived crossover, the deadline for each house to act on its own bills.
Del. Harry R. Purkey, R-Virginia Beach, is encouraged about the prospects for allowing Virginia's governors to succeed themselves, even though his proposed constitutional amendment seemed to regress this year.
In the early morning of Feb. 2, a subcommittee of the House Privileges and Elections Committee killed the measure. The proposal made it as far as a committee vote two years ago.
Virginia remains the only state in the nation that does not allow a governor to serve two successive terms.
"Once it gets to the floor, it will receive 80 percent of the vote," Purkey said.
Half of the measures introduced this session have failed. The House killed 671 bills; the Senate, 395. A number of measures still are alive, because they passed one body and now are before the other body.
Other measures that failed to pass muster:
Contact Tyler Whitley at (804) 649-6780 or twhitley@timesdispatch.com.
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