Legislation that would have eliminated the state commission that oversees the Virginia Alcohol Safety Action Program and transferred its oversight authority to the Virginia Department of Criminal Justice Services was killed Monday in committee.
The Senate Courts of Justice Committee voted 10-4 to pass by indefinitely Senate Bill 501 on a motion from committee member Henry L. Marsh III, D-Richmond, who also heads the VASAP commission.
Sen. John C. Watkins, R-Powhatan, who introduced the measure, has previously said that the 14-member VASAP panel, which includes a half-dozen state legislators, was performing executive branch functions that are outside its authority.
On Monday, Watkins told the commission that problems had arisen between the commission and the individual policy boards that run the 24 ASAP programs on local levels across the state.
In 2009 and again last year, the commission moved to dissolve the policy boards of the Capital Area and John Tyler ASAP programs, fire their executive directors and decertify their programs after they resisted commission demands in how to deal with personnel matters involving the local boards.
"It shouldn't be a legislative body performing those functions," Watkins said.
Marsh said Watkins' bill was proposing a "drastic change" that would affect the 64,000 clients served statewide by VASAP programs.
Some speakers, including an attorney representing the John Tyler board in a lawsuit against the commission, said the legislature should not act on the issue while the matter was still in court. The John Tyler board filed suit in November to stop the state commissioners from taking any actions to interfere with its operations.
The bill would have re-established VASAP under the state's Criminal Justice Services Board, which would then administer and supervise the state system of local ASAP programs.
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