AFP-Virginia is gearing up for the state legislative session beginning in January and we are excited to already announce a huge victory for Virginians!

Historically, the Virginia House of Delegates did not require subcommittees to record delegates’ votes. This allowed delegates to kill thousands of bills without ever being held accountable for their vote. AFP-Virginia set out to change this by starting a petition and asking members to call and write their delegates to demand change. Our efforts were publicly noticed:

From The Washington Post (December 8, 2008):

For years, House Republicans leaders have been under pressure from House Democrats to change the rules so that all subcommittee votes are recorded…
Currently, many bills are killed in subcommittees on unrecorded voice votes, which makes it difficult to track a member's position on controversial legislation.
Ben Marchi, state director for Americans for Prosperity, an anti-tax group, delivered a petition of more than 300 signatures to House GOP leaders this morning calling on them to record all subcommittee votes. Marchi, who said the signatures were gathered at the recent GOP retreat at The Homestead resort, called it a "transparency issue" so taxpayers know how their money is being spent.
"It is not a partisan issue," Marchi said. "It's a good government issue and government operates best when it operates openly."

By calling and writing our legislators, we continued to turn the tide on this issue.

From The Virginian-Pilot (December 10, 2008):

Leading the effort to change the rule is the group Americans for Prosperity.
"Delegates need to remember who voted them into the office... and that their first job is to report back to us, not to make important decisions behind closed doors," Ben Marchi, the group's state director, said Tuesday.

From The Richmond Times-Dispatch (December 10, 2008):

The conservative group Americans for Prosperity is urging leaders of the Republican-controlled House of Delegates to record subcommittee votes for the sake of transparency.
"Open government is good no matter what party you're in," said Ben Marchi, the group's state director, who has a petition signed by 300 Republicans urging the change.
"Especially in this information age today, there's no reason why we can't get this to the public in an efficient manner that doesn't cost a lot of money.”

From Daily Progress:

A new voice protesting such proceedings was heard last week from the conservative group Americans for Prosperity. Conservatives normally would be assumed to be ideologically aligned with the Republican Party. But in this case, the group urged leaders of the GOP-controlled House to start recording subcommittee votes. Some 300 Republicans signed a petition urging so, said the organization’s state director.
“Especially in this information age today, there’s no reason why we can’t get this to the public in an efficient manner that doesn’t cost a lot of money,” said Ben Marchi.
This is a great way to end the year and get ready to start the legislative session that will start in January.

These stories were followed by editorials endorsing our fight for transparency in The News & Advance, The Roanoke Times, and The Richmond Times-Dispatch.

On Sunday, December 14th, AFP-VA State Director Ben Marchi had a column published in The Richmond Times-Dispatch, and by the end of that day, the House Republican Caucus decided to voted unanimously in favor of transparency, allowing delegate vote in subcommittees to be recorded and displayed on the Internet.