When Virginia Governors receive a bill from the legislature, they may sign the bill, veto the bill, or send it back to the legislature with suggested changes. When the Governor sends back a bill with suggestions, the legislature has one day to decide whether to accept the recommendation or not. If the legislature takes no action, the bill is enacted anyway; it is not vetoed.

On March 2, the Virginia legislature had passed a bill to help ballot access, effective immediately. HB 1151 says that if new U.S. House district boundaries aren’t in place by the start of the even-numbered election year, petitions are valid that year whether they use the old U.S. House district boundaries or the new boundaries. The bill has an urgency clause so as to take effect immediately.

On April 9, Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell sent the bill back to the legislature with suggested changes. He wants the bill to take effect in 2013, not now. Also he does not want the provisions of the bill to apply to any petition to place minor party or independent presidential candidates on the ballot, now or in the future. The legislature will decide in a one-day session on April 18 whether to pass this recommendation. The session starts at noon and must consider gubernatorial recommendations for approximately 120 bills.

Governor McDonnell’s suggestions for HB 1151 are shockingly unfair. The Libertarian and Green Parties had already started circulating their presidential petitions. Even though neither of these parties have presidential nominees yet, Virginia allows stand-in presidential and vice-presidential candidates, and lets such petitions start circulating on January 1 of a presidential election year. If the legislature accepts the Governor’s recommendations, the petitioning work already completed may be wasted. Virginia requires presidential petitions to include the candidates for presidential elector. Virginia also mandates that the petition carry the name of one candidate for elector from each U.S. House district. No one knew what the new district boundaries would be until March 14, when the U.S. Justice Department approved the new boundaries, so the minor party presidential electors were chosen based on the old districts. The State Board of Elections had been telling candidates to use old boundaries. Of course, petitioning for U.S. House candidates is also threatened by the Governor’s action. It is not known if there are any independent or minor party candidates for U.S. Senate this year, but if there are, and they already started petitioning, they would be injured also. U.S. Senate petitions, like presidential petitions, have a distribution requirement: 400 signatures per U.S. House district.

Virginians concerned about the Governor’s hostile recommendation ought to quickly communicate with their state legislators, asking the legislature not to accept Governor McDonnell’s recommendations to HB 1151. The Governor’s action was intrinsically hurtful, and it was also hurtful for him to wait until the very last day to send in a recommendation. The action was not posted on the legislature’s web page until the afternoon of April 10.