Business Development Caucus begins drafting legislation for 2015 session

Members of The General Assembly’s Business Development Caucus (BDC) met at the Capitol on Monday to review 70+ recommendations from 165 Virginia businesses for the 2015 legislative session.  By the end of the day they had narrowed their focus to 17.
 
This is the third year that the bipartisan group has ventured to localities across the state to meet with business leaders, asking their ideas for improving Virginia’s business climate.

Its 2014 summer series of Business Town Hall meetings included venues in Virginia Beach, Yorktown, Christiansburg, Martinsville, and Chantilly and were attended by representatives of 165 businesses of varying size. 

A total of 13 Republican and Democratic legislators from the House and Senate attended the events as did representatives from the Virginia Chamber of Commerce and the National Federation of Independent Business.  Mayors, college presidents, and local chambers also participated.

Participants were asked to identify specific changes to Virginia law that would help their company, their industry, or their region foster economic growth and create jobs. 

Following its final town hall event last week, BDC members convened in Richmond to identify systemic concerns as well as discrete issues that might affect specific industries only. 

“Keeping Virginia the best place to do business and thus creating jobs for our citizens remains to be one of my top priorities”, said David Ramadan (R- 87th District), BDC’s co-founder & co-chairman.

The 17 legislative prospects to come out of Monday’s meeting cover topics including VEC reform, ABC law, VDOT signage, BPOL reform, Virginia Business One Stop, state procurement, and clean energy among others.  The subjects were divided among members for further research where necessary and to begin drafting legislation. 

Once completed, the final drafts along with members’ other pro-business proposals will be considered as the BDC prepares its 2015 legislative agenda package.  Some of these initiatives may also be considered for inclusion in the VA Chamber’s legislative agenda.

The Business Development Caucus was founded in 2012 by four business owner-legislators with a mission to introduce and shepherd legislation that promotes entrepreneurship and job growth in the Commonwealth.  Today it has 27 members representing both parties from all regions of the state.

  In the last three summers, the BDC has met with over 400 businesses at town hall style events in 15 different localities. It has carried a total of 29 bills in the last two sessions many of which have been signed into law, a news release said.