Legislators in Richmond kept alive a bill expanding the use of automated license plate readers on Virginia’s roadways Monday. Despite an earlier vote killing it, the bill will now face new negotiations.
Controversial may be an understatement. A new effort to allow expanded use of automated license plate readers, or ALPRs, was killed in a Senate committee Monday morning,
“It had guardrails which I think is good," Senator Bill Stanley told Radio IQ. "But it expanded police powers to the point where we’re really not a private society anymore.”
The Southside Republican senator was among the majority of committee members who voted against Delegate Charniele Herring’s bill that would have expanded the use of ALPRs.
The devices allow authorities to track license plates and therefore drivers and the bill would have allowed them to be placed on public right of ways. And while Stanley worried about a future police state, Herring said those fears are already here and her effort would have added protections for the public.
“They exist. They’re there. It may not be on the right of way but it's certainly on the property connected," Herring told Radio IQ. "I’m trying to bring light, and make sure everyone knows where they are, and we can collect the data. Now we’re in the dark.”
And despite a nine to six committee vote against the bill, normally killing it for the session, a second vote to revise that tally and bring the bill back passed unanimously.
In a text message, committee chair Scott Surovell said it was brought back to give folks more time to work on the effort.
But any changes might not be enough for Stanley:
“Is there a version of this bill that you like?” I asked him outside the committee hearing.
“Yeah, a full ban," he replied. "I think we should not be doing this.”
The bill should get another hearing in the next week.
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.
