RPD chief at Va. Capitol to address crime at Richmond motels

http://wric.com/2017/07/12/rpd-chief-at-va-capitol-to-address-crime-at-richmond-motels/

By Evanne Armour
Published: July 12, 2017, 7:45 pm

RICHMOND, Va. (WRIC) — Police are getting too many calls to motels running rampant with crime. Now, they are trying to team up with lawmakers to help crack down on the problem.

On Wednesday, Richmond Police Chief Alfred Durham attended a Virginia Housing Commission meeting at the State Capitol. He spoke before the Neighborhood Transitions and Residential Land Use Workgroup.

He told them too much of his force is drained responding to motels that have become a hotbed for drugs and prostitution.

“What that means is there are community members that are calling 9-1-1 and there are no officers to respond,” said Durham.

Durham said it’s a problem seen in other parts of the commonwealth, too.

Richmond Inn on Midlothian Turnpike is the motel with the most calls for service in the capital city. In 2015 there were 536. In 2016 there were 483. So far this year, it’s on track to reach about 500 total again.

“These are not the folks that are going on websites and looking for hotel stays or motel stays,” said Durham. “These are local folks that come up and set up shop in these hotels.”

One woman who identified herself as a former prostitute and drug addict said something needs to be done.

“It’s a tragedy. I’m completely blessed to have made it out alive,” she told the workgroup. “The penalties definitely need to increase on the hotels. They encourage and enable the activity to continue.”

Police proposed creating legislation that would allow for localities to fine the properties for excessive calls for service, similar to false fire alarms.

But during the meeting, concerns were expressed about potential fair housing violations. They also discussed the possibility of a limit discouraging people from calling when they actually need help.

Instead, they are taking a closer look at what’s already on the books to see what they can expand or rework to target the problem.

“If we already have statutes or laws on the books that can assist us in that, we’re definitely going to accept anything they’re going to recommend,” said Durham.

Durham said the workgroup is collaboratively drafting legislation to be introduced during the next General Assembly session.

Richmond's mayoral dropouts inspire change to Virginia election law

• By GRAHAM MOOMAW Richmond Times-Dispatch
• Mar 21, 2017

Gov. Terry McAuliffe signed legislation this month that lays out a formal procedure for how local election officials handle candidates withdrawing from an election after it’s too late to have their names removed from the ballot.

Three of the eight candidates who qualified for the mayoral ballot pulled out of the race after the ballots had been printed.

“That was unprecedented,” said Richmond Registrar J. Kirk Showalter. “But then we’ve never had quite as many candidates for mayor either.”

The biggest eleventh-hour turn of events was former city councilman Jon Baliles’ decision to drop out of the race the week before the election and endorse the eventual victor, Mayor Levar Stoney, three days before Election Day. Bobby “BJ” Junes, a retired real estate consultant, dropped out of the race on Nov. 4. Former city councilman Bruce Tyler withdrew in late September.

Not all of the mayoral dropouts submitted official paperwork that would have allowed local registrars to post public notices announcing the full list of withdrawn candidates. Junes filed a formal notice well in advance of the election, and Baliles filed notice in the final hours of the campaign.

House Bill 1933, sponsored by Del. Betsy B. Carr, D-Richmond, specifies that if there’s not enough time to delete a candidate from the ballot, registrars must post a list of withdrawn candidates in every polling place and on local government websites. The revised law specifies that to be on the list, a candidate must file official notice rather than a press release or other public statement.

“Before, some assumed that just because they said it in the newspaper that we could act on that information,” Showalter said.

Carr said the idea for the bill came from a constituent concerned about people being “confused” by the mayor’s race.

“It’s simple. It’s basic,” Carr said. “And it’s a beginning step in the right direction so we have that process laid out.”

The bill passed the General Assembly by a wide margin. The House of Delegates approved it 92-5. The Senate vote was unanimous.

The amended law takes effect July 1.

Virginia House panel defeats bill to shield overdose victims from prosecution

By: K. BURNELL EVANS; Richmond Times-Dispatch

A proposal that would have shielded overdose victims from criminal prosecution when someone sought medical help to save them was struck down Wednesday in a House subcommittee over fears the move could enable drug use.

The vote to kill the bill from Del. Betsy B. Carr, D-Richmond, followed a revision made at the request of Republican delegates not swayed by emotional testimony on Monday from a father who said the measure would save the lives of people such as his son.

Ted Henifin told the House Courts of Justice Criminal subcommittee that police charged his son with a felony the first time his wife summoned emergency help after finding him unresponsive in a garage. When it happened again last October, the couple made a difficult choice, and spent the longest night of their lives watching their son to make sure he was still breathing.

“I don’t think we would (call police) again,” said Henifin, of Hampton. “The complications of the legal system … just really, really make helping support recovery ... much more challenging.”

The bill would have added to protections already in place to protect those who report overdoses from being prosecuted. Neither measure prevents police or a commonwealth’s attorney from bringing charges, but instead provides what is known as an affirmative defense against prosecution.

Del. C. Todd Gilbert, R-Shenandoah, said Wednesday that although he was sympathetic to Carr’s intent, the bill, taken alongside bids to establish safe needle exchanges and expand access to medicine that reverses drug overdoses, went too far.

“I’m starting to feel like we’re doing everything we can to encourage it to continue,” he said, of substance abuse. “I just think cumulatively we are setting ourselves up for a big failure here.”

Supporters of Carr’s proposal flooded the meeting on Monday to encourage lawmakers not to perpetuate the view of drug abuse as a moral failing, but as a disease in need of treatment that cannot be provided through the criminal justice system.

Among them was John Shinholser, president of the Richmond area McShin recovery organization, who decried Wednesday’s vote as a hate crime that would result in deaths.

When Shinholser asked the crowd on Monday whether they would rather die or go to jail, more than a dozen people who came to lobby in support of the bill raised their hands.

“I personally probably go to 30 or 40 overdose funerals a year,” he said. “By criminalizing these cases, it’s a big hurdle for those seeking help.”

He found support in Capt. Michael Zohab of the Richmond Police Department, who oversees narcotics, and Richmond Commonwealth’s Attorney Michael Herring.

“I think it makes a lot of sense,” Herring said in an interview. “If someone is able to get to the phone and report that they need help they shouldn’t have to be thinking, ‘Will I get in trouble?’ “

The proposal would not apply in instances where a search warrant was being issued or protect an overdose victim from prosecution for crimes unrelated to an overdose.

Herring said he knew of occasions in which people had faced drug-related charges after an overdose in the city of Richmond, which has seen opioid-related fatalities triple between 2010 and 2015.

“I have heard and been involved in conversations with lawyers here who say the current statute is broken and needs to be fixed,” Herring said.

The number of people in Richmond who survived overdosing on heroin alone has increased nearly 300 percent in the past three years — from 88 in 2014 to 343 during the entirety of 2016, according to police.

The city is not alone. Virginia’s public health commissioner declared a state of emergency in November over the ballooning opioid crisis.

State health officials have projected that more than 1,250 people in Virginia will be found to have died of a drug overdose in 2016. Drug overdoses surpassed car crashes as the leading cause of unnatural deaths in 2013, and the numbers have only increased, thanks in large part to a surge in opioid abuse.

Those statistics did not persuade lawmakers to adopt what proponents argued is a public health response to a public health issue.

“We’ve been up here reflecting on this and I am sympathetic to the notion that we want to save lives,” Gilbert said. “I believe in being proactive about trying to solve problems and I believe in unintended consequences.”

Getting people out of poverty, into the work force is focus of state budget proposal

By: Michael Martz; Richmond Times-Dispatch

Kiocia Wilkerson leaves for work on a GRTC bus each weekday morning at 7:17, seven minutes after loading her two children onto Richmond public school buses.

About 58 minutes later, after changing buses once, she arrives for work at the Maymont Preschool Learning Center, next to Amelia Street School where her autistic son, who will turn 5 next week, is a student.

This daily routine represents the beginnings of a transformed life for Wilkerson, a 27-year-old single mother in one of Richmond’s public housing projects. Her family is one of 18 public housing households in BLISS, or Building Lives to Independence and Self-Sufficiency, a new program under Mayor Dwight C. Jones’ ambitious anti-poverty initiative that wraps services around poor families looking for a way out.

“I actually have someone to call now,” Wilkerson said. “They actually help me work through my struggles, my barriers. They help me identify my barriers.”

The program, run by the city’s Office of Community Wealth Building, is an example of a comprehensive approach that other Virginia communities with high concentrations of poverty hope to emulate.

It also reflects a different way of looking at economic development for areas that are trying to foster a workforce with the skills for jobs in emerging industries.

“The whole idea of economic development is being re-thought,” said Jones, who attended a symposium conducted by The Aspen Institute in Washington last month on the theme “Can Inclusive Economic Development Build Better Jobs and a Stronger Regional Economy?”

“It’s not just about attracting businesses and creating jobs, but making sure that communities are prepared for the new businesses and jobs when they come,” said the mayor, who served in the House of Delegates for 15 years.

***

Virginia First Cities, representing Richmond and a dozen other urban areas plagued by high poverty rates, is seeking $11 million in funding from the pending biennial state budget to expand anti-poverty initiatives to bring people into the workforce.

“We have to figure out a way to lift more people out of poverty at a faster rate than people are falling into poverty,” said Thad Williamson, who has taken leave from his job as an associate professor at the University of Richmond to serve as the first director of the city’s Office of Community Wealth Building.

The challenge is particularly acute in Richmond, which a Harvard University study last year ranked as 48th-worst in the country out of almost 2,500 localities for the ability of children to advance into well-paying jobs.

Last month, The Commonwealth Institute for Fiscal Analysis created a disquieting map, based on newly released census data, that documented a 27 percent increase in the number of children living in neighborhoods with poverty rates above 40 percent from 2010 through 2014, compared with the previous five-year period.

In Richmond, 24 percent of children live in neighborhoods with poverty rates above 40 percent, and 64 percent live in areas where poverty is 20 percent or higher.

The dynamic is similar but less severe in other old cities, such as Portsmouth and Norfolk, while many rural localities also have children living in neighborhoods with a high level of poverty.

A rate of 40 percent or higher is considered an area of concentrated poverty, while 20 percent is the threshold for high poverty.

“We can’t ignore the fact that this poses a real challenge to our economic future,” said Michael J. Cassidy, president and CEO of The Commonwealth Institute and a member of the mayor’s anti-poverty commission.

Cassidy and other advocates say the concentration of poverty — and the many barriers to escaping it — should be addressed by the General Assembly as part of a fast-moving economic development initiative called the Virginia Growth and Opportunity Act, or GO Virginia.

The legislation, which has passed both chambers of the assembly and could be backed by as much as $39 million in new state incentives, would establish a state framework for economic development projects created by regional collaboration.

“Poverty eradication should be part of GO Virginia,” said Kelly Harris-Braxton, executive director of Virginia First Cities.

In the Richmond area, efforts to lift people out of poverty are part of a regional effort to prepare the workforce to fill the jobs needed by industries seeking to grow here.

“Something has to be done to draw these people and their families back into the economy,” said Kelly Chopus, executive director of the Robins Foundation and a member of the organizing council for the Capital Region Collaborative, a joint effort by the Greater Richmond Chamber and the Richmond Regional Planning District Commission.

Her foundation has been part of Richmond’s community wealth-building effort, including educational initiatives that begin with early childhood. “We see this as the perfect opportunity for public-private partnership,” she said.

James J. Regimbal Jr., a fiscal consultant for Virginia First Cities, said the message behind the budget amendment is that government, private industry and nonprofit partners have to work together to address the various barriers to escaping poverty — jobs and training, education and child care, transportation and housing.

“You have to do it almost on a family-by-family level to get it to work,” Regimbal said.

***

Kiocia Wilkerson does not hesitate when asked her specific goals for lifting her family out of poverty.

“No. 1, get out of here,” she said of Fairfield Court, where she has lived since just before the birth of her daughter eight years ago.

Her next goal is graduating from Reynolds Community College, where she is studying for an associate’s degree in human services. She began taking classes there in 2009, studying to become a hospital lab technician, but pulled out in 2013 after her son was diagnosed with autism.

Wilkerson’s third goal is to improve the opportunities for her children’s education. “I just want the best schools for my children,” she said, citing her dissatisfaction with the overcrowded classrooms at Fairfield Elementary School, which her daughter attends.

These goals seemed out of reach before she was referred to the BLISS program in August by the director of a parenting program run by the Richmond Public Library.

“She was a real shy, closed-in young lady,” said Sandee Smith, coordinator of the program, which currently helps about 70 people in 18 households in the seven public housing communities managed by Richmond Redevelopment and Housing Authority. “Out of all this, this young lady has done tremendously well.”

At the time, Wilkerson was struggling with a grocery job, offered few hours because of conflicts with her responsibilities as a parent. She grew up in a single-parent home in Richmond, so she knows what children miss when that parent isn’t available for them. “I had to grow up early,” she said.

Once in the program, she found the job at Maymont — five hours a day, five days a week — through interviews at the city’s Center for Workforce Innovation. The program gave her money for bus fare to get to and from work through her second paycheck.

“We needed to get working a steady amount of hours a week,” said Smith, who added that Wilkerson still is working limited hours at the grocery store.

BLISS, through a partnership with Virginia State University, helped Wilkerson return to Reynolds and redirect her studies to human services. It connected her to advocacy and support groups for parents of autistic children. It helped her communicate more effectively with Fairfield Elementary School over her concerns about her daughter’s education.

“What we do is we try to empower our families,” Smith said.

Before enrolling in the program, Wilkerson said, “I was just ready to give up on going back to school. I was ready to give up on trying to fight for my job. I was going to end up in a hard place, but could it be worse?”

“I was going through anxiety, depression,” she said. “I was alone.” Having help to meet her family’s needs and refocus her goals, she said, “It’s really picked up my motivation seriously.”

The problem for Richmond and similar communities is replicating that kind of success on a larger scale.

“The challenge is scaling it beyond one mother and her individual family to dozens of families in that particular community,” Chopus said.

Richmond is footing the entire bill for the community wealth-building initiative — $3.6 million in the current budget, Jones said. “But it doesn’t even begin to address our needs.”

The pending budget amendment — proposed by Del. Betsy B. Carr, D-Richmond, and Sen. L. Louise Lucas, D-Portsmouth — seeks $1 million in the first year to establish offices of community wealth-building and $10 million in the second year to help fund the programs, with no more than 20 percent of available money going to any one locality.

Virginia First Cities has the ear of key members of the General Assembly budget committees but no commitment for money.

“It certainly sounds like something that deserves a real close look,” said Del. John M. O’Bannon III, R-Henrico. “The challenge is going to be finding the money.”

Richmond Region Delegation and the House Appropriations Committee

By: Michael Martz; Richmond-Times Dispatch - June 13, 2015

The region’s clout is secure in the House, where O’Bannon sits on the Appropriations Committee and serves as a member of the conference committee that negotiates a final budget with the Senate.

House Majority Leader M. Kirkland Cox, R-Colonial Heights, also is a senior member of the Appropriations and Rules committees. Four other delegates from the region sit on the money panel: Riley E. Ingram, R-Hopewell; Christopher K. Peace, R-Hanover; Jimmie Massie, R-Henrico; and Betsy B. Carr, D-Richmond.

Last week’s primary elections might have created an opportunity for Carr, who won her own race against challenger Preston Brown and could become a House budget conferee with the defeat of Del. Johnny S. Joannou, D-Portsmouth. Joannou has served as the only House Democrat on the conference committee.

“Betsy is kind of a worker bee, not a show horse,” O’Bannon said.

House Appropriations Chairman S. Chris Jones, R-Suffolk, said, “She’s very studious and works hard to understand the complex issues.”

Another House Democrat from the region with some influence is Del. Jennifer L. McClellan, D-Richmond, who serves on the House Education, Courts and Commerce committees.

Loupassi, as chairman of the Courts subcommittee that oversees judicial appointments, works closely with McEachin on potential candidates for judgeships in the Richmond area.

A former president of Richmond’s City Council, Loupassi also has not been afraid to take on politically difficult regional issues, most notably his legislation to equalize representation on what is now called the Richmond Metropolitan Transportation Authority. The bill passed last year after three tries.

“I would like to do some things longer term that will reflect positively on all of us,” he said.

That regional role in the assembly has been played most consistently by Watkins, who commands bipartisan respect in the area.

“John is the kind of leader that you are thinking about when you describe great leaders,” said former Richmond City Council President William J. Pantele, a Democrat.

Pantele said the region will miss Stosch and Watkins “not just as a matter of their influence over legislation — it’s the wisdom, it’s the getting the big picture.”

Stosch waves off the worries, having seen many legislative titans come and go, including Sen. Edward E. Willey, a longtime Finance chairman from Richmond who exerted legendary influence for the city and region.

“Perhaps we will be missed,” Stosch said, “but the truth is you won’t notice.”

Cricket offers community, reminder of home

Posted: Monday, September 15, 2014 11:38 am

By LAURA KEBEDE Richmond Times-Dispatch

http://www.richmond.com/entertainment/article_b532921e-a157-52b0-87a7-180f12b488e7.html

Wicketkeeper Haroon Pasha ousts batsman Raj Shekhar. In cricket, there are two bases marked by wickets, or wooden poles.

Cheering for both teams in a cricket match is a common practice for Kuppili Bharani.

He walks across the field to the other set of bleachers when two of the area’s eight teams switch fielding because the sport, though highly competitive, is about community.

“Every team I have friends,” he said during a recent game at the cricket field behind Holladay Elementary School in Henrico County.

He dishes out advice from his years of playing in India and in Richmond with a passion younger players have come to know and love.

If Bharani is the area’s cheerleader, Zulfi Khan is the advocate.

As one of the senior players since the field came into use in 1994, Khan’s name is known by area parks and recreation departments as he seeks improved facilities for the beloved sport of a growing immigrant population in the region. He heralds the game, still relatively unknown in the U.S., as the most family-friendly of all.

“In Pakistan, grandmothers would know the names of the players,” he said. “My mother would not make breakfast if the game is on.”

Richmond’s relationship with cricket dates to the 1700s and rebounded in the 1990s as an organized league. The influx of South Asian immigrants, especially Indians, has helped bolster the sport in the region.

The cricket field behind the school off Staples Mill Road in Henrico is marking 20 years in the county and has planned a special tournament to mark the occasion.

Team members have grown accustomed to explaining the game in comparison to baseball, the sport foreign to them but learned over time from living in the U.S.

In cricket, “pitch” is the infield strip of clay, not the throwing of the ball. That’s “bowling” performed by the bowler. There are two bases marked by wickets, or wooden poles, that if toppled by the bowler or tapped by the wicketkeeper as the batsman runs toward the base, ousts the batsman.

The bats are similar to canoe paddles with longer blades often marked with red lipstick-like stains from the ball. Bowlers hurl the rock-hard balls at upward of 90 mph at batsmen who often daringly wear only shin guards and forgo a helmet for protection.

Mallik Pullela of the Barbarian Cricket Club defended the practice and gladly assumes the risks to up his game. The balls are allowed to bounce before reaching the batsman instead of following a mostly straight line from the pitcher in baseball, making it more difficult to track and hit.

“Helmets skew vision,” he said with a smile as he recovered from a hit that swelled his chin during a game this summer.

***

In the Richmond region, the game has blossomed with the growth of immigrants from India, most notably in Henrico.

The Indian population has nearly quadrupled in Henrico from 2,560 in 2000 to 9,846 in the 2010 census. The jump, Khan says, is mostly thanks to Capital One hiring information technology specialists.

One team in the league, the One Cricket Club, was founded by a Capital One employee and included co-workers until it became clear they would need more teams to accommodate all interested players.

But Richmond-area teams have also included immigrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, New Zealand and Sri Lanka or other former British colonies. Australians and South Africans had a strong showing a few years ago. The Mid-Atlantic Cricket Conference consists of 17 teams from Roanoke to Virginia Beach, Charlottesville and Blacksburg.

Richmond-area teams have reigned as champions of the conference since 2010.

And the sport isn’t lost on Henrico and Chesterfield officials.

“Every person from the groundsmen to the manager knows cricket,” Khan said of Henrico’s Recreation and Parks department.

Neil Luther, the department’s director, said the field has become a cultural and social hub and that more improvements are on the way. The circular fields do not translate well to other sports but require less maintenance than most. Last year, the department installed an additional batting cage with a cement pitch similar to competitor’s fields so teams can practice hitting off a different surface. A department-sponsored program guide for school-age children is in the works with the league.

“We’ve grown and learned a lot (as) they’ve expanded their presence,” he said. “It’s been a great relationship. They’ve been great to work with.”

Chesterfield’s chief of parks planning and construction services, Stuart Connock Jr., said the field at Beulah Elementary School is retro-fitted for cricket use. The county’s parks and recreation master plan is under consideration, and a cricket field has been discussed to meet the growing demand.

The Central Virginia Cricket Association and the Mid-Atlantic Cricket Conference even garnered attention from the General Assembly last year when Del. Betsy B. Carr, D-Richmond, and Sens. A. Donald McEachin, D-Henrico, and Henry L. Marsh III, D-Henrico, commended the organizations for their efforts to promote the sport.

A copy of the resolution is framed in the equipment shed at Holladay Elementary School “as an expression of the General Assembly’s admiration for the cricket leagues of Virginia’s work to encourage growth in local cricket and best wishes for the future,” it says in part.

Virginia Lawmakers Eye Laws to Govern Cell Phone Searches

Both Del. Peter Farrell, a Republican, and Del. Betsy Carr, a Democrat, have filed bills, HB 1274 and HB 1349, to prohibit authorities from searching all electronic devices—cell phones, laptops or tablets—without a warrant. These bills are part of a bigger privacy push that resulted from the creation of the Ben Franklin Privacy Caucus this year. The bipartisan caucus, led by Democratic Sen. Chap Petersen and Republican Del. Richard Anderson, is looking for ways to reform everything from the use of drones to automatic license plate readers by police.

Delegate Carr Particpates in Interview with Moms Clean Air Force

BY MOMS CLEAN AIR FORCE ON NOVEMBER 17, 2014

This is an interview with Betsy Carr, Virginia House of Delegates:

What is unique about protecting Virginia’s resources?

The state of VA is a place of natural beauty — with its the mountains, sea, farms, and forests. With our treasured lands, there is a tradition of valuing the preservation of our environment. There are many environmental groups and interested citizens that are helping to keep VA beautiful. The district is in an urban district with a river running through it and it contains several noted parks. Our constituents care about the river and the environment.

As a parent and grandparent, are you worried about the effects of climate change on your children and the children of Virginia?

I am concerned about climate change. Education and opportunities for children and families to learn about saving and protecting our environment is key. My children helped spur recycling in my home years ago. Our public schools can incorporate initiatives for conservation and towards improving climate change. When children learn green techniques at school, they can carry them home to their families and into the community.

Why is a bipartisan effort so important and how can these efforts be achieved in our politically polarizing culture?

Bipartisan effort is key to accomplishment and success. The environment and conservation is a family value and a human issue; it is important common ground for both conservatives and progressives.

Is there anything you’d like to share that is important for Moms Clean Air Force members to know?

I have been contacted by citizens concerned about non-GMO labeling — they want to know what is in the food they eat, as well as what is in the air they breathe. I am still working on legislative issues for the upcoming session.I am still working on legislative issues for the upcoming session.

House Passes Delegate Carr's Bill on Celebratory Gunfire

STAFF REPORTS | Posted: Wednesday, March 5, 2014 12:00 am

http://www.richmond.com/news/virginia/government-politics/article_bdc8fa10-a408-11e3-8abb-001a4bcf6878.html

The House of Delegates unanimously passed a measure Tuesday that would make celebratory gunfire within 2 miles of any occupied building a Class 6 felony if it causes serious bodily injury resulting in permanent and significant physical impairment of a bystander.

House Bill 810, sponsored by Del. Betsy B. Carr, D-Richmond, is dubbed “Brendon’s Law,” after 7-year-old Brendon Mackey of Chesterfield County. He was killed by a random descending bullet while walking with his father at a fireworks show July 4. The shooter has never been identified.

Last month, the state Senate passed HB 810 by a 27-13. At that point the bill included provisions that would have made it a felony to randomly fire a gun into the air, hitting or killing someone, and a misdemeanor worth up to a year in jail if no one is hurt.

But a House criminal laws subcommittee gutted the proposal, leaving only the Class 6 felony provision intact. The same committee took on an identical measure sponsored by Sen. Henry L. Marsh, III, D-Richmond, conforming it to Carr’s bill.

Liberals, Conservatives Unite on Privacy Legislation

BY JIM NOLAN Richmond Times-Dispatch | Posted: Tuesday, February 25, 2014 12:00 am

http://www.richmond.com/news/state-regional/virginia-politics/general-assembly/liberals-conservatives-unite-on-privacy-legislation/article_02f3fad2-257f-511b-a4f7-be068c6b20f8.html

It’s not often you see some of the most conservative lawmakers in Virginia standing arm in arm with the American Civil Liberties Union.

But the frequent adversaries were allies Monday in their support of House Bill 17. It would add real-time location information broadcast by devices such as cellphones to the list of telecommunications records for which law enforcement officials must first obtain a warrant before collecting.

After being put off several times so all sides could figure out a compromise, the bill cleared the Senate Courts of Justice committee on a 14-1 vote and now heads to the full chamber.

Supporters of the bill say the absence of the requirement in the current law allows law enforcement to gather real-time tracking data on any citizen with little restriction or oversight — and constitutes a threat to the privacy of law-abiding citizens.

Others suggested that when a customer gives, or allows, data to be used by a private third party such as a telecommunications provider, or software application, that there should be no expectation of privacy.

But advocates say giving the data to a private company is one thing; giving it to the government is a different matter.

ACLU Virginia Director Claire Guthrie Gastañaga said the rapid advances in technology have left court rulings on Fourth Amendment issues way behind the times.

“We need better protections for people’s privacy,” she said.

And that’s a theme that resonates with liberals and conservatives alike, including the bill’s sponsors, Dels. Robert G. Marshall, R-Prince William, and Betsy B. Carr, D-Richmond.

“This is a pushback from the left and the right,” said Marshall, a social conservative who presented the bill Monday with the liberal-minded Carr. The pair drew looks as something of a political odd couple.

“Too much policing of that type is destructive to the common social good,” he added.

Marshall said the bill, while not going as far as he would have liked, strikes a balance that preserves space between citizens and the people delegated to achieve order.

“We wanted to make explicit what is implicit (in the Constitution),” he said. “You have a right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure.”

After some negotiation, the bill overcame objections from law enforcement groups. The measure still allows for law enforcement to gather real-time location information without obtaining a warrant in emergencies or with the consent of the customer of the device being tracked.

But supporters said the measure is an important first step in providing a balance between liberty, security and privacy in a digital age.

“I think increasingly everyone is understanding how important privacy is to liberty,” said Gastañaga, referring to the bill’s strange bedfellows.

“Everyone wants liberty with security, but there is no liberty without privacy, and people are starting to get that.”