Code of Virginia - The Virginia Code Commission

The Virginia Code Commission

Originally created in 1946 as the Commission on Code Recodification to prepare what became the Code of 1950, the Virginia Code Commission was made a permanent part of the state's legislative branch and given the responsibility for publishing and maintaining the code. It also has responsibility for publishing the Virginia Administrative Code and Rules of Evidence, as well as Virginia State Bar advisory opinions and Virginia compacts, which it may incorporate into the code. Though the Commission may arrange for the code to be published directly by and at the expense of the Commonwealth of Virginia, since 1950 it has contracted the task of printing the code out to the Michie Company.

The Commission is composed of ten members, chosen by statute from the following:

• Two present members of the Virginia Senate, by the appointment of the Senate Committee on Rules for the length of their elected term
• Two present members of the Virginia House of Delegates appointed by the Speaker of the House for the length of their elected term
• Two former or present Virginia Circuit Court judges, appointed by the governor for four year terms
• One former member of the Senate, appointed by the Senate Committee on Rules to a four year term
• One former member of the House of Delegates, appointed by the Speaker to a four year term
• The Virginia Attorney General (or an assistant Attorney General by his designation)
• The Virginia Director of the Division of Legislative Services

The Commission has full discretion to publish the code with or without annotations, "to fix the number of volumes; and to decide all questions of form, makeup and arrangement, including title pages, prefaces, annotations, indices, tables of contents and reference, appendices, paper, type, binding and lettering."

It also has the independent authority to make minor changes to the code without ratification by the General Assembly. Such changes include correcting "unmistakable printer's errors," misspellings, and erroneous cross-references, and updating obsolete references to renamed code titles, governmental officers and agencies. It may also omit provisions "which, in the judgment of the Commission, are inappropriate in a code, such as emergency clauses, clauses providing for specific nonrecurring appropriations and general repealing clauses."