Subcommittee approves misdemeanor for impersonating local elected officials

Delegate Hodges told the subcommittee HB 1150 responds to incidents in his district where private citizens posed as elected officials to obtain access or information. The bill would apply to local town, city or county elected officials and would make impersonation a class 1 misdemeanor when done to misrepresent the authority of an elected official.

Vivian Cisse, county administrator and county attorney for King and Queen County, described an incident in which someone gained access to an active solar construction site by posing as a board member and said the locality supports legislative remedies; she and other local officials asked that language clearly capture intentional misrepresentation. Committee members discussed adding or clarifying a mens rea standard; members agreed to a friendly amendment to require an intentional standard across the relevant subsections. The bill, as friendly amended, was recommended to report 8–0.

The record shows the bill is limited to local elected officials and that fiscal impact was described as likely small or rare; the motion to report was adopted with the friendly amendment.