Week 5: Lots of drama!

Everyone in the General Assembly is showing signs they’re feeling the stress of the disturbing and destructive events going on across the river in DC. There were lots of heated floor speeches, and even some of the usual House v Senate battles; it will be interesting to see if they can come together to agree on a budget before session ends, or will need to return for a special session.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK,  Delegate Simon on the House floor takes point of personal privilege to say “I just want to be really clear, 22 other state attorney generals filed lawsuits that said ‘this [cut to research funding] is illegal, you can’t do it, you’ve exceeded your authority, and they won…Between 2020 and 2024, NIH type grants were over $200 million dollars to Virginia research centers…All the Attorney General had to do was join the suit. He didn’t have to do any work, didn’t have to do any research didn’t have to write the briefs. Because everybody who joined the suit won. And those states are getting hundreds of millions of dollars that Virginia is losing out on.”

Struggling with how much gambling to allow:

  • SB982 that would have allowed Fairfax County to put up a referendum on a new casino and entertainment complex after passing in the Senate stumbled in the House. First it was assigned to the General Laws committee, and then was re-referred to a special Appropriations subcommittee. There, it was “taken by for the day” on an unrecorded voice vote. But that was the last meeting of the session for that subcommittee, so it seems dead for the session. However, it could still be stuck in the budget, so stay tuned.
  • For several years, there has been a bipartisan effort to create a statewide Gaming Commission that could coordinate the current hodgepodge of forms of gambling allowed in the Commonwealth. That effort resulted in HB2498 and Senate cognate SB1287, both of which were left in their respective Appropriations committees without hearings.

Successful Senate bills killed in the House:

  • This bill to require localities to create a registry of cemeteries on private property, which passed the Senate on a party-line vote, was reported out of a House committee with bipartisan support and onto the floor, only to be suddenly re-referred to the Rules committee.
  • This affordable dwelling unit bill (which has a House cognate) passed the Senate unanimously, and reported unanimously to the floor from a House committee, where it was also suddenly whisked away to Rules. A similar fate befell this bill on tiny home zoning by the same patron.
  • Two gun safety bills also reported out of House committees to the floor and were re-referred to Rules: this one to further define trigger activators, and this one to close the boyfriend loophole for firearm transfers.

The budget:

  • HB1600, which includes the House’s amendments to the Governor’s introduced budget, passed the House floor on a 79-18 vote. 
  • The Senate Finance Committee adopted its own amendments to the Governor’s introduced budget as a substitute to the House bill and reported it to the Senate floor, where it passed on a 37-2 vote. 
  • Per the usual protocol, the House rejected the Senate changes, the Senate “insisted” on its changes, and asked for a committee of conference to come to a joint agreement that both House and Senate will agree to.
  • The conference committee who will thus negotiate the budget consists of Senators Lucas, Deeds, Locke, McDougle and Pillion; and Delegates Torian, Sickles, Bulova, Carr, Austin and Bloxom.

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Week Four: Crossed Over!

After some very long floor sessions in both the House and the Senate, crossover was reached–for the rest of session, each chamber will only consider bills that originated in the other chamber. Racing toward the end of this short session!

QUOTE OF THE WEEK,  Delegate Callsen on the House floor for Black History Month: “Study after study shows that race matters in the criminal justice system…political rhetoric steeped in fear and not fact has been used to justify what is by definition an unjust system…Mr. Speaker, my hope with this speech is to remind everyone in this chamber that the history of our justice system is both Black history, and also current events. And any of us in this room who are in a seat of power should be analyzing policies not with a campaign lens, not only with a personal lens, but with a lens of what is just, fair, and aligned with truth and fact.”

Left behind in the dust:

  • The House occasionally dockets bills to subcommittees that never then see the light of day. Here are a few bills that were left unvoted on in the House:
    • HB1865, the Access to Justice Act, which would have ensured a public defender’s office in every jurisdiction as well as an appellate defender office, made it out of Courts of Justice, only to die a quiet death in Appropriations without a vote. (It was expected to cost nearly $90 million.)
    • HB2607, prohibiting campaign contributions from public utilities, was left without a vote in House Privileges and Elections committee.
    • The House Education committee has endured listening to this bill to require students to pass the US Naturalization Test to graduate several years in a row. This year, they didn’t even docket it.
    • House Finance left behind without a vote a bill to impose a $5 tax on firearms purchases.
    • House Courts of Justice did not docket for discussion a bill to “clarify” that terminating a nonviable pregnancy isn’t a crime. Which, of course, wouldn’t be needed if we didn’t ever criminalize people and their doctors for private healthcare choices.
  • The Senate typically dockets all the bills that are filed. However, it’s not unusual (in either chamber) for bills to get suddenly re-referred back to committee from the floor when there are no more committee meetings, effectively killing the bill.
    • On the day of crossover, two campaign finance bills were re-committed back to committee: SB1050 prohibiting campaign contributions from corporations, and SB1469 restricting the dollar amount of all campaign contributions.
    • Additionally, the Senate recommitted SB1190 that created a consortium to assist localities in setting and achieving clean energy goals, and barred restrictive ordinances that limit solar.

Some interesting resolutions that crossed over:

  • HJ440 and SJ251, to have the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission (JLARC) study what books are being banned in what schools, why, and at whose request.
  • SJ255 to have JLARC study Virginia’s campaign finance laws (mostly with an eye to whether they are clear and transparent and enforceable).
  • HJ446 to designate the first full week of September as Zero Waste Awareness week.
  • HJ447 to have the Commission to End Hunger create a statewide food desert mapping system for Virginia.
  • SJ269 to designate March as Persian Heritage Month.
  • SJ253 and HJ443 to have JLARC study the potential impact of moving Virginia’s elections onto an even-year only schedule.

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Week 3: Crossover is coming up!

Week 3: Crossover is coming up!

The Senate and the House (mostly?) completed committee work on their own chambers’ bills; just floor votes (a LOT) remain before crossover next week. In fact, both sides are doing a little finagling to get all three constitutional readings in on a few bills before the deadline.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK, Senator Carroll Foy, asking Sen Peake about his latest attempt to repeal the bail reforms made in 2020: The Governor and Attorney General Miyares had a press conference surrounded by law enforcement and they said that crime in Virginia was down 11% and we had one of the lowest recidivism rates in the country…In 2020 we had a criminal justice reform omnibus package…and I would attest that us having one of the lowest recidivism rates and the reason for crime being down is because we got rid of some of these unfair presumptions, a lot of the mandatory minimums, and a lot of the things that people tout as tough on crime, which is actually ineffective, because we are actually improving public safety. 

How environmental bills fared:

  • A handful of bills to increase the amount of solar energy being created have passed out of committees. HB2037 allows localities to require solar parking lot canopies in new development; HB2090 encourages multi-family shared solar; SB1040 and HB1883 encourage the generation of rooftop solar to meet Dominion’s RPS.
  • A bill from the Commission on Electric Utility Regulation that would create a Clean Energy Technical Assistance Program (a research consortium of the universities) to guide and assist localities in how to create policies to meet clean energy goals seems to have hit a major bump in the road–the Senate version is waiting for a floor vote, but the House cognate has died in subcommittee.
  • A bill to require the utility companies to pilot a virtual power plant (where a network of small-scale distributed energy sources like rooftop solar function together as a remotely-controlled and coordinated power plant) passed the Senate; its House cognate is up for a floor vote.
  • Bills to increase the target energy storage capacity of utilities passed the Senate and are due for a House vote.

Those newfangled technologies bills:

  • House and Senate easily passed bills to expand defamation and slander “words” to include synthetic digital media, such as AI-generated deep fakes.
  • A bill creating a civil cause of action for the unauthorized use of someone’s voice or visual likeness passed the House and goes over to the Senate.
  • Neither the House Housing and Consumer Protections subcommittee nor the Senate General Laws committee was ready to ban algorithmic pricing tools in real estate transactions (used to fix collusive rental prices).
  • The bill to regulate decentralized autonomous organizations (organizations that function like a bank, but are run by computer, using blockchain technology, i.e. crypto co-operatives) passed the House easily and moves on to the Senate.

Oldies but goodies/baddies:

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Week 2: What’s Up at the General Assembly

Week 2: What’s Up at the General Assembly
Senate and House committees and subcommittees reported bills to the floor, many of which will be sure to be vetoed by Gov Youngkin. But importantly, he does not get to sign or veto the three Constitutional amendment resolutions–on abortion rights, marriage equality, and voting rights restoration–which have now passed through both chambers (but still need to “cross-over”).

QUOTE OF THE WEEK, Senate Majority Leader, Scott Surovell, speaking to SJ247 reproductive healthcare constitutional amendment resolution, until he was cut off by LG Sears, who was angry that he impugned the reputation of Mitch McConnell: “Roe v. Wade existed in this country since I was about one year old, in 1973 in January. Roe v. Wade lived in happy harmony with the parental consent laws until it was abolished by the US Supreme Court in Dobbs, after Mitch McConnell stole the Supreme Court pick and another guy got on after a background check that never really got fully–” 

A few bills passing the House so far:

  • HB1699, eliminating the tax exemption for Confederacy organizations (United Daughters of the Confederacy, i.e.) passed on a 53-42 (barely) bipartisan vote.
  • HB1601 makes localities require a site assessment (of noise, energy and water usage, landmarks nearby, etc.) before allowing a data center. It passed the House 57-40.
  • HB1775 restricts the adultery grounds for divorce to only adultery occurring prior to the couple separating; also allows a “divorce from bed and board” without a waiting period upon application for anyone intending to live apart permanently. The bill passed 59-38.
  • HB1716 gives Gov Youngkin another chance to show that the GOP is not anti-birth control after he vetoed this bill last year. Unfortunately, only two GOP Delegates voted for it (losing Del Bloxom from last year).
  • (Not enough) bipartisan support for HB1678 to have school boards adopt a parental notice regarding safe storage of drugs and firearms to distribute at the beginning of every school year.

Some bills passing the Senate so far:

  • SB754 prevents obtaining, selling or disseminating personal menstrual health data under the Consumer Protection Act. It passed on a party-line vote, with Big Government-loving GOP senators all voting against privacy. 
  • SB778, preventing a child younger than 11 who has committed a delinquent act from being arrested, charged, going through the criminal justice system, instead getting them social services help, passed on a party-line vote.
  • SB805 increases rates of child support to partially address the effects of inflation. It included an enactment clause to study how to help those with overdue arrearages get caught up. It passed 32-7 with bipartisan support.
  • SB853 requiring utilities pay prevailing wage rates and prioritize hiring apprentices in building new renewable energy facilities, passed on a party-line vote.
  • SB1145 passed unanimously, making GPS-providing companies a party to a civil trespassing action against an individual driving on a private road, with the action being dismissed upon showing the private road has been removed from the GPS system.
  • SB1255 requires a specific reason for using restraints on a juvenile in court (currently some jurisdictions use them in all instances, even when no danger or flight risk). It passed the Senate unanimously.

Things to keep an eye on:

  • HB1656, prohibiting K-12 schools from recruiting (either with gifts/compensation or by designating the student as homeless) students from out of the district to play sports, is up for a floor vote this week.
  • SB1356, preventing financial institutions from charging electronic transfer fees and landlords from charging transaction or processing fees, is up for a vote on the Senate floor this week.
  • HB1941 and SB1166 would require retail signage designating plants for sale that are invasive species. This bill was vetoed last year, and changes have been made accordingly. Floor vote this week.
  • The Medical Debt Protection Act, HB1725, which prohibits large medical facilities from charging interest or initiating collections on medical debt, and requires them to set up payment plans, was reported to the floor on a party-line vote, with the GOP supporting Virginians facing impossible medical debt.
  • The Senate floor will be voting on numerous gun bills this week, including SB848 (age requirement for purchase), SB880 (restricts carrying assault weapons in public places), SB881 (banning ghost guns), SB891 (five day waiting period), and SB1134 (safe storage of firearms where minors present).

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Week One: Kicking off 2025!

Week One: Kicking off 2025!
After a delay of a few days due to a water crisis in Richmond, the General Assembly 2025 session kicked off on Monday. While committee work was just getting started, the constitutional amendment resolutions were ready to go to the floor in the House, and all three passed!

QUOTE OF THE WEEK, Delegate Cia Price, speaking on the GOP’s heavy Bible quoting re: abortion, forgotten when it comes to forgiveness and second chances in voting after a felony: “Here’s the hypocrisy from HJ1 to HJ2. It is really hard to remain consistent with one’s religious tenets while trying to deny a second chance to someone who has already served their time…as a woman of faith, I’m just gobsmacked at the way that we in five to ten minutes forget the book that we just stood on and then just magically it’s not part of this conversation.”

The Constitutional Amendments:

  • HJ1 would write the abortion provisions that were guaranteed by Roe v. Wade (prior to its overturning in the recent Dobbs decision) into Virginia’s Constitution. It passed the House this week on a party-line vote, and its Senate cognate HJ247 will be up for a floor vote next week.
  • HJ2 affirms a fundamental right to vote except while serving time for a felony conviction, and is automatically reinstated upon completion of the sentence. After a failed GOP bid to restrict the automatic reinstatement to only those who have completed sentences for nonviolent felonies, and to only those who have also fully paid restitution, the resolution passed with slight bipartisan support. Senate cognate SJ248 will be voted on next week.
  • HJ9 strips the language of the (defunct) Marshall-Newman amendment out of Virginia’s Constitution, and replaces it with the affirmation that marriage is one of the vital personal rights essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness and stating that the Commonwealth shall recognize any lawful marriage between two adult persons. It passed the House with bipartisan support, and the Senate cognate, SJ249 will be voted on next week.

Some interesting battles/bills this session:

There are a large number of bills to address the ongoing issues with data centers, which bring tremendous revenue to the Commonwealth and localities, but also cause noise pollution, water pollution, and dramatically increase demand for energy, making it difficult for Virginia to meet her clean energy goals. Some related bills:

2024 VAPLAN Scorecard

It’s hard to believe we’ve been doing this for SEVEN YEARS already, but it’s true, this is our 7th annual VAPLAN scorecard. Congratulations to freshman Delegate Rae Cousins and Senator Jennifer Carroll Foy for coming out on top this year, and thank you for your stellar voting records!

Methodology and caveats

We continue to follow the same methodology as in previous years, assigning a positive point for every vote (or co-sponsorship) that agrees with what we consider the progressive position, a negative point for every vote (or co-sponsorship) that disagrees with that position, and then adjusting for the number of possible votes an individual legislator had the opportunity to take. The last vote cast on a bill is the one that counts, and if someone misses that final vote, we look backward for a prior chance to vote.

A few caveats:

  • No scorecard of this nature is perfect. There is a lot of art that accompanies whatever science there is to making a scorecard. 
  • One of the biggest sources of “art” is what bills we include or don’t. Our general policy is to look for bills that have an obvious ideological slant, especially ones that don’t result in exact party-line votes. We mostly avoid bills related to gambling, alcohol, locality-specific projects, and anything that was highly politicized or part of some weird bargaining strategy. (We are utterly indebted to the folks at Recorded Vote Virginia without whose site we would have a much harder job finding bills on the clunky LIS site.)
  • While floor votes are the most definitive (signaling a willingness for this to become law), too much happens at the committee level, especially on bills meeting their death, to restrict ourselves to the floor.
  • As a result of including committee votes, there is a bias to the final scores based on the committee assignments of each legislator. We minimize this as much as possible by scaling the score by the legislator’s number of possible votes and by taking bills from as many committees and subcommittees as possible, but bias remains.
  • It bears mentioning that legislators behave very differently when their party is in the majority than when they’re in the minority (as well as depending on the party of the Governor). It is quite noticeable in the voting records–for example the House Democrats’ voting was very tightly aligned this year, much more so than the past two years. 
  • They also behave differently when they are expecting or in the midst of a primary, or are running for higher office. It’s fun to look for these features.

The Top 10 Most Progressive:

  • House
  • Rae Cousins (HD79)
  • Nadarius Clark (HD84)
  • Irene Shin (HD8)
  • Rozia Henson (HD19)
  • Holly Seibold (HD12)
  • Joshua Cole (HD65)
  • Kelly Convirs-Fowler (HD96)
  • Kannan Srinivasan (HD26)
  • David Reid (HD28)
  • Katrina Callsen (HD54)
  • Senate
  • Jennifer Carroll Foy (SD33)
  • Ghazala Hashmi (SD15)
  • Jennifer Boysko (SD38)
  • Lashrecse Aird (SD13)
  • Barbara Favola (SD40)
  • Suhas Subramanyam (SD32)
  • Stella Pekarsky (SD36)
  • Creigh Deeds (SD11)
  • Saddam Azlan Salim (SD37)
  • Scott Surovell (SD34)

The Top 10 Closest to Middle:

  • House
  • Shelly Simonds (D-HD70)
  • Michael Feggans (D-HD97)
  • Karrie Delaney (D-HD9)
  • Jackie Glass (D-HD93)
  • David Bulova (D-HD11)
  • Carrie Coyner (R-HD75)
  • Robert Bloxom (R-HD100)
  • David Owen (R-HD57)
  • Kim Taylor (R-HD82)
  • Chris Obenshain (R-HD41)
  • Senate
  • Jeremy McPike (D-SD29)
  • Angelia Williams Graves (D-SD21)
  • Russet Perry (D-SD31)
  • Schuyler VanValkenburg (D-SD16)
  • Dave Marsden (D-SD35)
  • David Suetterlein (R-SD4)
  • Danny Diggs (R-SD24)
  • Richard Stuart (R-SD25)
  • Mark Peake (R-SD8)
  • Todd Pillion (R-SD6)

The Most Extreme Bottom 10:

  • House
  • Tie: Delores Oates (HD31)
    • Thomas Wright (HD50)
  • Chris Runion (HD35)
  • Wendell Walker (HD52)
  • Tom Garrett (HD56)
  • Tim Griffin (HD53)
  • Scott Wyatt (HD60)
  • Nick Freitas (HD62)
  • Todd Gilbert (HD33)
  • Phillip Scott (HD63)
  • Eric Zehr (HD51)
  • Senate
  • Timmy French (SD1)
  • Glen Sturtevant (SD12)
  • Ryan McDougle (SD26)
  • Emily Jordan (SD17)
  • Mark Obenshain (SD2)
  • Bryce Reeves (SD28)
  • Christie New Craig (SD19)
  • Chris Head (SD3)
  • Bill DeSteph (SD20)
  • John McGuire (SD10)

Links to current and past scorecards:

    • This year’s full scorecard can be found at this link.

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Sine Die Saturday!

Sine Die Saturday!

Sine die is Latin for “without day,” and is used in legalese to mean “indefinitely.” There are multiple ways to pronounce this (sin-ay-dee-ay, sigh-knee-die, seen-ay-dee-ay), but basically it means the legislature adjourns without any specific date to reconvene, unlike during session when they adjourn and agree to reconvene the following day, for example. And after sixty grueling days, that’s where we were at yesterday!

QUOTE OF THE WEEK, Del Cia Price takes point of personal privilege to speak about reproductive health and the right to contraception: “Imagine having to do double the work to prove you belong in a board room or a court room or even this room, and while you’re doing that extra work you’re bleeding and cramping, and the only thing that helps you get out of the door in order to get to work was contraception, a drug or device, because of a serious health condition. That, Mr. Speaker, is the reality for many across our Commonwealth.”

Bills passed in the final week:

  • Bills (SB454-Marsden and HB1491-O’Quinn) to allow Appalachian Power and Dominion Energy to recover costs of experimental work on small modular nuclear reactors through ratepayer adjustment clauses passed both chambers.
  • HB959 to bring towing rules in Northern Virginia in line with the rest of the Commonwealth requiring written authorization from a property owner before cars on the property can be towed passed both chambers with near unanimous support.
  • A bill (HB81-Simon) to eliminate the common-law crime of suicide passed on a party-line vote in the Senate and with bipartisan support in the House.
  • Bills (HB398-McQuinn; and SB586-Pekarsky) to prevent suspensions and expulsions from school without first attempting alternative evidence-based restorative methods passed the House and Senate.
  • A bill (HB1354-Martinez) to prohibit declawing cats passed with bipartisan support.
  • Senate (SB719-Bagby) and House (HB1244-Cole) versions of a bill to restrict the use of solitary confinement passed on party-line votes.
  • SB334 (Salim) to prevent plea bargaining that requires someone to give up 4th Amendment rights or the right to expunge or seal their criminal records passed both chambers on party-line votes.
  • And, importantly, the conference committee budget bills HB29 and HB30 were voted on the House and Senate floors. The budget includes 3% raises for teachers and state employees, money for WMATA, mandatory RGGI rejoining, and no language relating to a Capitals-Wizards arena in Alexandria.

Governor’s actions on early bills:

  • By the Virginia Constitution, a Governor has seven days to act on those bills passed with at least seven days remaining in session. He thus acted on about 75 bills on Friday. These and his actions on all other bills will be taken up by the General Assembly at the reconvene session April 17.
  • He signed 64 bills into law, including:
    • HB174 (Henson) and SB101 (Ebbin) affirming marriage is lawful regardless of sex of individuals.
    • HB477 (Coyner) and SB50 (Locke) extending the sunset date of the Eviction Diversion Pilot Program.
    • SB46 (Van Valkenburg) and HB48 (Helmer) to prohibit legacy admissions in Virginia public universities.
  • He vetoed 8 bills, including:
    • HB46 (Bennett-Parker) and SB47 (Favola) restricting who a firearm can be transferred to following a domestic abuse conviction or protective order. Youngkin’s explanation here.
    • HB833 (Cousins) and SB115 (Lucas), which passed the Senate 40-0 and the House 56-43, affirming that possession or use of marijuana do not constitute child abuse or neglect for purposes of child custody or visitation. His explanation here.
    • SB606 (Van Valkenburg) and HB1177 (Sickles), which would require Virginia to rejoin ERIC, the Electronic [voter] Registration Information Center, which MAGA conspiracy theories focus on. His explanation here.
    • SB235 (Hashmi) and HB571 (Delaney), which clarify that law on parental notification of material with explicit content is NOT to be interpreted as permission to ban books. His explanation here.
  • He sent back amendments on another 12 bills, including:
    • HB819 (Mundon King) and SB238 (Hashmi) mandating insurance coverage of contraceptives. His amendment adds a religious exemption–which is already implied by the SCOTUS Hobby Lobby ruling.
    • HB498 (Cohen), which requires School Boards to establish a policy for notifying parents at the beginning of the school year about the safe storage of firearms around children. His “poison pill” amendment adds a re-enactment clause that the bill doesn’t take effect until the DOE creates a list of parent rights and responsibilities over a bunch of other items totally unrelated to the intent of this bill.

Week Eight: Next Week is the Finale!

Week Eight: Next Week is the Finale!

The final week of (regular) session is ahead. It’s pretty apparent that the budget negotiations will not be completed before they need to adjourn sine die next Saturday, so they will have to come back for a special session to vote on the budget. Below we highlight what passed, what failed, and what’s outstanding as we go into the last week.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK, Lieutenant Governor Sears gives the world’s worst “apology” after misgendering Senator Danica Roem: “Let it be known, I am not here to upset anyone. I am here to do the job that the people of Virginia have called me to do. And that is to treat everyone with respect and dignity. I myself at times have not been afforded that same respect and dignity. But in this body, and as long as I am President of the Senate, and by the grace of god, I will be treated with respect and dignity and I will treat everyone else with respect and dignity.”

What passed:

  • Third time is the charm for a bill (SB14-McPike; HB805-Rasoul) to allow all localities to raise their local sales tax (if the voters approve in a referendum) to fund school construction projects–currently only nine localities have been approved to do so by the General Assembly.
  • 5 day waiting period for purchasing a firearm (HB1195-Hayes; SB273-Subramanyam) passed both chambers. 
  • House (HB418-Simon) and Senate (SB259-Surovell) bills to allow class action lawsuits in Virginia (currently Virginians can participate in federal class action suits, but there is no such cause of action in Virginia state courts) passed on party-line votes.
  • A Paid Family and Medical Leave insurance program bill (Boysko) passed both the House and the Senate. It would begin paying claims of up to eight weeks for covered individuals beginning January, 2027, paid for through payroll deductions into the program.
  • Bill (SB212-Rouse)to legalize and regulate so-called skill game machines is headed to the Governor’s desk, although he has expressed concerns with the bills. The House cognate (HB590-Hayes) has not yet had its final floor vote.
  • Bills (HB698-Krizek; SB448-Rouse) to create a legal retail marijuana market have passed both chambers. Applications for licenses accepted 9/2024, with preference given to microbusinesses including those who suffered hardships due to the war on marijuana; retail sales begin 5/2025; tax rate is 11.625%.
  • House (HB568-Askew) and Senate (SB517-Williams-Graves) bills to remove the tax exemption for Daughter of the Confederacy and other Confederacy organizations are on their way to the Governor’s desk.
  • HB925 (Shin) to require 48 hours written notice on a vehicle in a residential parking lot before it can be towed for expired registration passed both chambers.
  • SB274 (Deeds) to create a Prescription Drug Affordability Board to increase drug pricing transparency and look for ways to lower costs passed both chamber. The House cognate (Delaney) should be voted on in the Senate next week.

What failed/was left in committee:

  • SB628 (Aird) to allow Petersburg to hold a referendum on whether to host a casino was left in House Appropriations.
  • A bill (HB210-Martinez) to allow trusts and medical directives to be signed and notarized electronically, and wills to be executed by electronic means failed to pass on the Senate floor.
  • House (HB834-Cousins) and Senate (SB427-Deeds) versions of the Second Look legislation to allow judges (with approval of prosecutor and victims) to reconsider long sentences in light of rehabilitative work done by the incarcerated person died in House and Senate Appropriations committees.
  • A *crappy* outcome on the Senate floor for a bill regarding notifying owners of alternative sewage systems of their maintenance responsibilities (HB1052-Batten).
  • SB316 (Salim) to allow the Town of Vienna to require a 10 year tree canopy in developments failed in the House, requiring a 2/3 majority vote.

What’s still outstanding:

  • The House budget bills HB29 and HB30 are in conference (conferees are Delegates Torian, Sickles, Bulova, Carr, Austin, Bloxom; and Senators Lucas, Deeds, Locke, Boysko, McDougle, Pillion). The Senate budget bills, per custom and tradition, were left in the House Appropriations committee.
  • HB81 (Simon) to eliminate the common-law crime of suicide reported from Senate Courts late this week and will have a floor vote early next week.
  • HB107 (Sullivan) to create the Electric Vehicle Rural Infrastructure program reported from Senate Finance and Approps but has not yet been to the Senate floor.
  • Related but not identical junk fee consumer protection bills have passed both chambers but will most likely need a conference committee. The House bill (Helmer) pertains solely to entertainment ticket prices–the Senate put a re-enactment clause on it stating that it would have to be passed again next session to take effect. The Senate bill (Pekarsky) pertains to junk fees more broadly for all sorts of consumer products–the House “conformed” it to their ticket price bill before passing it. Stay tuned.
  • After passing the House with bipartisan support, the Restroom Access Act (Coyner) to allow certain people with medical conditions to use employee restrooms was docketed to the wrong committee in the Senate, and will be heard in Commerce and Labor on Monday.

Week 7: Show Me The Money!

Week 7: Show Me The Money!

Last weekend the House and Senate budget committees presented their amendments to the (Governor’s) introduced budget bills. By the end of this week, the House and Senate had debated some amendments and passed their own budgets off the floor. But there will still be lots of negotiations before a single budget can be pieced together from the Governor’s budget and the House and Senate versions.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK, Virginia’s first Black woman to chair the powerful Finance Committee says as she presents her budget amendments: “Because of my experiences, I hold the areas of education and public safety close to my heart. People of my generation, Black and white alike, were unable to attend school during Massive Resistance, and I want to make sure that no child is ever denied the ability to have a quality public education or denied the ability to grow up in a safe and supportive community.”

What’s in the House budget:

What’s in the Senate budget:

Week Six: The Crossover!

Week Six: The Crossover!

This was crossover week, when the House had to take any action on House bills, and the Senate had to take any action on Senate bills (except for the budget). After crossover, senators go over to the House to defend their bills and vice versa. Unfortunately, there are always a few casualties–bills that don’t make the crossover; a few are highlighted below.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK, Delegate Mundon King, during floor discussion of HB404 to prevent taxpayer funding on ANY abortion care, no exceptions: “This is not a gimmick, this is not a joke. When the patron introduced this bill, he knew exactly what he was doing: targeting vulnerable survivors of rape, and women who could lose their lives if they have a life-threatening pregnancy. All of this is an attempt to hide behind just how cruel this bill actually is. The people of the Commonwealth deserve to know where their delegates stand on whether they live or die during childbirth.”

Bills that died on the Senate floor:

  • The Senate voted down SB78 (Favola) to require campaign ads that are independent expenditures to list the names of the organization’s top donors.
  • LG Winsome Sears broke a tie in opposition to SB712 (Marsden), that would have made it a crime to release hunting dogs on a highway.
  • Sears also broke a tie in opposition to SB643 (Aird) that would require courts to consider mitigating circumstances in finding someone in contempt of court for failing to appear.
  • The Senate recommitted SB107 (Suetterlein) from the floor back to the Committee on Privileges and Elections, effectively killing the bill without a recorded vote (since there were no further meetings of that committee). The bill would have prohibited legislators from accepting contributions during special sessions.

Bills that died on the House floor:

  • The bill (HB404 – Griffin) to prohibit taxpayer funding of any abortion care, without exceptions, failed to be engrossed to its final reading, with 95 nay votes.
  • HB179 (Gardner) that would allow sentences to be served concurrently rather than consecutively was passed by for the day several days, and ultimately went without a floor vote.
  • HB1406 (Fowler) to double the number of free fishing days (where no license is needed) failed to pass the House, despite having had bipartisan support in committees.
  • HB808 (Rasoul) that would have allowed state psychiatric hospitals to delay admitting a minor under a temporary detaining order if the minor has a life-threatening medical need the facility cannot meet. It was taken by for the day and did not get a floor vote.

Bills left in Appropriations/Finance:

  • For the 11th year, a bill to ban the personal use of campaign finance contributions (HB40 – Simon) died, this time left without a vote in House Appropriations.
  • In the Senate, SB326 (Roem) prohibiting contributions from public utilities was left to die without a vote in Finance after reporting from Privileges and Elections committee.
  • Paid Family and Medical Leave (HB737 – Sewell), reported on a party-line vote from Labor and Commerce, only to die quietly without a vote in Appropriations.
  • The Second Look legislation (HB834 – Cousins), which was being weaponized by AG Miyares and the GOP, was left behind in Appropriations. It would have created a petition process for someone who has worked to rehabilitate themselves while incarcerated to ask the judge to reconsider the length of the sentence.
  • HB1001 (Tran) and SB374 (Boysko) to allow state employees to collectively bargain, were left behind in House Appropriations and Senate Finance, respectively, without a vote.
  • A bill regulating the sales, advertisements and packaging of liquid nicotine and hemp products (HB1509 – Seibold) reported unanimously from General Laws and then was left in Appropriations without a vote.
  • The famous “Glenn-dome” bill (SB718 – Surovell) to build a sports and entertainment complex in Alexandria to host the Wizards and the Capitals, funded by bonds that are guaranteed by the Commonwealth, was loudly left to die in Senate Finance committee, although the House cognate (HB1514 – Torian) is still alive and crossed over to the Senate this week.

2 thoughts on “Week Six: The Crossover!”

  1. What happened with SB630? It looks like it started as just adding health care workers to the list of who can’t have a non-compete… but then it got amended in committee to ban all non-competes? (hooray! that’s better) but then died on the Senate floor. Am I getting that path to defeat correct?

    1. SB360 you mean, right? It was definitely hijacked and then destroyed. That’s pretty sad.

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