Week 3: Mother Nature Can’t Stop the Legislating

Despite Mother Nature trying to hold up the legislative session by dumping a massive snowstorm and bitter cold temperatures late last Sunday, the legislators still made it to Richmond to keep working on bills!

QUOTE OF THE WEEK, in a point of personal privilege on the floor Monday by Delegate Josh Thomas about the killings in Minnesota: “Here’s the truth–if the government can seize a lawfully-owned firearm without due process, if they can shoot a citizen and then investigate the VICTIM instead of the shooter, if they can operate masked, unidentified, beyond accountability, then there is no right that is secure. There is no First [Amendment], there is no Second, there is no Fourth, not any…Now is a time for each of us to speak up and make our voices heard.”

Passed the Senate

These bills have already passed the Senate and will go on to be heard in the House next.

• SB337 (Perry) prohibits other states’ militias from operating in Virginia unless requested by the Governor or required by law; restricts communication between the federal government and the Virginia National Guard.
• SB109 (Pekarsky) requiring school boards notify parents at the beginning of the school year about their responsibility to keep firearms and prescription drugs safely locked up.
• SB347 (VanValkenburg) makes the default that solar farms are permitted in a locality, with zoning safeguards.
• SB318 (Ebbin) allows localities to give preference in procurement to local goods, services producers as long as the bid is within 10% of lowest.
• SB591 (McPike) directs the Dept of Taxation to develop free individual state income tax e-filing software
• SB137 (Pekarsky) prohibiting anyone from harassing or obstructing access to a health facility

Passed the House

• HB60 (Ward) prohibits health or life insurance discrimination against people taking preventative HIV medications.
• HB6 (Price) affirms the right to obtain and use contraception
• HB816 (Helmer) requires 75% of a locality’s business or commercial use land allow by-right mixed-use (combined residential and commercial) development
• HB80 (Price) gives the Governor the right to withhold funding for a local or regional correctional facility that fails to report on civilian deaths in custody
• HB334 (Rasoul) gives all localities the ability to hold a referendum on whether to temporarily increase their local sales tax to fund school construction
• HB153 requires proposed data centers submit site assessment detailing effects on water, noise, local parks and historic sites, etc.

Bills that need to go down in flames

• HB158 (Griffin) considers gender-affirming care as child abuse or neglect
• HB531 (Hamilton) “born alive” abortion bill
• SB545 (Cifers) authorizes over-the-counter Ivermectin
• HB1456 (Williams) is a massive, sprawling Virginia DOGE bill, requiring efficiency assessments and creating entire new government agencies and a mound of bureaucratic paperwork and reporting
• HB1453 (Williams) makes it a crime to approach law enforcement after a warning not to
• HB719 (Zehr) adds 3-minute high-definition ultrasound imaging to Health and Family Life Education
• HB532 (Hamilton) “Sage’s Law” requiring schools notify parents if a child asks for “social affirmation” of a stated gender that differs from the biological one
• HB1453 (Zehr) So-called “ICE-Free Communities Act” that actually just codifies 287g agreements for all localities state-wide