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Democratic Lawmakers Reflect on Historic General Assembly Session

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In the first session in over two decades with the governor’s office and both houses under Democratic control, the General Assembly passed extensive legislation affecting everything from LGBTQ rights to gun control and marijuana decriminalization.

Virginia lawmakers passed over 1,200 new laws in two months, a variety of them in the final days of the 2020 session, which expanded into Sunday evening to accommodate the backlog of legislation.

This session has been the first time since 1994 that the Democrats have controlled both chambers of the General Assembly along with the governor’s office. The House passed 746 of 1,732 bills introduced, while the Senate passed 543 of 1,096 bills introduced, excluding resolutions, according to the Legislative Information System. The number of bills sponsored in the House led to long sessions in both chambers and left the Senate grappling with an approaching deadline. 

In eight weeks, starting with a vote to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment, Democrats worked to overturn close to 30 years of Republican dominance over issues such as gun control, reproductive rights, and voter rights.

They also passed new measures such as empowering localities with the authority to remove or contextualize war memorials and adding LGBTQ protections from discrimination in housing and employment, as well as a ban on conversion therapy for minors, becoming the first Southern state to pass such legisation. 

Seven out of eight major gun control measures supported by Gov. Ralph Northam are on the way to the governor’s desk for his signature. The legislation includes bills that limit handgun purchases to one per month, a background check on all firearms sales, and extreme risk protection orders, also known as the red flag law. 

House of Delegates begins on Sunday March 8, 2020 after lawmakers agreed to an extension of the session the night before. (Photo by Chip Lauterbach/Capital News Service)

Other legislation that passed in the homestretch included decriminalization of marijuana, but efforts to legalize marijuana were squashed, to the dismay of advocates. The decriminalization bill does away with the criminal penalty for simple marijuana possession, instead instating a $25 civil penalty for a person caught with not more than 1 ounce of marijuana. The Senate amended the bill from the original amount of not more than a half ounce.

“For far too long our approach to cannabis has needlessly saddled Virginians, especially African Americans and people of color, with criminal records,” Attorney General Mark Herring said in a statement. “Those days are over.” 

Herring, who pushed for the legislation, said there were 29,000 marijuana possession arrests in 2018. He also said decriminalization is an important first step toward legal, regulated adult use. 

Lawmakers reached a compromise to increase the minimum wage, with a bill that gradually increases the wage to $9.50 in 2021, $11 in 2022 and up to $12 in 2023. Following these raises, the measure is to be brought before the General Assembly for a future vote that must pass by 2024 in order to guarantee that the wage can reach $15 by 2026.

Democrats also pushed through an amended bill that allows access to collective bargaining for public employees — such as teachers and firefighters — in localities where local governments choose to participate. Sens. Bill DeSteph, R-Virginia Beach, and Amanda Chase, R-Chesterfield, criticized these policies, which they said create hurdles for enterprises. 

“We’ve just crushed the small business atmosphere,” DeSteph said in a video posted on Facebook. “CNBC had us as the No. 1 place to do business. We’re going to be in the 20s after this. It’s a very sad day for the commonwealth.” 

Freshman Sen. Ghazala Hashmi, D-Richmond, who defeated one-term incumbent Glen Sturtevant in November, reflected back on her first session.

“It’s been incredible, I have immersed myself in all the issues and critical pieces of legislation that we have had,” Hashmi said. “We have been able to pass some very important bills this year, for immigrant rights and for education, focusing on teachers and higher education, I’ve really enjoyed the work and am looking forward to coming back next year.”

In the House, Democrats held 55 seats to the Republican’s 45 seats. Democrats ushered changes that Del. Lee Carter, D-Manassas, felt will be instrumental in improving the lives of Virginians.

“With the partisan change in both chambers, the question coming down here was: ‘What kind of majority are we going to be?’” Carter said. “Whether we were going to be the type of majority that stood unequivocally for working people, against corporate interests, and decided to make lives better for the people that desperately needed it, or if we were going to be a majority that was content to merely not be as bad as the Republicans.”

Carter said that he was happiest with the outcome of his bill that capped the price of insulin at $50 for a month’s worth.

“I introduced the bill with the cap at $30, the Senate put it at $50,” Carter said. “I’m hoping that the governor will put it back down to $30 or even lower, so we can get some relief to those people who have health insurance but their deductibles and copays are too high for them to be able to afford their insulin products.”

Senators entering chambers waiting for Saturday’s session to begin. (Photo by Chip Lauterbach/Capital News Service)

Del. Danica Roem, D-Prince William, looked back on her third session in the General Assembly with pride, joking that she was able to pass 13 bills for the 13th District. Roem was pleased that her bill, HB 1024, which would establish a statewide cold case database, passed the Senate on the final day of this year’s session.

“This will allow reporters, as well the public in general, to look up every missing persons case, unidentified persons case, and every unsolved homicide in the state that is at least five years old,” Roem said. “This is a huge win for government accountability and transparency.”

Some legislation that moved through the House met resistance in the Democrat-majority Senate, where moderate Democrats sided with Republicans. Three moderate Democrats tipped a Senate panel vote to continue HB 961, the assault weapons ban sponsored by Del. Mark Levine (D-Alexandria), until the next session. 

On Saturday, citing concerns of minority profiling, Senate Democrats helped vote down HB 1439, which would have made not wearing a seatbelt in any seat of a vehicle a primary offense. 

Some Republicans also advanced legislative reform. Sen. Bill Stanley, R-Franklin, passed a measure that will remove suspension of a driver’s license for nonpayment of fines. Stanley also supported a bill granting tenants the power to make repairs on their property and deduct the costs from their rent, with conditions.

Speaker of the House Eileen Filler-Corn issued a statement saying that Democrats were celebrating a “historic, legislative session.”

“This General Assembly session has been historic in the extraordinary progress the House of Delegates has made for Virginians in every corner of the Commonwealth,” Filler-Corn said. “In November, voters called for swift, impactful action to make their communities safer and more prosperous. We have delivered on that mandate.” 

Multiple House and Senate Republicans did not respond to a request for comment. 

Written by Chip Lauterbach, Capital News Service. Top Photo by Chip Lauterbach, Capital News Service.

Northam Signs Bill Mandating Statewide Policy For Transgender Students

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Under the new law, Virginia’s Department of Education has until the end of 2020 to create a policy that establishes a baseline for the way transgender students in the Commonwealth’s public school districts must be treated.

From Gavin Grimm’s years of legal struggles to the Stafford County student left alone in a gym during a lockdown drill, transgender students in Virginia have contended with a great deal of confusion, uncertainty, and buck-passing while trying to exist within the Commonwealth’s public school system over the past several years. However, that should all change in coming years, and it starts with a bill signed into law last week by Governor Ralph Northam, one that requires Virginia’s Department of Education to, by the end of 2020, create a statewide policy for the treatment of transgender students.

“In Virginia, we fully expect our schools to treat all students with the dignity and respect they deserve,” Northam said in a statement. “This bill represents an important step towards making Virginia more welcoming and inclusive.”

The bill, which was introduced by 53rd District Delegate Marcus Simon in the House and by 33rd District Senator Jennifer Boysko in the state Senate, requires the Department of Education to create a model policy for transgender students to be released to all public school districts in the state. The policies those individual school districts adopt must be “consistent with, but may be more comprehensive than, the model policies developed by the Department of Education.”

“It is past time we put in place comprehensive policies to protect Virginia’s transgender students,” Simon said. “This bill will ensure the safety and dignity of all students in Virginia, regardless of how they identify or where they live.”

The need for such a policy is obvious to anyone who has been following the issue of transgender student rights in Virginia. Gavin Grimm’s years of legal action, culminating in a federal judge ruling last year that Grimm suffered from discrimination when school authorities wouldn’t let him use the boys’ bathroom at his school, is not the only situation in which the issues Virginia’s transgender students face were illuminated: a former West Point teacher is currently suing the West Point School Board for firing him after he refused orders to use male pronouns when referring to a transgender student.

The policy should be available to Virginia’s school districts by December 31, 2020.

Top Photo By Varmin, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia

Legislators Grapple With Changing Bawdy Place, Prostitution Laws

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This year’s General Assembly session has seen quite a few outdated morality laws removed from Virginia’s books, but Del. Mark Levine still sees more to be done, specifically where Virginia’s “bawdy place” law is concerned.

The General Assembly passed measures this session repealing restrictions on sex before marriage, swearing in public, and being a “habitual drunkard,” but Del. Mark Levine, D-Alexandria, said he is considering updating another “outdated” Virginia law next year. 

He’s considering changing the statute for keeping, residing in, or frequenting a bawdy place. In Virginia, that means using a building for lewdness, assignation or prostitution. Violating this law is a Class 1 misdemeanor.

Del. Mark Levine. Photo via VCU-CNS

Levine takes issue with the words “lewdness,” meaning obscene or vulgar, and “assignation,” or an appointment for a meeting, especially between lovers. 

“I want to remove the lewdness part, remove the assignation part, but leave in the prostitution part, because I don’t think Virginians today think being lewd should be a crime,” Levine said. 

This year there have been six arrests in Henrico County for keeping or residing in a bawdy place, and one for prostitution.

A Freedom of Information Act request submitted to Henrico County Police by Capital News Service found that since 2010, 44 percent of prostitution arrests were for keeping, frequenting, or residing in a bawdy place. Five percent of arrests were for being a prostitute, while 23 percent were for soliciting a prostitute. 

Mikki Alexander, an organizing member of the Richmond chapter of the Sex Workers Outreach Project, said that the broad definition of bawdy place law heightens the risk that sex workers could be charged with prostitution crimes. Sex work, Alexander said, is an umbrella term that includes any sort of erotic or sexual services in exchange for money or goods, from lap dances at a strip club, to escorting, to modeling or performing in an adult video. 

“If you have somebody who has a location that they work out of, their actual workplace, that could be considered a bawdy place,” Alexander said. “If you had somebody who is renting an apartment from somebody and it’s the place where they live and also work, then that could be considered a bawdy place.” 

“So it really is this kind of broad definition that basically equates to, sex workers don’t have any place to live or work,” she added.

Alexander said the Sex Workers Outreach Project supports full decriminalization of sex work and prostitution.

Levine was inspired to update bawdy place law after discussion that centered around House Bill 251, introduced this session by Del. Vivian E. Watts, D-Fairfax.

Watts’ bill would make it a Class 6 felony for an adult to bring a minor to a bawdy place. Her bill passed the House 96-1 last month, with Levine casting the lone opposing vote because of the bill’s inclusion of the bawdy place language.

Those two words prompted a Senate committee to carry over the bill into 2021. The committee had a 15-minute discussion about how a person could be criminalized for visiting a bawdy place.

Sen. Joseph D. Morrissey, D-Richmond, said that a couple could become felons for having a secret meeting in a seedy hotel.

“We know what you’re trying to get at, but here’s the problem: two lovers, 30 years old, go to a seedy motel for an assignation; they are now felons,” Morrissey said.

Watts pointed out that Morrissey’s example was already illegal under bawdy place law, and the purpose of the bill was to criminalize adults who visit known bawdy places with minors.

Of the arrests made in the past decade, Henrico County charged five juveniles with keeping a bawdy place, and one with frequenting a bawdy place. There were three juveniles charged in the past decade for prostitution.

Watts suggested a new law redefining bawdy places.

“I think another bill, another year might modernize this long-standing reference to bawdy place,” Watts said.

Morrissey proposed an amendment that would remove the words lewdness and assignation from the bill, but this would require removing them from the bawdy place code. 

Sen. R. Creigh Deeds, D-Bath, said that the amendment could impact existing case law.

Michael Feinmel, Henrico County deputy commonwealth’s attorney, said that repealing the bawdy place law could have a negative impact on law enforcement’s ability to provide victim services to sex workers, such as human trafficking residential programs.

“If you take away certain laws, prostitution and bawdy place laws, then that’s going to reduce our ability to connect people with services,” Feinmel said.

He said that a prostitution case cannot be made without a substantial act in furtherance.

“Something further has to happen, whether it’s opening up a condom, whether it’s taking off clothing, whether it’s touching somebody in a private part — something along those lines,” he said. “Something else has to happen rather than just the agreement.”

Feinmel said that rather than placing undercover police officers in a situation where a substantial act in furtherance would take place, Henrico County law enforcement uses the bawdy place law. He said that if law enforcement can prove someone is using a hotel room to perform sex acts for money, it is easier to initiate the criminal process.

Feinmel was unaware of any cases in recent years where the lewdness and assignation terms in the bawdy place law were actively used to enforce the statute. He suggested that the bawdy place law could be fixed, but it would take a change to state prostitution law.

“If our prostitution code section was amended to say an agreement [verbal] for a sex act in exchange for money constitutes prostitution, then it would be unnecessary to have that bawdy place code section,” Feinmel said.

Levine said his interest in modernizing Virginia code is rooted in a personal philosophy about the government’s role in regulating the private affairs of its citizens.

“I think folks should be free to do what they want if they’re not harming anyone else. And if it’s truly consensual, it’s not any of the government’s business,” Levine said.

Written by Conor Lobb, Capital News Service. Top Photo via VCU-CNS

The General Assembly Was Not Impressed With Religious Arguments Against Trans Health Care Bill

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Del. Danica Roem’s bill to ensure transgender Virginians receive equal treatment by their health insurance plans raised some objections from conservatives, but nonetheless passed both houses of the General Assembly.

Anytime the LGBTQ community gets too close to obtaining equal rights, there’s always someone out there to tell us that we’re “going too far.” Sadly, the current General Assembly session is no exception.

Currently at issue is HB 1429, a bill introduced by 13th District Delegate Danica Roem, who by now I shouldn’t have to tell you is the first openly transgender state-level elected official in the entire country. She introduced this bill to allow transgender Virginians equality in health care by preventing health insurance companies from denying or adding extra costs to specific procedures or overall health plans obtained by trans people in Virginia. In other words, your health insurance company can’t upcharge you because you’re trans, or add extra costs to your hormone therapy, gender reassignment surgery, or any other trans-related medical costs.

This is pretty straightforward — at bare minimum, LGBTQ Virginians should be able to expect that their health insurance companies will treat them the same as they treat any other Virginian, and bill them accordingly. While the legal arguments around whether the Affordable Care Act’s prohibition of discrimination against any individual on basis of sex applies to trans people are still ongoing, the final regulations released by the US Department of Health And Human Services at the time of the ACA’s passage specified that the rule would be enforced on the basis of gender identity.

So at the federal level, something like this is at least arguably already in force. However, Roem’s bill would simply ensure that, regardless of any Supreme Court rulings in the coming months, that protection is specifically laid out by law in Virginia. And the bill enjoys the support of the Virginia Association of Health Plans, so it’s not seen as a drastic action by Virginia’s health insurance providers.

It hasn’t been seen that way by our elected officials in the General Assembly, either — or at least, not the Democrats. The bill passed in the House of Delegates by a party-line vote of 54-41, made it out of Senate committee on Monday by a 12-2 vote, and passed the full Senate on Thursday by a 22-18 vote. It’s now headed to Governor Northam’s desk.

But before that last vote took place, and true to form, religious conservatives were on hand to raise objections. In testimony against the bill on Monday, Family Foundation of Virginia legislative counsel Josh Hetzler said, “We’re creating a new category of personhood,” while Family Foundation president Victoria Cobb claimed in an email to the Virginia Mercury that the bill’s acceptance of self-identified gender identities took the state outside the bounds of science.

“How can anyone know how to provide medical direction to someone who claims they are an unknown combination of male and female?” she wrote in the email to the Mercury. “Why should the insurance company bear the liability to cover unexplored areas of medicine?”

Del. Roem with representatives from Virginia League For Planned Parenthood at the Senate committee hearing Monday. (Photo via PPA Virginia/Twitter)

Fortunately for us, these arguments did not carry much weight in the Virginia Senate this week. In response to Virginia Catholic Conference founding director Jeff Caruso’s contention that the ruling in the 2014 case that allowed Hobby Lobby an exemption to ACA regulations requiring employers cover contraception should also allow for religious exemptions to this ruling, Senate Commerce and Labor Committee Chairman Dick Saslaw told Caruso that ruling had specifically been tailored to only apply to contraceptives.

Meanwhile, according to the Virginia Mercury, fellow committee member Senator Lionel Spruill rolled his eyes and implied that representatives of the Catholic Church lacked the moral authority to make such an argument. “One church should be the last to say that kind of stuff, given what’s going on,” Spruill said.

Roem herself, also present at the committee hearing, was just as quick to let those with objections know exactly where she stood, saying according to the Virginia Mercury that she refused to “explicitly deny care” for trans patients under Virginia laws. Additionally, she pointed out, the ACA policies in place are often not sufficient to ensure that trans people are receiving adequate care. “Even post-2017, transgender people are given misinformation about what these policies actually are,” she said.

Afton Bradley, care coordination manager for Virginia League of Planned Parenthood’s transgender health care program, confirmed that current ACA protections are insufficient to protect trans patients from denials of coverage, telling the Virginia Mercury that around a third of Planned Parenthood’s trans patients are denied coverage by insurance plans, sometimes based on clerical errors that insurers are often unwilling to correct even after several weeks of negotiations.

“Unfortunately, that leads to a lot of our patients paying out of pocket or going without medication,” Bradley told the Virginia Mercury. “And we know that when patients don’t have access to transition care, there are serious consequences to their health.”

Roem summed up the argument in favor of the bill very succintly on Twitter. “LGBTQ health care is health care. It is not optional,” she wrote. “Cover it. Insure it. And have a nice day.”

Top Photo via Danica Roem/Facebook

It’s Official: Conversion Therapy Is Now Illegal In Virginia

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Governor Northam signed a bill outlawing the practice on Monday, bringing years of struggle by LGBTQ advocates to a victorious end.

Virginia has officially become the 20th state to prohibit conversion therapy for minors, and the first in the American South. House Bill 386, introduced by 47th District Delegate Patrick Hope, passed both houses of the General Assembly with some bipartisan support, and this week it crossed Northam’s desk and made it into Virginia law.

“This issue is personal for me, as a pediatric neurologist who has cared for thousands of children,” Northam said in a statement released to accompany the signing of the bill. “Conversion therapy is not only based in discriminatory junk-science, it is dangerous and causes lasting harm to our youth. No one should be made to feel wrong for who they are — especially not a child. I’m proud to sign this ban into law.”

Advocates were equally positive about Virginia’s passing of the ban on conversion therapy.

“As a survivor of this dangerous and fraudulent practice, I can’t fathom just how many young LGBTQ lives may be saved with these critical protections from conversion therapy,” said Sam Brinton of the LGBTQ youth suicide prevention group the Trevor Project in a statement. “At The Trevor Project, we hear from LGBTQ youth in crisis every day and we know that those who are subjected to conversion therapy are more than twice as likely to attempt suicide. This bold action will send a message to all LGBTQ young people in the great Commonwealth of Virginia that they are loved and deserve support.”

The new law prohibiting conversion therapy for minors will go into effect on July 1, but advocates have been working toward it for years now. Before Democrats gained control of both houses of the General Assembly earlier this year, bans against conversion therapy had repeatedly been proposed within both the Senate and House Of Delegates, but repeatedly failed to pass, and were often not even brought to a full floor vote in the House Of Delegates.

However, progress against this harmful practice did occur even before the General Assembly changed hands, as three different boards regulating mental health professionals in Virginia — the Board of Social Work, the Board of Psychology, and the Board of Counseling — all issued guidance prohibiting the practice in 2019. As well, multiple cities within the state, including Richmond and Virginia Beach, passed resolutions in 2019 asking the General Assembly for a ban on conversion therapy for minors.

Del. Hope’s bill was not the only conversion therapy bill introduced this year; in the state Senate, 36th district Senator Scott Surovell introduced a similar one, which also received significant support. The two bills were combined during reconciliation between the two houses of the General Assembly.

“Conversion therapy is a dangerous, destructive practice,” said Del. Hope in a statement. “We should be supporting and celebrating our LGTBQ youth, not putting them in harm’s way.”

Top Photo by Landon Shroder, RVA Mag file photo

General Assembly Takes Tentative Steps Toward Protections For Student Journalists

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Del. Chris Hurst’s bill ensuring the freedom of speech to student journalists has passed both houses of the General Assembly, but still faces complications in route to becoming law. Meanwhile, advocates say the bill doesn’t do enough for student journalists who need it most.

On Tuesday, the Virginia state Senate passed a bill that would protect the rights of student journalists. The bill, which was originally introduced by Twelfth District Del. Chris Hurst (D- Montgomery), has had a complicated path to passage. And despite the fact that it has now passed both houses of the General Assembly, it’s still got some hurdles left to clear before it can become a law.

The bill’s roots trace all the way back to the last century, beginning with the Supreme Court’s 1988 decision in the case of Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier. This ruling, which stated that the work of a student journalist could be censored if a school administrator had “legitimate pedagogical reasons” for the censorship, has in reality paved the way for frequent silencing of the work of student journalists.

For Delegate Hurst, this is an unacceptable situation. “For too long, articles concerning subjects that are worthwhile and newsworthy have been blocked by those in power for less than legitimate reasons,” Hurst told Capital News Service in January. “This legislation is important because it restores basic protections for student journalists throughout Virginia from unnecessary censorship by administrators.”

His bill, which was initially introduced in late 2019, before this General Assembly session even began, would specify that student journalists at public colleges in the state of Virginia have the rights of freedom of speech and of the press, and are free to determine “the news, opinion, feature, and advertising content” of the publications they create, even if those publications are financially supported by their school.

The bill is part of a historic movement by state governments around the country to create laws protect the free speech of student journalists. As of 2020, 14 other states have enacted similar laws.

Del. Hurst with advocates from Student Press Law Center (via SPLC.org)

While the bill originally protected journalists at all educational levels, the amended version that passed the House of Delegates focuses solely on student journalists at the college level. However, for some advocates who originally supported the bill, this is not enough.

“High school students are the crux of the issue,” Student Press Law Center advocate and campaign organizer Hillary Davis said in a statement. “They do not have the protections that college students already have and we feel that it’s really important that we protect these students and the advisers from retaliation.”

Delegate Hurst agreed, and said as much during a Virginia House Education Committee hearing on February 3. “It’s really important for a free press, and I would extend that to yearbooks and student newspapers at the high school level, to be able to report matters that are of a public interest not only to members of their student body but also to their communities,” Hurst said at the hearing, as reported by Student Press Law Center. 

Even the removal of all student journalists below college level from the bill’s protection, a move that disheartened advocates, may not be enough to get HB 36 passed into law this year. While it remains alive at this point, the version that passed the Senate earlier this week featured amendments that the House almost unanimously rejected. At this point, only a few days remain for the two houses of the General Assembly to come to an agreement on the bill’s final form before the legislative session adjourns on March 7.

“Far too many student journalists have been censored by image-conscious school administrators or intimidated to self-censor or not report on ‘controversial’ topics that matter to their peers and communities,” Student Press Law Center Executive Director Hadar Harris said in a statement. “It is important that we stand up nationally to say, ‘No more!’”

Top Photo by Brad Neathery on Unsplash