Things To Keep An Eye On At The Half-Way Point
Yesterday was “Crossover” day at the Capitol, which is the midway point in the 2020 legislative session where the House and Senate finish with all their respective bills and then send the ones that passed to the other chamber. You’ve probably read in our weekly updates that A LOT has happened over the past five weeks, so as the General Assembly enters the second half of session I wanted to let you know about a few of the issues that have our continued focus.
Life
There are two major abortion bills, HB 980 (D-Herring) and SB 733 (D-McClellan), that we’ll be tracking in the remaining weeks. These bills roll back decades of pro-life achievements by 1) undoing the long-standing physician-only rule by allowing physician's assistants, nurse practitioners and even certified nurse midwives to perform abortions; 2) eliminating informed consent, including the requirement to offer a woman the opportunity to see her ultrasound and hear the fetal heartbeat before performing an abortion; 3) removing the 24-hour wait period between the ultrasound and abortion so no woman is rushed into an on-the-spot decision; and 4) eliminating all the health and safety regulations of abortion centers. The Family Foundation is working hard to try to amend these bills, but with a Democrat majority fueled by Planned Parenthood and NARAL Pro-Choice, it is a very high hurdle.
We are continuing to push SB 920 (R-Peake), a bill which we initiated that makes any clause within a surrogacy contract requiring an abortion or “selective reduction” void and unenforceable, thus providing some much-needed protection for surrogate mothers.
Religious Liberty
This year radical leftists wasted no time in advancing an LGBTQ agenda that targets people of faith, specifically Christians who refuse to forfeit their deeply held convictions about marriage and sexuality. Bills like HB 1049 (D-Levine), HB 1663 (D-Sickles) and SB 868 (D-Ebbin), which have already passed their respective chambers, will elevate the fluid concepts of “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” (SOGI) to protected classes under state nondiscrimination laws related to state contracting, public and private employment, public accommodations, housing, appointments, and much more.
Another dangerous bill we’ll be fighting is HB 696 (D-Roem), which allows every locality in Virginia to also pass local SOGI policies in virtually every part of society. Make no mistake, the primary objective of these bills is not to protect a vulnerable subgroup, for which not one shred of documented evidence has been offered to justify these sweeping policy changes. Rather, they’re aimed at punishing Christians for not adhering to the government’s interpretation of sexuality. We are working hard to ensure additional protections for religious entities and people of faith are included in these SOGI bills.
Parental Authority
We are hoping to advance more parental oversight of a child's education with the passage of HB 1394 (R-Leftwich), a bill that will require each local school board to make sex-education materials available on the school division’s official website to be more accessible for parents to review. This would be a significant victory for parents and their ability to make well-informed decisions that they deem best for their child.
Constitutional Government
In addition to the bills that threaten the sanctity of life and religious liberty, there are a number of issues that will impact our communities and finances which are trekking through the General Assembly. While bills that would have allowed so-called “games of skill” ultimately failed, still looming are large gambling omnibus bills (HB 4, R-Knight and SB 36, D-Lucas) that would legalize casino gambling and sports betting in Virginia. More gambling will only draw more crime and addictions to localities, and hurt the most those who can least afford to lose.
Finally, there are a number of measures that will raise your taxes that we’re following. One is Speaker Filler-Corn’s HB 1414, a massive transportation bill that will impose more taxes and fees on every hard-working Virginian. Others bills include the Green New deal (SB 94, D-Favola) and an electric utilities regulatory bill (SB 851, D-McClellan) which would increase electricity costs for every Virginian. Thankfully, an effort to repeal Virginia's right-to-work law (HB 153) by Delegate Lee Carter, which would have ruined the state's reputation as one of the best places to live and work, failed this year.
Of the nearly 300 bills The Family Foundation identified at the beginning of the Session to support, oppose or monitor, there are now about 130 which we will be working on over the second half of session. Many of these bills pose significant threats or direct harms to our values of life, marriage, parental authority, religious liberty and constitutional government. In addition to tracking these bills, we will be monitoring budget negotiations.
Thank you to all who have responded to our many action alerts so far this session! It is so important that lawmakers hear from you on these important issues. Please continue to take action during the second half of this year’s session! Your voice matters.
