72 Days and Still Going…

After more than 70 days – greater than the length of an even-year “long” regular session (vs. 45 day odd-year “short” sessions) – the General Assembly is still wrapping up the 2020 Special Session, which mostly focused on police and criminal justice reform, despite being commissioned to primarily address the Commonwealth's budget shortfall due to COVID-19 shutdowns. Instead of adjourning, the Democratically-led body has kept things going until after the election in hopes that they won’t need to allocate the funding necessary to implement a bipartisan redistricting committee should Amendment 1 – which is on the ballot – fail to be approved by Virginians this November.

This Special Session has certainly been unusual to say the least!  For alleged reasons of “health and safety concerns,” the House of Delegates held its full floor session and all committee meetings virtually, making public participation and advocacy almost impossible.  Incredibly, Democrats still collected their $210 per day stipend (historically for travel and lodging) to simply walk from their bedroom to the living room.  The Senate on the other hand, conducted committee meetings virtually but still managed to meet in-person at the Science Museum in Richmond.  We anticipate, however, that this was just a trial run for what we expect to happen again during the 2021 Regular Session in just over two months.

Fortunately, the General Assembly limited their scope of bills, but if there’s one takeaway that accurately describes the Special Session, it’s that the needs and concerns of families were ignored.  Rather than provide resources to families to help cover their newly incurred costs of childcare and education when their schools were forcibly shut down, the Democrat-majority merely continued to advance unnecessary pet projects and programs. 

While defeated bills like HB 5008 (R-M.Cole), HB 5011 (R-Webert), and HB 5056 (R-Freitas) would have created a voucher account for parents to pay for private, virtual or other education alternatives if their public school does not offer an in-person classroom, the Democrat-led House and Senate decided instead to use this special session to pass a new voting law (through the budget, without actually passing a bill) allocating $2 million for the creation of absentee ballot “drop boxes” that will open the door for massive voter fraud. That perfectly illustrates the majority’s priorities during this special session! (Right after passing it, 6 USPS mail collection boxes were broken into, with mail stolen, across Richmond in one night.)

As discouraging as that was, there are other examples that further demonstrate the left’s efforts to expand the size and scope of government to the detriment of the needs and concerns of families across the Commonwealth.

Executive Powers

The Democrat majority in the Senate and House, in collaboration with members of the Governor’s administration, crushed all bills aimed at restoring the proper separation of powers between the legislative and executive branches of government.  HB 5023 (R-Byron), HB 5025 (R- M. Cole), HB 5075 (R-LaRock), SB 5001 and SB 5025 (R-Newman), and SB 5008 (R-Suiterlein), would have prohibited executive orders or the Health Commissioner from placing restrictions on people not infected with the coronavirus, or limited the time that an Executive Order could remain effective until the General Assembly could meet to take further action.     

Efforts in the House to address the Governor’s “Snitchline” for anonymously reporting violations of the Governor’s executive orders were also defeated in committee.  HB 5023 (R-Byron) and  HB 5018 (R-Webert) would’ve required the Virginia Department of Health (VDH) to only accept a complaint alleging a violation of an emergency order if it includes the first and last name and basic contact information of the person making the report.  This would have prevented petty and false reporting.

One bill that every Virginian should be aware of is SB 5117 (D-Deeds), which lowers the penalty for disobeying an executive order from a Class 1 misdemeanor to a monetary civil penalty.  While some may think that reducing the penalty is good, this bill will actually result in more aggressive government enforcement of executive orders because very few judges would've actually enforced the current law.  Someone who doesn't receive a mandated COVID-19 vaccine, wears a mask in public area, or doesn’t follow “proper social distancing,” could all result in being ticketed!  Worse, there’s nothing in the bill that limits the number of times a person could be ticketed for the same violation.

Conscience Rights and Parental Authority

During this Special Session we helped shine the light on two major threats to our conscience rights and parental authority: mandated vaccines and the VDH’s sex text hotline.  The House Health, Welfare, and Institutions (HWI) committee, along with the Governor’s spokespersons, rejected measures to provide a religious exemption for mandated vaccines (HB 5016, R-Cole; HB 5070, R-LaRock), and establish baseline standards for vaccines added to the required list of immunizations (HB 5082, R-LaRock).  Without these exemptions, which are already in place for other immunizations, the Governor and his Health Commissioner will be free to mandate a COVID-19 vaccine when one is made available to the public regardless of a person’s religious or conscience objections.

In addition to preserving the Governor’s ability to mandate a COVID-19 vaccine on Virginians, the Democrat-majority in the General Assembly also protected – and defended - the VDH’s contract with the American Sexual Health Association (ASHA) to facilitate the “BrdsNBz” (anonymous) Sex Text Hotline for teens, a program that allows kids to use their cell phone to text an anonymous person about sex, sexuality, STDs, relationships and more.  In the Senate, following a very revealing floor debate, a budget amendment brought by Sen. Steve Newman that would’ve halted any federal Title V funding to be used for this program was defeated.  The House also defeated similar budget amendment sponsored by Del. Kathy Byron (R-Bedford).  Because these two budget amendments were defeated, it means your child’s safety and privacy will be in danger through this program until at least July 1, 2021.

Police and Criminal Justice Reform

The majority also used the Special Session to advance HB 5098 (D-Askew), a bill that makes it a Class 6 felony, punishable with a jail sentence up to 12 months or 1-5 years in prison and a fine of $2,500, for providing “intentionally false” information to the police against another person because of their race, religious conviction, gender, disability, gender identity, sexual orientation, color, or national origin.

The liberal majority also passed legislation, as part of their criminal justice and police reform, prohibiting police from searching a stopped vehicle even if they can actually smell marijuana (not yet legalized) in the car. Interestingly, this legislation was passed just six months after they changed Virginia law making it illegal to smoke cigarette products in a vehicle with a minor who’s 15 years old or younger.

Budget

The primary purpose for the special session was to address the reported $2.7 billion budget shortfall caused in large part by the coronavirus.  Thankfully, the revised budget, which passed 58-40, did not include any new funding for abortions or “reproductive health services,” and any amendments to repeal or defund the Education Improvement Scholarship Tax Credit Program, Virginia’s signature school choice program for low-income families.  But despite a few positive funding measures for K-12 staffing, broadband expansion, and efforts to keep higher education tuition rates down, the Left’s spending priorities did very little to help Virginia families or its economic recovery.

Instead, they blocked pay increases for Sheriff’s deputies and regional jail employees, while members of the General Assembly still received $210 for their own "expenses" for commuting from their bedroom to their living room for virtual sessions.  They also defeated the READ fund amendment, introduced by Del. Kirk Cox (R-Colonial Heights), that would’ve appropriated $100 million of Virginia’s remaining CARES Act funds to families to help pay for computer equipment or software, internet access, tutoring, or even the popular home based learning PODs.

This Special Session was mostly an exercise in advancing policies that align with purely ideological beliefs rather than addressing the real needs and concerns of Virginia families and businesses. Combined with a lack of transparency and barriers created by the virtual environment, there should be real concern for how the liberal majority will govern during the upcoming regular session.