33rd District Weekly Update - Bills Moving Forward- Big Week Ahead!

• ACTION ITEM -The Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act will be heard in sub-committee Monday, likely early afternoon. Please call committee members before Monday noon to register your support for this bill!

HB 963 will grant legal protection to unborn children after they reach 20 weeks of gestation. This bill is based on solid scientific evidence that babies at this age can and do feel pain, which, in turn, grants a strong legal rationale (according to the Supreme Court) to protect them! For more background on this bill, you can find information from National Right to Life here and here, but it’s important that you:

A) Contact your delegate and senator to tell them to support this bill, and

B) Ask your friends to do the same!

• Education Savings Accounts will also be heard in an Appropriations Subcommittee on Tuesday. We are not asking for calls to Appropriations Committee members at this point, but the bill should soon be up for a vote on the entire House floor, so now is a great time to let your delegate know you support school choice and Education Savings Accounts in particular! For a list of talking points, check out our web page on ESAs here, and check out Gerard Robinson’s testimony in favor of school choice this week in front of Congress – it’s fantastic!

• My next bill to have a hearing scheduled, HB 1132, is on the docket Monday in the House Elementary and Secondary Education Subcommittee. This bill has broad support in the House, and would give principals some commonsense discretion in what incidents they are legally required to report to their local police department – hopefully cutting down on classroom disruptions and saving time and headaches for teachers.

• My bill to protect Virginia from a unilateral Common Core takeover is on its way to the Senate Health and Education Committee after passing the House! No hearing scheduled yet, but I will keep you posted. This bill passed both houses last year, and I’m optimistic that this time around we’ll get the Governor’s signature!

• Our bill aimed at helping to protect kids by ticketing drivers for passing a stopped school bus flew out of its first hearing with strong support from democrats and republicans.

Two bills that died in name but live on in spirit are:

• HB 273 (my bill to drop the requirement for a second form of ID in Virginia for firearm purchases) was tabled in committee at my request – I teamed up with a virtually identical bill, HB 206, of which I am Chief Co-patron! That bill passed the House on February 3rd unanimously! Virginia’s ID requirements were actually posing the biggest problem for military members who were here on orders but did not yet have ID’s that matched their residency. This legislation should make it easier for them to protect themselves and their families!

• HB 397, my bill to define “sex” as found in Virginia law as a biological characteristic, was sent to a faraway place called THE CODE COMMISSION. However, the Speaker requested the Virginia Code Commission to specifically study this issue, recognizing that this is an area of contention that likely needs clarification.

Good news on keeping Virginia a great place to do business!

This week the House passed a constitutional amendment to solidify Virginia’s right to work status.  The amendment, carried by Delegate Dickie Bell (R-Augusta), prohibits union membership as a condition of employment. Virginia already has a right-to-work statute, but including right-to-work in the Constitution solidifies this important pro-business policy. This legislation will protect hard working Virginians from being forced to join a union.  The Senate also approved the amendment this week, meaning it will be on the ballot for voters to consider this fall.