Last week, the Senate and House of Delegates adjourned sine die. Usually, this means that all business before the Senate and House of Delegates has been concluded -- however, this year, there are still outstanding bills, including the state budget. The Constitution of Virginia does not allow for any extensions to be made in the event that our work takes longer than 60 days, so the Governor will be calling a special session in the future to complete our work.
I'm proud to say that I was able to pass thirteen bills that are now on their way to the Governor's desk. Since the Senate majority is Democratic and the House majority is Republican, every single bill that passed this year needed to have bipartisan support. I've always been willing to reach across the aisle to work on important issues, and I'll continue to do so no matter who is in the majority or in the Governor's mansion. Some of the bills that passed include:
SB254: Creates a third-party licensure for alcohol deliveries and extends the cocktails-to-go program through at least June 2024. This is crucial for struggling hospitality businesses who have suffered a great deal during the pandemic.
SB256: Allows the Department of Military Affairs to use grant funding to recruit qualified applicants for service in the Virginia National Guard. This bill will help to improve recruitment for the National Guard and ensure that they are able to tackle any challenge that comes their way.
SB258 and SB259: These are bills that deal with bid bonds for transportation projects. These bills are intended to help make the current code less confusing and save tax dollars for localities.
SB326 and SB329: These are bills that ensure that state-chartered credit unions can operate on an equal footing with federal credit unions.
SB347: Creates a program that establishes energy savings targets for low-income, elderly, disabled, or military veteran energy customers, and help to identify and repair issues that lead to higher energy use.
SB370: Establishes that localities will conduct risk-limiting audits of their elections every five years. This bill will help to foster confidence in our election systems.
SB394, SB399, and SB401: These bills will reform charitable gaming in Virginia. These bills will help to enforce illegal gaming laws and create a Charitable Gaming Fund to receive penalties from bad actors who are using our lax charitable gaming laws for personal profit. Our goal is to protect legitimate charities and ensure the bad actors aren’t taking away from the good that they are doing.
SB550: Ensures that state and local government subcontractors will be paid for their work.
SB723: Brings the Virginia School for the Deaf and Blind under the supervision of the Governor rather than the Secretary of Education. This is a classification fix that will allow the VSDB to meet their students' diverse needs better.
In addition to the bills that I passed, I was proud to be a member of the Virginia Senate "brick wall." While I'm happy to work across the aisle wherever there's common ground to be found, I am not willing to see all the progress of the past two years be reversed. We blocked attacks on public education, LGBTQ rights, reproductive healthcare, voting access, worker protections, and clean energy standards, and we will keep blocking those attacks in the future.
It's a great honor to have served as your Senator for my third session. I'm grateful for every call and email, even on the matters where we might not agree. Thank you, as always, for the trust you've placed in me.
