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Virginia lawmakers plowed by means of a whole bunch of payments Tuesday as they reached a key deadline for this 12 months’s legislative session.
The House of Delegates and Senate debated subjects starting from playing to marijuana gross sales forward of what’s identified as “crossover,” the purpose by which all laws however the finances payments should clear its originating chamber.
This 12 months’s session marks the third for the reason that begin of Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s time period. But it is the primary since he is taken workplace with Democrats in full management of the statehouse after they flipped the House of Delegates in final 12 months’s elections.
VIRGINIA GOV. YOUNGKIN PRIORITIZES MENTAL HEALTH POLICY AS POLICE ARE OVERWHELMED BY CASES
Democrats have used their majorities to fend off Republican efforts to repeal beforehand enacted priorities, together with voting entry protections and environmental legal guidelines. And they’re advancing new initiatives — together with stricter proposed limits on firearms and laws to extend the minimal wage — that would face the prospect of a Youngkin veto.
The governor has been tight-lipped, nonetheless, about the place precisely he may wield the veto pen, amid carefully watched negotiations over his proposal to convey two Washington professional sports activities groups to northern Virginia.
Still to come back this session, which is scheduled to finish March 9, is far of the heavy lifting on one of many Assembly’s most vital duties: crafting the subsequent two-year state finances.
The solar shines on the Virginia Capitol on March 4, 2010, in Richmond, Va. Virginia lawmakers handled a whole bunch of payments on Feb. 13, 2024, as a key legislative deadline arrived. (AP Photo/Steve Helber, File)
Here’s a have a look at a the place issues stand on various different key points:
NORTHERN VIRGINIA SPORTS ARENA
One of the session’s most carefully watched gadgets, laws underpinning a proposal by Youngkin to convey the Washington Wizards and Capitals to northern Virginia, handed the House of Delegates Tuesday on a bipartisan 59-40 vote. Supporters cheered the event as a serious step ahead, whereas opponents vowed to maintain up their organizing.
The deal’s path ahead seems murky, as an similar Senate model was allowed to die in that chamber this week for lack of a listening to. Top legislators there have questioned whether or not Youngkin is negotiating with Democrats in good religion and raised issues concerning the public-private financing that is proposed.
MARIJUANA SALES
Both chambers have handed payments that will pave the way for the authorized leisure gross sales of marijuana, however they face a skeptical Youngkin.
In 2021, Virginia grew to become the primary Southern state to legalize marijuana, adopting a coverage change that allowed adults to possess and domesticate the drug. But lawmakers have but to enact a framework for leisure gross sales.
ABORTION
Democrats have defeated measures that will limit entry to abortion, together with one proposal that will have instituted a near-total ban on the process. Meanwhile, they’re advancing laws more likely to face a Youngkin veto that will forestall the issuance of search warrants for digital or digital menstrual well being knowledge, which proponents say would forestall such data from being weaponized in potential abortion-related court docket circumstances.
Democrats additionally used a uncommon procedural approach to pressure a flooring vote Monday on a invoice from a conservative freshman member that will additional limit the already restricted circumstances by which public funding can be utilized to supply abortion providers and prohibit state funding from flowing to entities that present abortions.
Democrats mentioned they needed to place each House member on the report on the difficulty, although the invoice was not notably divisive. It didn’t advance on a vote of 95-1, with two abstentions. Republicans referred to as the trade a stunt.
‘SKILL GAMES’ AND CASINOS
The House and Senate this week handed differing variations of laws that will tax and regulate so-called “skill games,” the slot-like betting machines which have proliferated in companies such as truck stops, eating places and comfort shops across the state earlier than a ban took impact.
The House model has tighter rules, and the Senate’s is most popular by the well-organized trade coalition pushing for legalization.
Other gambling-related payments this 12 months embody a now-defeated effort to permit a referendum on a on line casino within the rich suburbs of the nation’s capital and a separate measure, nonetheless alive, that will add Petersburg to the listing of casino-eligible cities whereas eradicating Richmond, the place voters have twice rejected poll measures to pave the way for one.
CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM
Good governance advocates had excessive hopes that this can be the 12 months Virginia lawmakers lastly agree to hitch most different states and the federal authorities in stopping elected officers from spending marketing campaign donations on private bills.
But a invoice to just do that seems to face resistance within the House of Delegates, the place Speaker Don Scott signaled skepticism concerning the laws in an interview forward of session. The House model was allowed to die for lack of a listening to. The Senate model, which handed 35-4, will now cross over for House consideration.
MEDICALLY ASSISTED SUICIDE
A invoice that will let Virginians going through terminal sickness finish their very own lives with a prescription of barbiturates or different managed substance from a well being care supplier narrowly handed the Senate final week. The invoice limits eligibility to mentally competent adults who’ve obtained a analysis that they’ve six months or much less to reside.
The invoice failed in earlier years, however this 12 months handed the Senate on a party-line vote after receiving an endorsement from U.S. Rep. Jennifer Wexton, a Democrat and former state senator who has been identified with a terminal neurological illness. Religious and socially conservative teams have opposed the measure.
The same invoice had been scheduled for a vote within the House on Tuesday however was handed by, successfully defeating it. The Senate’s model will now cross over.
LICENSE PLATE READERS
After a prolonged debate, the state Senate narrowly defeated a measure from Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell that will regulate the usage of license plate reader expertise, whereas additionally opening the door for use of the cameras on state highways.
Surovell mentioned the invoice would add guardrails on a broadly used expertise that’s presently unregulated by the state. Opponents raised privateness issues.
Sen. Lashrecse Aird mentioned that with out tighter guidelines on how police can use the information, the invoice would permit for an “unfettered expansion of mass surveillance here in the Commonwealth.”
A unique model of the invoice continues to be alive within the House.
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