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Thank you for your active engagement in advocacy initiatives championed by the Virginia Catholic Conference over the first half of the Virginia General Assembly session. Through Catholic Advocacy Day and the Conference's email advocacy network, many of you have participated in the political process and have influenced some extremely important decisions.
What follows below is a summary of decisions made on issues that have been the recent focal points of advocacy by the Conference and so many of you. In several instances, your e-mails and phone calls helped lead to successful outcomes. Please keep up the great work! There are still a little more than two weeks left in this year's legislative session, and many issues are still undecided.
--Protecting the Unborn: Thus far, provisions to ensure that state taxpayers would not be forced to finance abortions, Planned Parenthood, and research that requires the destruction of unborn life have been included in the House version of the budget but not the Senate version. At this point, the House budget (but not the Senate version) also includes language requiring state licensure, inspection, and regulation of abortion clinics.
The House approved two bills designed to boost state biotechnology investment, but not before adding Conference-approved provisions to prevent them from becoming vehicles for financing embryonic stem-cell research or research on aborted babies or the companies that conduct such experimentation. The Senate, however, rejected a floor amendment to add similar protections to its version of the biotech legislation. Over the next two weeks, each chamber will consider the opposite chamber's biotech measures. [Click here for Alert
.]
The House also approved two separate measures to improve Virginia's informed consent law - one to ensure that a woman considering an abortion would be given the opportunity to view an ultrasound, and another to ensure that she could receive information about a fetus' ability to experience pain. These bills will next be considered by the Senate Committee on Education and Health, which earlier this session rejected legislation (10-5 vote) to require that abortion clinics be licensed and inspected and have emergency equipment on hand.
On a 20-19 vote, the Senate has approved the creation of Choose Life license plates. The House will soon consider the proposal.
--Death Penalty: Several Conference-opposed measures that would expand the death penalty have been approved by both chambers by wide margins. The broadest proposal seeks to eliminate the "triggerman rule" (i.e., the rule reserving capital punishment for only those who actually commit the capital murder, with few exceptions). The Governor vetoed this proposal each of the last two years and is anticipated to do so again this year. Other bills that have advanced would allow the death penalty to be imposed for the murder of an auxiliary police officer, an auxiliary deputy sheriff, a fire marshal, or an assistant fire marshal with law-enforcement powers.
In addition, an execution has been scheduled for February 19. [Click here for Alert.]
--Budget/Safety Net: The Governor's December budget proposal (introduced budget), as well as the current House and Senate versions, all include a $1 million grant to the Virginia Federation of Food Banks to boost this vital safety net.
The House budget (but not the Senate version) also restores 200 "MR waiver" slots that were eliminated in the introduced budget, and adds an additional 200 slots on top of that. The MR Waiver program provides community-based services for individuals with intellectual disabilities but has a waiting list of several thousand people.
Conference-endorsed budget items to provide a cost-of-living increase in TANF benefits and to provide rental assistance for low-income working families have not been included in either the House or Senate budgets.
--Human Trafficking: A bill to clarify and strengthen state enforcement mechanisms against human trafficking has passed the House and will soon receive Senate consideration. Strengthening Virginia's ability to prosecute human trafficking would especially help prevent exploitation of vulnerable immigrants, often teenage girls.
--Marriage: A Conference-opposed resolution to repeal the marriage-protection provision in Virginia's constitution (which affirms marriage as "a union between one man and one woman" and draws a clear distinction between the public institution of marriage and other voluntary relationships) was overwhelmingly defeated in a House subcommittee. Conference-supported legislation to require that Virginia's public-school curriculum guidelines on family life education include instruction on the value, benefits, challenges, and responsibilities of marriage has been approved by both chambers. This proposal a recommendation of the Family Foundation's 2007-2008 Marriage Commission, and the Conference thanks the Family Foundation for its leadership on the legislation.
--Education: Legislation to establish income tax credits for businesses and individuals who contribute to scholarship foundations or public-school foundations narrowly passed the House and will soon be considered by the Senate Committee on Finance. Although that committee failed to approve very similar Senate legislation a couple weeks ago, it now has another chance to consider the issue.
Bills to establish tax credits for school supplies - available to parents of children who attend public or nonpublic schools or who are home schooled - failed in committees in both the House and Senate.
--Car-Title Lending: In Virginia, an open-end credit loophole allows unregulated lending. Car-title lenders have been exploiting this loophole to operate unregulated open-end programs that charge rates that can be well in excess of 300 percent (annual percentage rate), often to customers who can least afford them. Conference-supported legislation to close the open-end credit loophole failed in both the House and Senate, with committee members opting instead to study the issue further later this year.
--Voting Rights: In Virginia, people lose the right to vote when convicted of a felony. Currently, only the Governor can restore the right to vote after the individual has completed his or her sentence. Virginia and Kentucky are the only two states with this limitation. A House resolution - proposing a constitutional amendment authorizing the General Assembly to provide for the restoration of civil rights for persons convicted of nonviolent felonies who have completed their sentences - failed in committee. The Senate, however, approved its resolution in this matter, creating the possibility of further review in the House.
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