2024 Session Wrap Up & Looking Ahead to Reconvened

March 9 marked the official end of the 60-day 2024 General Assembly Session. As I reflect on this date—marking “sine die” (pronounced sigh-knee dye), and March generally when I formally launched my campaign for Senate a year ago—I was struck with sincere gratitude for the opportunity to once again fight for policies that will uplift the communities I represent. The amazing team I had working alongside me allowed us to hit the ground running with impactful issues, representative of the need we see in our district and broadly supported when successful. In addition, they took your calls, responded to your letters and emails, and helped arrange your visits to the capitol this session.

I offer a tremendous thank you to—Jameson Babb, my Chief of Staff, Dani Girardi, my Legislative Aide, Brandy Barnes, my Administrative Assistant and our collegiate fellows, Ahmir Nathan (VCU), and Solenne Montgomery (VSU).

Governor’s Actions and Looking Ahead to Reconvened

With more than a thousand individual bills reaching final passage, Governor Youngkin has already begun exercising his power and has approved 264 bills vetoed 88, and amended 20 of the bills we’ve sent him. The Governor has several actions he can take with the remaining:

sign the bill into law,
amend the bill and return it to the General Assembly for approval,
veto the bill and return it to the General Assembly, where the House of Delegates and the Senate may override the veto by a two-thirds vote of both houses or,
take no action and the bill becomes law without the Governor’s signature.

A few closely watched approved bills include the signage of state-level protections for the legality of same-sex marriage, the prohibition of legacy admissions at public Virginia universities, and extending the Eviction Diversion Pilot Program to 2025. In addition, after the tragic shooting death of Henrico’s Lucia Bremer, Lucia’s law will create a felony charge for parents or guardians who allow a child under 18 to access a firearm despite knowing the child has a history of violent or threatening behavior.

Of the 88 vetoed, I was disappointed to see critical priorities for our communities were among them, including increasing the minimum wage to $15, the establishment of an adult-use cannabis market, criminal justice reforms, gun control measures, and Virginia’s return to (ERIC) the Electronic Registration Information Center.

More than half of our bills continue to await his signature and a few notables include:

SB484 establishes the Community Builders Pilot Program in Petersburg and the City of Roanoke, which is a school-based community intervention program designed to combat youth gun violence.
SB480 prevents utility shut-offs of any sort during extreme weather conditions or any future public health emergency. Read more about it here: *General Assembly sends bill to governor ensuring no water cutoffs in health, weather emergencies*

SB645 develops a state process that allows the state Auditor of Public Accounts to identify localities in ‘fiscal distress' and support the restoration of financial health through a variety of approaches. Read more about it here: Fiscal distress bill for region easily passes House of Delegates
SB 477 gives high fiscal stress, localities the authority to levy a tax on blighted properties and derelict structures at a rate that exceeds the general real property tax rate to combat the epidemic of blighted properties in our communities.

The Governor must act on all bills by April 8, ahead of our required Reconvened Session to occur on April 17th.

I want to amplify SB488 which is also awaiting the Governor’s signature and directs the Department of Medical Assistance to apply for waivers and consider **removing burdensome regulation that prevents parents from receiving compensation as caretakers for their developmental disability waiver recipient children.** I can’t express the number of parents who contacted me with personal experiences about how the current structure of this process has been especially difficult for them.

With the delay in the regulations that were scheduled to go into effect earlier this month, this legislation will now allow new flexibility that will make the lives of so many parents more manageable. This outcome is largely due to the consistent advocacy of many families. Take a look as I discuss this further with WTKR’s Erin Miller in her news coverage.

Setting the Record Straight About Our Budget

As previously mentioned, one of the primary responsibilities of the General Assembly during a legislative session is to enact a balanced budget. I am proud that under Democratic leadership we not only sent a bipartisan supported, balanced budget to the Governor, but we did so on time and with our priorities intact. There has been a lot of misinformation spread about the budget we sent to the Governor, primarily by him. The reality is, this is a historic budget for workers, families, our schools and to ensure healthcare is affordable.

We took his original tax proposal which would have raised taxes on people with low incomes while giving tax breaks to millionaires and instead created a budget that makes sure more Virginians keep more of what they earn, make investments in our schools especially to combat learning loss, through mental health supports, and so much more.

We shared our budget amendments that were in the Senate budget, but I am even more proud of the critical investments we championed that are in the final budget before the Governor. A few include:

$1 million - REAL LIFE Community Violence Intervention Program Funding –The REAL LIFE program in Hopewell and soon operation in Petersburg has been doing fantastic work to combat community violence and this additional support will grow those efforts going forward.
$800k - Community Builders Youth Violence Prevention Program for SB484 – Funding for the Community Builders Pilot Program.
$5.25 million - Community Schools Grant Fund + Staff to Implement SB 608 – to support community schools through grants to school divisions to support the development and implementation of community schools initiatives.
$6.4 million - Community Health Workers in Local Health Districts – Funding to support community health worker positions at the local health district levels, prioritizing districts that serve localities with the highest rates of maternal mortality.
$7.7 million - CommonHelp Replacement for Department of Social Services –Initiates a replacement for the outdated system that Virginians use to apply for Medicaid, SNAP, TANF that will improve access and remove barriers.
$300k - Commission on Local Government Staff to Implement SB 645
$230k - Maternal Mortality Review Team Data Collection & Analysis – provides contractual support to the Chief Medical Examiner to expand the collection and analysis of data by the Maternal Mortality Review Team.

Town Hall on Petersburg Casino – April 14

On April 14, at 2:00 PM at the Petersburg Public Library, I will convene each of the potential companies seeking to develop the resort destination casino in Petersburg. This town hall will give Petersburg residents the opportunity to engage with potential operators and see their presentations featuring their vision for the development. Legislation is awaiting the Governor’s signature to allow for a referendum in November. Citizens will then have the final vote on whether a casino becomes a reality.

WOMEN’S HISTORY MONTH

HB 994 (Keys-Gamarra) - establishes the legal age of marriage to be 18 years old in Virginia, effectively ending child marriage in the Commonwealth.
SB 238 (Hashmi) - The “Contraceptive Equity Act” requires health insurance carriers to provide coverage for contraceptives.
SB 16 (Favola)/HB78 (Watts) - This legislation protects menstrual health data from a search warrant, subpoena, court order, or other process for the purpose of search and seizure.
SB 716 (Carroll Foy)/HB 519 (King) - These bills will help ensure that those who provide legal abortion care in Virginia can maintain licensure in Virginia.
SB 237 (Hashmi)/HB 609 (Price) - These bills protect the right to access contraception.
SJ 23 - Designates April 11 through April 17, in 2024 and in each succeeding year, as Black Maternal Health Week in Virginia.
SB494 ensures domestic service workers living and working in a household receive overtime pay.

Bringing REVIVE! Training To the District

Last month the Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services (DBHDS) facilitated Rapid REVIVE! training sessions. REVIVE! is the Opioid Overdose and Naloxone Education (OONE) program for the Commonwealth of Virginia, which provides training on how to recognize and respond to an opioid overdose emergency using naloxone.

Knowing how to administer life-saving medication in these emergency situations is an occurrence we all hope to never find ourselves in but happens with increasing frequency and can make the difference in whether an individual lives or dies. I am grateful for DBHBS making this life saving training available. I look forward to bringing this training to our district, but for now you can learn more about fentanyl and naloxone here.

I will miss sitting alongside my colleagues that represent parts of Henrico and Richmond in the chamber, but I am more excited to get back out into the district and engage with you! While the legislative session has concluded, our work on your behalf has not. We continue to be accessible by phone at 804-452-7076, email at senatoraird@senate.virginia.gov if we can ever be of any assistance to you. For additional resources, you may also visit my website at lashrecseaird.com.

Thank you again for the opportunity to serve as your Senator!