Democrats in Virginia's House and Senate sped up approval of over 80 bills with the intention of getting Governor Glenn Youngkin to act on them before the scheduled end of session Saturday.
A quirk in the state’s legislative rules gives bills that have passed both chambers and been signed by those chambers' respective leaders by a certain date, a rushed path to the Governor’s desk. Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell said while many of the bills that qualified had bipartisan support, some were designed to get Youngkin to take a stance on issues that had been blocked in previous years by the GOP controlled House.
“Virginians are finally going to find out where he stands on issues like protecting contraception, firearm violence prevention, on the minimum wage,” Surovell said.
Among the efforts is matching House and Senate measures which require health insurance companies to cover contraceptive drugs and devices. Here’s House Majority Leader Charniele Herring defending the effort in the face of a recent ruling out of the Alabama Supreme Court which caused the state to halt IVF services.
“Women are perfectly capable of deciding when they will start a family,” Herring said.
Another priority which we already know Youngkin’s stance on is a bill by Henrico Senator Schuyler VanValkenburg to force the state to rejoin the multi-state election integrity effort known as ERIC. Youngkin removed the state from the compact last spring.
These bills and others now await action by Friday night at midnight. In a statement sent to Radio IQ Governor Youngkin said he’d continue, quote “to watch how the General Assembly chooses to act on other important priorities.”
And in a statement House Republican Leader Todd Gilbert asked if Democrats cared so much about these bills quote “why rush the review?”
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.
