Members of the Virginia General Assembly are back at the Capitol, voting on hundreds of vetoes and amendments from the governor.
Democrats who run the General Assembly and Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin agree that something needs to be done about the death toll from drug dealers who sell fatal doses of fentanyl. But they have radically different approaches to handling the problem. Senate Democratic Leader Scott Surovell says it's important to keep a safe harbor provision for reporting potentially deadly overdoses in progress.
"The reason that's in there is we want to incentivize people to call for help when a situation like this arises," Surovell says. "We do not want to incentivize people to just throw a body in a ditch and walk away. And the governor's bill here, if we were to adopt this, would result in more people dying because people would be scared to call and get help."
Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin wants the penalty for drug dealers to be felony homicide. But Democrats rejected that and passed a bill charging drug dealers with manslaughter.
"It has a significantly harsher penalty for those who sell drugs to our children and result in their death, but both versions of the bill still have an increased penalty for drug dealers," says Republican Senate Leader Ryan McDougle.
McDougle says he liked the governor’s amended version of the bill much better, but the Senate turned down. That’s why he's urging the Youngkin to sign the Democratic version of the bill, which is now once again on his desk – and, McDoughle says, better than nothing.
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.
