Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin is considering about a hundred bills that are on his desk right now, and his deadline to take action is at the end of the week. One bill guarantees a right to contraception.
This is how the vote went down on the Senate floor back in January, when Lieutenant Governor Winsome Earle-Sears was presiding over the Senate on a Tuesday afternoon.
"The question is shall the bill pass. Those in favor will record their votes aye, those oppose no," Earle-Sears said. "Are the senators ready to vote? Have all the senators voted? Do any senators desire to change their vote?”
One senator who did, in fact, desire to change his vote was Senator Jeremy McPike, a Democrat from Prince William County. That made the vote a tie.
"Ayes 19. Nos 19. Chair votes no."
That's how Senate Democrats got the lieutenant governor on the record opposing the bill guaranteeing a right to contraception. Immediately after that vote, they took it up again. McPike changed his vote, the bill passed, and now it’s on the governor’s desk. It was introduced by Senator Ghzala Hashmi, a Democrat from Richmond.
"We have nothing in our code that gives Virginians the protections that they need in order to access critical health care, and that's why we need to have it in Virginia," Hashmi says. "I hope the governor has the foresight to anticipate this critical urgency and that he will, in fact, sign the bill by the midnight deadline on Friday."
The bill is now a campaign issue for both key players; Winsome Earle-Sears is the Republican candidate for governor and Ghzala Hashmi is one of the Democrats running for lieutenant governor.
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.
