Newsletter: General Assembly 2020 Special Session
Our special session may have appeared to be headed towards converging with the 2021 regular session that starts in January but … the end of the special session is near! Please see below for an update on the remaining legislative steps for 2020 and a summary of the bills that we have passed. Although the special session has dragged on, we have been able to pass legislation and a budget critical to dealing with the pandemic and addressing criminal justice reforms.
And as we quickly approach November, there are reminders below for two of your most important civic duties: please vote and get a flu shot. These are annual duties and, arguably, more important this year than any other.
I will continue to keep you informed with relevant, accurate information via Twitter, Facebook, and my website. Please email my office at delrwillett@house.virginia.gov or call us at 804-698-1173 if you have any questions or need assistance.
Sincerely,
Rodney
New Information
General Assembly Special Session
The General Assembly special session, which convened on August 18th, recessed last Friday evening, October 16th. The House and Senate have reached an agreement on the budget, and we have finished voting on our bills to provide relief to Virginians suffering from the COVID-19 pandemic and to enact long overdue criminal justice reforms. We will remain in recess until after the November election when we will reconvene to consider any gubernatorial amendments or vetoes. We then will have a short break to prepare for the 2021 regular session in January.
We were called into this special session to close the over $2 billion budget shortfall caused by COVID, pass new legislation to help the Commonwealth weather the challenges of this pandemic, and reform our criminal justice system. Here is a brief summary of some of the non-budget legislation passed this session:
COVID-19 Relief
HB 5046 (Co-Patron)— Advancing innovations in telehealth.
HB 5047 (Co-Patron)— Prohibits manufacturers or distributors from selling necessary goods or services at an unconscionable price during a declared state of emergency.
HB 5048 — Mandating transparency requirements for congregate-care facilities during a public health emergency.
HB 5050 (Co-Patron)— Authorizes the Governor, during a declared state of emergency due to a communicable disease of public health threat, to purchase and distribute PPE to private, nongovernmental entities.
HB 5059 (Patron) — Providing certain liability protection for assisted living facilities in relation to COVID-19.
HB 5064 (Co-Patron) — Providing rent payment plan opportunities for tenants negatively impacted by COVID-19.
HB 5068 (Co-Patron) — Prohibiting garnishment of stimulus relief checks.
HB 5087 (Co-Patron) — Removing the sunset clause on Virginia’s short-term compensation program (work-sharing) to facilitate eligibility for CARES Act funds.
HB 5093 — Granting flexibility in enforcing executive orders through civil penalty. Under current law, the only penalty for such a violation is a Class 1 misdemeanor.
HB 5106 — Protecting prospective tenants whose credit is negatively impacted by COVID-19.
HB 5113 (Co-Patron) — Ensuring local school board participation in the federal Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) no-cost breakfast and lunch program.
HB 5115 — Protecting housing security for individuals and families negatively impacted by COVID-19.
Criminal Justice Reform
HB 5029 (Co-Patron) — Mandating the duty of one officer to intervene to stop use of excessive force by another officer.
HB 5043 (Co-Patron) —Creating a statewide Marcus Alert system.
HB 5045 (Co-Patron) — Banning sexual relations between officers and arrestees.
HB 5049 (Co-Patron) — Demilitarizing police departments by prohibiting the acquisition and use of certain weapons and military equipment by law enforcement agencies.
HB 5051 (Co-Patron) — Requiring decertification of a law enforcement officer who is terminated or resigns for violation of law, serious misconduct in violation of statewide standards of conduct, or during an internal investigation.
HB 5055 (Co-Patron) —Strengthening laws related to Citizen Review Panels.
HB 5058 (Co-Patron) — Eliminates certain vehicle equipment offenses or the odor of marijuana as pretexts for a stop or search by law enforcement.
HB 5062 (Co-Patron) — Codifying prosecutorial ability to dismiss charges.
HB 5069 (Chief Co-Patron) — Banning the use of neck restraints by law enforcement except if immediately necessary to protect the officer or another person.
HB 5072 — Empowering the Attorney General to conduct “pattern or practice” investigations of police forces that appear to be violating constitutional rights, including unlawful discrimination.
HB 5098 (Co-Patron) — Expanding the definition of hate crimes to include false 911 calls or reports to law enforcement against another person made on the basis of race, religious conviction, gender, disability, gender identity, sexual orientation, color, or national origin.
HB 5099 (Co-Patron) — Prohibiting no-knock search warrants.
HB 5104 (Co-Patron) — Strengthening the assessments and review of prior law-enforcement employment records required before hiring law enforcement officers.
HB 5108 (Chief Co-Patron) — Diversifying the Department of Criminal Justice Services’ Committee on Training.
HB 5109 (Co-Patron) — Standardizing and enhancing training by criminal justice academies and establishing required in-service training standards for law enforcement officers.
HB 5148 — Increasing earned sentence credits.
Voting Information
Today at 5:00 pm is the deadline to request an absentee ballot to be mailed to you. You can apply online here, or by completing the Virginia Absentee Ballot Application form available here and mailing it to your local registrar, which must receive the application today. Thanks to legislation passed by the General Assembly last session you no longer need an excuse to vote absentee by mail or absentee in-person. If you would like to vote absentee in-person, simply visit your local registrar’s office with a valid form of identification. The last day to vote early in person is Saturday, October 31. If you are registered to vote in Henrico County, here are the available times and locations to vote early in person:
Western Government Center
4301 E Parham Rd
Richmond, VA 23228
Monday - Friday — 8:00 am - 4:30pm
Saturday — 9:00am - 5:00pm
Eastern Government Center
3820 Nine Mile Rd
Richmond, VA 23223
Monday - Friday — 8:00 am - 4:30pm
Saturday — 9:00am - 5:00pm
If you are voting by mail, I highly encourage you to track the status of your ballot online via the Department of Elections Citizen Portal. Click “Check registration status” and enter in your voting information to see the status of your mail-in ballot. If you have any questions about voting, please do not hesitate to contact my office at delrwillett@house.virginia.gov.
Child Care Access and CARES Act Support for Providers
On Wednesday, during a virtual meeting of the Children’s Cabinet, Governor Northam and First Lady Pamela Northam announced $65.8 million in new funding to increase access to child care and support child care providers and early childhood educators amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. This investment comes from $58.3 million in Federal CARES Act funding and $7.5 million from a reallocation of funding from the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG) funding from the CARES Act.
Early childhood educators and child care providers have been on the frontlines since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, working to stay open and quickly adapt to new public health standards, to ensure that children and working families have access to safe, affordable childcare and early childhood education. This funding will support providers and expand access to child care through the continuation of the incentive grant program for child care providers launched this April. This program provides flexible cash assistance to child care providers to help offset operating costs and expenses associated with meeting health and safety guidelines. The Virginia Department of Social Services, in partnership with the Virginia Department of Education, has distributed more than $46 million in direct assistance to child care programs to date.
Access to child care, particularly for young children, is a crucial component of our economic recovery of the COVID pandemic. This funding will help increase access to child care for working families and ensure our children have access to safe early childhood education programs.
Virginia Roadmap to End Hunger
This Tuesday, Governor Northam released the Virginia Roadmap to End Hunger, a set of goals and strategies to prioritize food security during the current public health emergency and beyond. The pandemic has exacerbated an already prevalent issue of food insecurity in our Commonwealth. In Virginia and across the country rates of food insecurity are increasing, with an estimated 445,000 additional Virginians experiencing food insecurity as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
We already have made significant progress in reducing food insecurity in our schools during the COVID-19 pandemic. Local school districts have remodeled their nutrition programs to take advantage of a waiver from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, offering free breakfast and lunch to all students, available for pickup by their parents, regardless of income level. During our Special Session, I was proud to co-patron HB5113, introduced by Delegate Roem. The bill was signed by the Governor on October 13th and requires all school districts that are eligible to participate in the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP), administered by the USDA, which provides free meals for schools in low-income areas.
Although we have made significant progress, many Virginians are still struggling with food insecurity. The Virginia Roadmap to End Hunger includes goals and strategies to:
Expand child nutrition programs
Increase participation in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Women Infant and Children (WIC) Program
Increase nutrition support for seniors
Grow access to local food for schools and families
Strengthen connections between food access programs and the healthcare sector
Encourage food and agriculture investments in food deserts and marginalized communities
Amplify public awareness of hunger in Virginia and support information sharing across public and private sectors
Support community organizing to combat food insecurity and hunger
See more information on the Governor’s announcement online here, and you can read the full Roadmap to End Hunger online here.
Henrico County COVID-19
Cases of COVID-19 have risen across the country over the last two weeks. While Henrico County has maintained a relatively low rate of infection compared with other localities in the Commonwealth, this Wednesday Henrico County reported its highest number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in a single day in nearly six weeks. As the winter season approaches, it is more important than ever to follow public health guidelines to help mitigate the spread of this virus. Here are a few things you can do to help protect yourself and our community from COVID-19.
Get a flu shot! While we are all focused on COVID-19, it is important to make sure that our community is protected from the spread of the seasonal flu. If more people get the flu vaccine, then there will likely be fewer flu-related hospital visits to facilities that are already overwhelmed.
Wear a mask. As the weather cools down and we all spend more time indoors, it is crucial that we wear a mask in public gatherings. Data from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) shows that universal mask wearing could save the lives of more than 70,000 Americans in the next three months.
Get tested. If you are experiencing symptoms or have been in contact with someone who has been exposed to COVID-19, please self quarantine, inform anyone who you may have been in contact with and get tested. You can see a list of available testing sites in Virginia online here.
Download COVIDwise. COVIDwise is a new smartphone app that automatically notifies users if they may have been exposed to the coronavirus. Virginia is the first state in the country to have access to this new technology created by Apple and Google. You can download the app in the App Store, or by visiting covidwise.org.
Richmond Raceway Red Cross Blood Drive
Richmond Raceway will host a blood drive with the American Red Cross of Virginia on Thursday, Oct. 29 from 1:30 p.m. to 6 p.m. in the Old Dominion Building at the complex, 600 East Laburnum Avenue. Visit richmondraceway.com/blooddrive to see more details and sign up. All persons participating will need to sign up online prior to arrival. To prevent the spread of COVID-19, all participants are required to wear a mask, be given a temperature check, and sign a COVID-19 waiver.
