Last edited: December 05, 2004


Legislative Update and Call to Action

Virginians For Justice, January 17, 2001
Action Alert

Contact your DELEGATE and SENATOR immediately to ask for their support or opposition, as indicated below, to any of these bills.

Spread the word to Virginians across the Commonwealth!

As is often the case, little notice is given on committee hearings and bills as they move quickly through committee activity. Virginians for Justice asks you to call your legislators as soon as possible!

Information about contacting legislators is found below.


SUPPORT-----House Bill 2441 (HB2441) & Senate Bill 1005 (SB1005)
Adds sexual orientation to existing Hate Crimes Laws.

SUPPORT-----SB815
Prohibit discrimination in employment on the basis of sexual orientation. This legislation is showing signs for moving forward for the first time, so constituent contact is needed!

SUPPORT-----SB1147
Would allow Fairfax County to change their local ordinances to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation in housing, real estate transactions, employment, public accomodations, credit and education.

SUPPORT-----SB1226
Would allow Arlington County to enact an ordinance to extend health insurance benefits to county employee’s spouse or to one other adult who meets criteria established by the county. This would override the VA Supreme Court’s 2000 decision that overturned Arlington’s benefits policy.

SUPPORT-----SB1002
Would require that the Virginia Housing and Development Authority make loans available to persons living together as a single, non-profit housekeeping unit. This would override the VHDA’s current policy of disallowing loans to persons not related by blood or marriage.

ASK FOR AMENDMENT -----HB1859
A bill to add age, disability or any other basis prohibited by federal or state law related to employment discrimination to the VA Public Procurement Act (gov’t contracts, purchasing, etc.) Ask for "sexual orientation" to be included.

SUPPORT-----SB824
Establishes a procedure for determining "probably cause" for persons who have been charged with a crime that mandates HIV testing. This applies only to those accused whose competency is at issue. VJ believes that this new procedure could protect the civil rights of the accused and does not endanger the rights of victims.

SUPPORT-----HB2632
Effectively legalizes consensual adult acts of sodomy. HB2632 has already passed a House Courts of Justice subcommittee.

SUPPORT-----HB2309
Similar to HB2632 except that it lowers the penalty for sodomy rather than an outright legalization. Please, for strategic reasons, VJ asks that there be no calls on HB2309 at this time.

SUPPORT-----HJ508
Establishes a joint subcommitte to study the need for a moratorium on death sentence executions in the Commonwealth.

OPPOSE----- HB2386
This so-called "Religious Freedom Preservation" bill would prohibit the state from burdening a person’s exercise of religion. If enacted, it could wreak havoc on civil rights laws, fair housing laws and any other law or policy that a particular religious group may oppose.


Contacting your legislators:

You may call your Delegate and Senator directly at their office in Richmond, or call the Virginia Constituent Hotline at 1-800-889-0229 (in Richmond call 698-1990)

If you do not know who your Delegate and Senator are, the hotline operators can tell you. Also, you can visit the "Who’s My Legislator" portion of the General Assembly’s website at http://conview.state.va.us/whosmy/constinput.asp.

VJ’s Legislative Guide 2001, including contact information for legislators, is available on our website at http://www.visi.net/vj You may also visit the Legislative Information System website to obtain information on each bill at http://leg1.state.va.us/lis.htm.

Virginians for Justice
6 N. 6th Street, Suite LL3
Richmond, VA 23219
(804) 643-4816
virginians4justice@juno.com
http://www.visi.net/vj


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