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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