The Virginia General Assembly has done an incredible amount of work, and we're now at the halfway point for the session! Here's a wrap up of what's happened so far with many bills highlighted. We note that some of these bills have "some bipartisan support." We'd like to note that sometimes, this bipartisan support was from one Republican in the House voting for the bill--shoutout to Del Coyner for being the sole GOP member to vote for FOUR of these bills as well as also voting for six other GVP bills that had additional GOP support; we hope to see you support even more GVP legislation in the future! The Senate only had some Republican support for THREE of these bills (SB44, SB210, & SB225). We'd like to say thank you to the Virginia Public Access Project and the Virginia Center for Public Safety who made this analysis much easier for us to do!
February 12th was the final day for bills to pass their first house (House of Delegates or Senate). So, we’re just past the halfway mark for the 2024 session. Bills that passed the House will now go to the Senate, and bills that passed the Senate will now go to the House.
So, what's next? Bills that passed one house will now go to the committees in the other house for review. After going to 1-3 committees, and if they make it through them, they’ll go to the floor for a vote. They must pass this house by March 9th when session will adjourn. For bills passed by March 2nd, the governor must act on bills within seven days. For later bills, the governor must act on these by April 8th.
For bills that are “companion bills” (it started out with the same language, but was introduced separately in each house), any changes to the language in the bill have to be approved in the new house. If they don't, a committee of conference formed with 3 members of the House and 3 from the Senate will get together and come up with a compromise.
We will keep you up-to-date with the end of session and passage of any bills. We have immense hope for a safer Virginia!
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