Kimchi Day. Designates November 22, in 2022and in each succeeding year, as Kimchi Day in Virginia.
Girl Scout Week. Designates the week ofMarch 12, in 2022 and in each succeeding year, as Girl Scout Weekin Virginia.
Supporting the Jones Act. Expresses thesense of the General Assembly in supporting the Jones Act.
Commending the Fairfax High School gymnasticsteam.
Commending John M. Thomas.
Celebrating the life of Leigh B. Middleditch,Jr.
Commending Kevin Hall.
Powers of local government; trees during development process; replacement and conservation. Expands to all localitiesprovisions that currently allow only certain localities to adopt anordinance providing for the planting and replacement of trees duringthe development process and adds more flexibility for implementationand management of tree canopy banks, tree canopy credits, and treecanopy requirements. The bill changes and updates standards, referencedocuments, and published reference texts, expands options for localitiesto disburse funds to charitable organizations, and adds percentage specifications for ordinances related to cemeteries. In addition,the bill removes the prohibition of invalidating local ordinancesadopted before July 1, 1990, the allowance of 10-year minimum requirementsfor pre-1990 ordinances, and the inability to invalidate an ordinanceadopted that relates to the replacement of trees during the developmentprocess in certain localities. The bill allows ordinances that havebeen made pursuant to the law prior to the effective date of the changes in this bill to not be invalidated by the changes. The billrequires the Virginia State Forester to create standards for treecanopy percentages and to select members for the Stakeholder Advisory Group, established by the bill to provide recommendations on suchstandards. Some provisions of the bill become effective on July 1, 2022, and some have a delayed effective date of January 1, 2023.
Campaign finance; prohibited personal use ofcampaign funds; complaints, hearings, civil penalty, and advisoryopinions. Prohibits any person from converting contributionsto a candidate or a candidate's campaign committee for their personal use. Current law only prohibits such conversion of contributionswith regard to disbursement of surplus funds at the dissolution ofa campaign or political committee. The bill provides that a contributionis considered to have been converted to personal use if the contribution,in whole or in part, is used to fulfill any commitment, obligation,or expense that would exist irrespective of the person's seeking,holding, or maintaining public office but excepts from "personaluse" the ordinary and accepted expenses related to campaigning foror holding elective office, including the use of campaign funds topay for the candidate's child care expenses that are incurred as adirect result of campaign activity. Any person subject to the personaluse ban may request an advisory opinion from the State Board of Electionson such matters. The bill directs the State Board of Elections toadopt emergency regulations similar to those promulgated by the FederalElection Commission to implement the provisions of the bill and toprovide an updated summary of Virginia campaign finance law that reflects the Attorney General's opinion and any new regulations promulgatedby the State Board of Elections.
Certain Standards of Learning assessments; methodof administration. Requires (i) the reading and mathematics Standardsof Learning assessments in grades three through eight and the scienceassessments administered to students in grade five and after the student receives instruction in the grade six science, life science,and physical science Standards of Learning and before the studentcompletes grade eight to be traditional achievement tests and (ii)the Virginia Studies and Civics and Economics assessments to be performancebased and to measure the test taker's ability to apply the skillsand knowledge learned in the class. The foregoing provisions of thebill have a delayed effective date of July 1, 2023. The bill alsorequires the Department of Education, with such funds as may be appropriatedfor such purpose pursuant to the general appropriation act, to developa task bank for performance-based assessments that is built using vetted tasks that have been developed by practitioners and alignwith the Department's Virginia Quality Criteria Review Tool for PerformanceAssessments.
