Constitutional amendment (second reference);marriage; repeal of same-sex marriage prohibition; affirmative rightto marry. Repeals the constitutional provision defining marriageas only a union between one man and one woman as well as the relatedprovisions that are no longer valid as a result of the United StatesSupreme Court decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, 576 U.S. 644 (2015). The amendment provides that the right to marry is a fundamental right inherent in the liberty of persons and requires the Commonwealthand its political subdivisions and agents to issue marriage licenses,recognize marriages, and treat all marriages equally under the law,regardless of the sex or gender of the parties to the marriage. Religiousorganizations and clergy acting in their religious capacity havethe right to refuse to perform any marriage.
Sponsored bills
Commending Jesse Waltz.
Celebrating the life of the Honorable HarryRussell Potts, Jr.
Celebrating the life of the Honorable JohnHowson Rust, Jr.
Commending Rita Carter Forrester.
Commending the Richmond Free Press.
Celebrating the life of Jameel Jalal Abed.
Family caregiver tax credit. Creates a nonrefundable income tax credit for taxable years 2022 through 2026 for expenses incurred by an individual in caring for an eligible family member, defined in the bill, who requires assistance with one or more activities of daily living, also defined in the bill. The credit equals 50 percent of eligible expenditures incurred by the caregiver up to $1,000. In order to qualify for the credit, the family caregiver must (i) not receive any compensation or reimbursement for the eligible expenditures and (ii) have federal adjusted gross income that is no greater than $100,000 for an individual or $200,000 for married persons. The bill requires the Tax Commissioner to establish guidelines for claiming the credit and provides that any unused credit may be carried forward by the taxpayer for five taxable years following the taxable year for which the credit was issued. The bill is a recommendation of the Joint Commission on Health Care.
Virginia STEM Education Advisory Board; comprehensivereview of labor statistics categories; report. Directs the VirginiaScience, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) EducationAdvisory Board (the Board) to perform a comprehensive review of U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics categories within the standard occupational classification system and assess deficit areas that do not captureVirginia's existing STEM+C (Computing) workforce profile for thepurpose of better aligning K-12 and higher education priorities.The Board shall report its findings to the Virginia Economic DevelopmentPartnership Authority Office of Education and Labor Market Alignmentand the Chairmen of the House Committee on Communications, Technologyand Innovation and the Senate Committee on General Laws and Technologyno later than October 1, 2022.
STEM+C; Virginia STEM Education Advisory Board.Adds science, technology, engineering, mathematics and computing(STEM+C), which includes real-world, interdisciplinary, and computationalinstruction and preparation of students in STEM+C, to the list oftopics that shall be included in the Standards of Learning for theCommonwealth. The bill also directs the Virginia STEM Education AdvisoryBoard to develop and submit to the Board of Education (i) a rubricthat shall be used by the Board of Education in setting out what factors permit a school to be defined as a STEM school and (ii) recommendations for the Board to create a measurement for quality of STEM programmingin general education instruction. The bill also directs the VirginiaSTEM Education Advisory Board to draft and report to the Departmentof Education proposed common language and terminology that betterdefines the basic literacies employed in STEM+C as methodologicalapproaches to solving universal human challenges and, as essential,generalizable and transferable literacy toward the application ofskills and content needed to solve those challenges. The bill alsodirects the Department of Education, based on such proposed languageand terminology and no later than December 1, 2022, to recommendfinalized language and terminology to the Board of Education.