MEI Project Approval Commission; board-levelgender and diversity requirements. Requires that the MEI ProjectApproval Commission considers, prior to recommending approval ofany major employment and investment (MEI) project, (i) whether abusiness has and commits to maintaining a balanced board of directorsbased upon gender and racial diversity, such that at least 30 percentof such board of directors consists of women and historically underrepresentedgroups, and (ii) whether a business seeking approval of a projectsubmits a board diversity disclosure and commits to updating suchdisclosure annually, specifying the number and percentage of diversedirectors on the board of such business who self-identify as femaleor represent a national, racial, ethnic, indigenous, or culturalminority in the country of the business's principal executive offices.
Sponsored bills
Purchase of firearms; waiting period; penalty. Provides that no person shall sell a firearm unless at least five days have elapsed from the time the prospective purchaser completes the written consent form to have a licensed dealer obtain criminal history record information, with exceptions enumerated in relevant law. This bill incorporates SB 55 and SB 551 and is identical to HB 1195.
Policies on parental notification of instructional material that includes sexually explicit content; scope and use. Provides that nothing in the law requiring the Department of Education to develop and make available to each school board model policies for ensuring parental notification of any instructional material that includes sexually explicit content and requiring each school board to adopt policies that are consistent with but may be more comprehensive than such model policies or that is in such model policies or school board policies shall be construed to permit the censoring of books in any public elementary or secondary school. This bill is identical to SB 235.
Reproductive health care services; prohibitions on extradition for certain crimes. Provides that no demand for extradition of a person charged with a criminal violation of law of another state shall be recognized by the Governor if such alleged violation involves the receipt or provision of or assistance with reproductive health care services within the Commonwealth unless the alleged criminal violation would also constitute a criminal offense under the laws of the Commonwealth. The bill also provides that such limit on extradition shall not apply when the person who is subject to such demand for extradition by another state was physically present in the demanding state at the time of the commission of the alleged offense and thereafter fled from such state.
School board policies; parental notification; safe storage of firearms in the household. Requires each local school board to develop and implement a policy to require the annual notification of the parent of each student enrolled in the local school division, to be sent by email and, if applicable, SMS text message within 30 calendar days succeeding the first day of each school year, of the parent's legal responsibility to safely store any firearm present in the household, risks associated with improperly stored firearms, statistics relating to firearm-related accidents, injuries, and death among youth, and other tips and strategies. The bill requires each school board to make such parental notification available in multiple languages on its website. This bill is identical to HB 498.
Public education; community schools; Officeof Community Schools at Department of Education; Community School Development and Implementation Planning Grant; Community SchoolCoordinator Program; state goal. Requires the Department of Educationto establish the Office of Community Schools as an office within the Department for the purpose of supporting the development and growthof community schools throughout the Commonwealth in accordance withthe Virginia Community School Framework and requires the Office to establish and administer (i) the Community School Development and Implementation Planning Grant for the purpose of providing grantsto school boards that seek to designate any school within the localschool division as a community school to assist with the planningand implementation of such designation and (ii) the Community SchoolCoordinator Program for the purpose of providing funding to schoolboards that previously completed a planning grant and now seek toemploy or hire through contracted services with a qualified nonprofitorganization a community school coordinator to oversee any communityschool designated in the local school division. The bill also establishesa state goal of prioritizing funding for such initiatives and grantprograms to enable their expansion to serve the top 33 percent ofpublic elementary and secondary schools in the Commonwealth for highestidentified student percentage, as defined in the bill, based on datafrom the immediately preceding school year.
Board of Education; develop and adopt policiesrelating to supporting Students with Limited and/or Interrupted Formal Education (SLIFE). Directs the Board of Education to developand adopt policies relating to supporting Students with Limitedand/or Interrupted Formal Education (SLIFE students) in staying inand graduating from, or otherwise completing, high school in the Commonwealth and to develop formulas for calculating high school drop-outrates and graduation rates in the Commonwealth that do not includeany SLIFE student who dropped out if such student had not yet been enrolled in a public high school in the Commonwealth for at leastfour semesters.
Autism Advisory Council; reestablished. Reestablishes the Autism Advisory Council, which expired July 1, 2022. The bill also increases from eight to 25 the number of Council members, establishes eligibility criteria for nonlegislative citizen members, and provides that no recommendation of the Council shall be adopted if a majority of the legislative members appointed to the Council vote against the recommendation and for the recommendation to fail notwithstanding the majority vote of the Council. The law prior to expiration of the Council provided that no Council recommendation could be adopted if a majority of the House members or Senate members voted against the recommendation and for the recommendation to fail notwithstanding the majority vote of the Council. The bill has a sunset date of July 1, 2027.
Employee protections; medicinal use of cannabisoil. Amends the provision that prohibits an employer from discriminatingagainst an employee for such employee's lawful use of cannabis oilpursuant to a valid written certification issued by a practitionerfor the treatment or to eliminate the symptoms of the employee'sdiagnosed condition or disease, with certain exceptions, by specifyingthat such use must conform to the laws of the Commonwealth and byexcluding the employees of the Commonwealth and other public bodiesfrom such protections.
Local government powers; regulation of tobacco, nicotine, and hemp product retail sale locations. Allows a locality to regulate the retail sale locations of tobacco products, nicotine vapor products, alternative nicotine products, or hemp products intended for smoking for any such retail sale location and may prohibit a retail sale location on property within 1,000 linear feet of a child day center or a public, private, or parochial school.