Sen. Jennifer Boysko

Voter registration; notification of denial. Requires notice of a denial of an application for voter registration to be provided by the general registrar to the applicant within five days of the denial. This notice is required to be given in writing and in whatever form selected by the applicant on the voter registration application. The bill requires the registration application to request that the applicant provide his telephone number and email address and to allow the applicant to indicate a preferred method of communication. If the general registrar is able to reach the applicant by telephone, corrections may be made by the applicant by telephone. The bill contains technical amendments.

Public institutions of higher education; eligibility for in-state tuition. Provides that any student is eligible for in-state tuition who (i) attended high school for at least two years in the Commonwealth and either (a) graduated on or after July 1, 2008, from a public or private high school or program of home instruction in the Commonwealth or (b) passed, on or after July 1, 2008, a high school equivalency examination approved by the Secretary of Education; (ii) has submitted evidence that he or, in the case of a dependent student, at least one parent, guardian, or person standing in loco parentis has filed, unless exempted by state law, Virginia income tax returns for at least two years prior to the date of registration or enrollment; and (iii) registers as an entering student or is enrolled in a public institution of higher education in the Commonwealth. The bill states that students who meet these criteria shall be eligible for in-state tuition regardless of their citizenship or immigration status, except students with currently valid visas issued under 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(15)(F), 1101(a)(15)(H)(iii), 1101(a)(15)(J) (including only students or trainees), or 1101(a)(15)(M). Information obtained in the implementation of the provisions of the bill shall only be used or disclosed to individuals other than the student for purposes of determining in-state tuition eligibility. This bill is identical to HB 1547.

Northern Virginia Transportation Commission;report date. Changes from November 1 to December 15 the annualreporting date of the Northern Virginia Transportation Commissionto the Governor and the General Assembly regarding the performanceof the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority.

Exchange of offender medical and mental health information and records. Provides that a health care provider who has been notified that a person to whom he has provided services within the last two years is committed to a local or regional correctional facility shall, upon request by the local or regional correctional facility, disclose to the local or regional correctional facility where the person is committed any information necessary to ensure the continuity of care of the person committed. The bill also provides protection from civil liability for such health care provider, absent bad faith or malicious intent. This bill incorporates SB 748 and is identical to HB 1328.

Hate crimes; gender, disability, gender identity, or sexual orientation; penalty. Adds gender, disability, gender identity, and sexual orientation to the categories of victims whose intentional selection for a hate crime involving assault, assault and battery, or trespass for the purpose of damaging another's property results in a higher criminal penalty for the offense. The bill also adds gender, disability, gender identity, and sexual orientation to the categories of hate crimes that are to be reported to the central repository of information regarding hate crimes maintained by the Virginia State Police. The bill provides that a person who is subjected to acts of intimidation or harassment, violence directed against his person, or vandalism to his real or personal property, where such acts are motivated by gender, disability, gender identity, or sexual orientation, may bring a civil action to recover his damages. The bill also provides that no provider or user of an interactive computer service on the Internet shall be liable for any action voluntarily taken by it in good faith to restrict access to material that the provider or user considers to be intended to incite hatred on the basis of gender, disability, gender identity, or sexual orientation. The bill also eliminates the mandatory minimum terms of confinement for such hate crimes. The provisions of the bill are contingent on funding in a general appropriation act. This bill incorporates HB 488.

Menstrual supplies; availability; public elementary, middle, and high schools. Requires each school board to make tampons or pads available, at all times and at no cost to students, (i) in such accessible locations as it deems appropriate in each elementary school in the local school division and (ii) in the bathrooms of each middle school and high school in the local school division. This bill is identical to HB 405.

Department of Education; common statewide definition; "students with limited or interrupted formal education." Requires the Department of Education to develop and adopt a common statewide definition for the term "students with limited or interrupted formal education" and to require local school divisions to report on the number of students who fall under such definition as part of the required data collection and reporting on average daily membership for the purposes of documenting any changes in such numbers over time. The bill requires that theBoard of Education evaluate the supports and programs available to "students with limited or interrupted formal education" in local school divisions to determine whether the calculations for the school quality indicators within the Board's Regulations Establishing the Standards for Accrediting Public Schools in Virginia are appropriate or whether changes in methodology could be made to more comprehensively measure the academic and nonacademic achievement of such student population.

Electronic Identity Management Act; federated digital identity systems. Amends the Electronic Identity Management Act to accommodate federated digital identity systems. A federated digital identity system (federation) is defined in the measure as a digital identity system that uses federated identity management to enable the portability of identity information across otherwise autonomous security domains. Federated identity management is defined in the measure as a process that allows the conveyance of identity credentials and authentication information across digital identity systems through the use of a common set of policies, practices, and protocols for managing the identity of users and devices across security domains. The digital identity systems involved in a federation are required to be compliant with the Commonwealth's identity management standards and with the provisions of the governing identity trust framework.

Comprehensive plan. Extends the time by which a governing body is required to approve or disapprove a locality-initiated comprehensive plan amendment for more than 25 parcels from 90 to 150 days. This bill is identical to HB 726.

Doulas; certification; registry. Provides that no person shall use or assume the title "state-certified doula," as defined in the bill, unless such person is a community-based doula who has received training and education as a doula from an entity approved by a body approved by the Board of Health for such purpose and been certified as a doula by a body approved by the Board of Health for such purpose and that no entity shall hold itself out as providing training and education necessary to meet the requirements for certification as a doula unless its curriculum and training program has been approved by a body approved by the Board of Health for such purpose. The bill also directs the Board of Health to adopt regulations setting forth the requirements for (i) use of the title "state-certified doula" and (ii) training and education necessary to satisfy the requirements for certification by the Department of Health as a state-certified doula.