In 2017, the Trump Administration, along with Republicans in the U.S. Congress, pushed to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the 2010 federal law that expanded access to affordable health insurance. Following repeated attempts to gut ACA protections, Republicans in the Virginia House of Delegates introduced HB 2411, a bill that would have rolled back health insurance regulations to the pre-ACA status quo.

Read our paper for more detail

Guttng the Affordable Care Act  -  June 24, 2019

Dealing with climate change is difficult. But as a state particularly vulnerable to climate impacts, Virginia can lead the way. Solving climate change means creating clean energy jobs, investing in rural economies, and prioritizing people’s health, homes, and livelihoods. A multifaceted approach is needed to make the state more resilient. To show climate leadership, Virginia can promote innovation in five ways:

• Increase targets for requiring renewable energy
• Kickstart energy-efficiency investment
• Invest in clean cars and transit systems
• Control short-lived climate pollutants
• Ensure that all people – from fishing economies to historically marginalized communities – have the tools to adapt to climate change.

Read our paper for more details:

Climate Change  -  Sep 21, 2019

Energy efficiency is the cheapest and most achievable way to meet Virginia’s energy needs and address the threat of climate change. Yet historically Virginia has lagged below the national average in energy efficiency spending and energy savings. That poor performance can be directly attributed to resistance from Virginia’s predominant utility, Dominion Energy.

Virginia has lost many coal industry jobs due to the 45% decline in Appalachian production in recent years. There are larger labor needs in the solar industry than in coal’s current use of large scale automation and shrinking employment opportunities, i.e. solar requires more labor input, thus creating more jobs.

Solar Jobs -  Aug. 29, 2019

Conversion therapy is a practice or treatment seeking to change an individual’s sexual orientation or gender identity, including eliminating sexual attractions toward individuals of the same sex. The American Psychiatric Association in 1973 removed homosexuality from the second edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, declared that no reliable evidence exists that conversion therapy works and opposed conversion therapy as unethical. Yet the Republicans continue to push for this harmful therapy.

LGBTQ+ Conversion Therapy-  Aug. 29, 2019

The most recent data from Gov. Northam’s “Commonwealth Connect” report indicates 660,000 homes and businesses lack access to broadband, with the highest concentrations in Southern Virginia and the Appalachians. Read our report to understand what the Virginia Legislature is doing to bring high speed internet to rural communities.

Rural Broadband Talking Points -  Aug. 18, 2019 

The minimum wage for most workers in Virginia is $7.25 per hour. This puts full-time minimum wage workers below the federal poverty level. When their paychecks fail to cover basic living expenses, workers must use public assistance. Thus, the public is subsidizing businesses that do not pay their employees a living wage. Virginia Democrats have been leading the fight for an increased minimum wage.

The Economic Policy Institute reports that wage theft, “the practice of employers failing to pay workers the full wages to which they are legally entitled, is a widespread and deep-rooted problem that directly harms millions of U.S. workers each year.”[1] Wage theft harms all Virginians. Read our report to learn what the Democrats in the state legislature are doing to solve the problem.

Workers’ compensation insurance provides monetary benefits to employees who suffer work-related injuries and illnesses. This no-fault system, however, is in critical need of reform, as a considerable percentage of eligible workers are either denied the cash and medical payments they deserve or don’t apply for benefits at all.

Worker misclassification is the practice of falsely labeling employees as independent contractors. It is a flagrant violation of workers’ rights and protections in Virginia and across the country and robs the state and federal government of much-needed revenue. In some industries, up to 40% of employers misclassify their employees. Read more about how this practice affects workers and Virginia.

With thousands of bills proposed every session, much of the legislating occurs behind closed doors, within committees. This is our topic-by-topic summary of almost every awful bill proposed and every great bill killed in the past legislative session.

New: Updated with 2019 session bills

Virginia is experiencing the highest rate of sea-level rise on the East Coast and one of the highest rates in the U.S. overall. Flooding from sea-level rise is projected to cause billions of dollars in damage and displace hundreds of thousands of people.

In 2013, drug overdoses surpassed car crashes as the leading cause of unnatural deaths. Evidence of the growing crisis is the rise in emergency room visits for heroin overdoses, which rose 89 percent in the first nine months of 2016 compared to the same period in the previous year.

There are more Democratic voters in Virginia than Republican, as shown in presidential, gubernatorial, and senatorial races in the commonwealth, yet Republicans hold a majority in both the state House and the state Senate. This is due to gerrymandering, when politicians choose their voters.

Virginia youth have turned out in increased proportions in the most recent midterm election in 2018. This follows and exceeds the national trend of increased youth voter turnout.

A collaboration of corporations, lobbyists, and legislators, ALEC works to block progressive legislation in every state, and Virginia is no exception.

Starting in the 1990s, Virginia has overemphasized the punitive aspects of justice without a concomitant effort towards rehabilitation. Republicans have shown little inclination to help former inmates who have served their sentences and completed post-release obligations take up productive lives. This is particularly true of the Republicans on the House of Delegates’ Courts of Justice Committee.

Since 2014, Rep. Steve Landes (R-HD25) has been the chair of the House Education Committee in the Virginia General Assembly. He has been unwilling to let progressive bills created by Democrats come to a vote, mirroring the approach of the Appropriations and Finance Committees. All three have reviewed bills that could have greatly improved the educational system of the Commonwealth–and then let them die.

Protections on hold even as the culture changes. The Courts of Justice Committee in the House of Delegates (chaired by Rob Bell, R–HD58) killed every pro-LGBTQ+ bill in the 2018 session.

Dominion Energy and three other major energy companies are pushing to continue building a project laying a major gas pipeline across the state of Virginia with the potential for severe environmental, renewable energy, and social impacts.