Nearly 2,000 bills were introduced this session and Virginia General Assembly have a short amount of time to potentially discuss them all

In the Virginia General Assembly, elected officials have a short amount of time to talk about the thousands of proposed laws that could either be voted down or signed into law.

Along with joint resolutions and bills from last year, more than 1,900 new bills were introduced this session. So far, more than 100 bills in the House and more than 300 bills in the Senate have failed to move forward. There are more than 1,000 bills in the House and more than 500 in the Senate. The session’s halfway point is coming up soon.

Here are some bills that didn’t get passed this session.

Senate Bill 1288 is a request for the person who killed the child’s guardian because they were drunk driving to pay child support.

Sen. Bill DeSteph, R-Virginia Beach, proposed a bill that would let the court consider paying child support if a parent or legal guardian of a child was killed because they were driving drunk.

The Senate Judiciary committee voted 14-0 to put the bill on hold indefinitely, which means it is probably dead for the session.

Members of the committee thought that the bill didn’t make civil cases about wrongful death any better than they already were.

Sen. Scott Surovell, a Democrat from Fairfax, had doubts about the bill because it wasn’t “a policy solution to a specific problem.”

“I don’t understand why we would say that if someone dies because of drunk driving instead of murder, you pay child support,” Surovell said during the committee meeting.

Senate Bill 880 cuts the time for voting absentee in person to one week before any election.

The bill, which was proposed by Sen. Ryan McDougle, R-Hanover, would cut the time you have to vote absentee in person before an election to seven days. At the moment, you can vote absentee in person 45 days before an election.

During the committee hearing, Sen. Adam Ebbin, D-Alexandria, said that the bill would be hard on places with a lot of traffic.

Ebbin said, “They would need hundreds of staff to keep those people from having to wait in line for hours and hours.”

With a vote of 10-4, the Senate Privileges and Elections committee put the bill on hold for the time being.

House Bill 1720 gets rid of the one-year waiting period for divorces based on cruelty or physical harm.

Del. Nadarius Clark, D-Portsmouth, put forward a bill to get rid of the one-year waiting period for a divorce or legal separation. In cases of spousal abuse, such as cruelty, reasonable fear of bodily harm, abandonment or desertion, and more, either party could get a separation or divorce before the one-year mark. The bill would have been in effect for people who filed for divorce on or after July 1.

At the moment, a couple can get a divorce if they have lived apart without interruption for one year or if they have signed a separation agreement and have lived apart without interruption for six months and do not have any children under the age of 18 who were born or adopted during that time.

A person who works to stop human trafficking and has been abused by a spouse spoke in favor of the bill.

Richard Garriott of the Virginia Family Law Coalition, who is against the bill, said, “Right now, this doesn’t solve the problem that Del. Clarke wants to solve.” “We have a way to deal with that. It’s called an emergency and permanent protective order.”

With a vote of 5-3, the bill was shot down by the Courts of Justice subcommittee of the House of Delegates.

House Bill 2003: Training and education to stop sexual harassment and discrimination at work

Paul Krizek, a Democrat from Fairfax, introduced a bill that would require employers with 50 or more workers to give interactive training and education about sexual harassment and workplace discrimination every year. Employees who were in charge of other people would have to do at least two hours of training. The other workers would have to work for an hour.

A part of the bill said that all migrant and seasonal farm workers would have to take the one-hour training starting on January 1, 2024.

A certificate of completion would be given to the employees.

With a 5-3 vote, a House Commerce and Energy subcommittee said the bill shouldn’t move forward. Still to come

This session, there will be a lot of other bills that won’t pass. In fact, Stephen Farnsworth, director of the University of Mary Washington Center for Leadership and Media Studies and a professor of political science, says that gridlock is to be expected when “voters put one party in charge of one chamber and the other party in charge of the other.”

Farnsworth said in an email, “From guns to abortion to taxes to schools, Republicans and Democrats in Richmond show over and over again that they don’t want to compromise in these polarized times.”

“Crossover day” is on February 7, when a bill must have passed its chamber to move forward, or it will be left behind. The session is almost halfway over.