Bills passed, failed at 2013 General Assembly
Saturday - 2/23/2013, 6:40pm EST
The Associated Press
RICHMOND, Va. - The outcome of key legislation at the 2013 General Assembly:
PASSED
-- Revisions to the two-year, $88 billion budget, which includes creation of a commission to oversee Medicaid reform and possible expansion.
-- A five-year, $3.5 billion transportation funding plan based on a blend of tax increases, fees and general fund revenue diversions.
-- Require voters to produce photo identification at the polls.
-- Allow the state to take over chronically failing public schools.
-- Establish a system for grading public schools on an A-to-F scale.
-- Revamp teacher evaluation and grievance procedures.
-- Require public schools to establish threat assessment teams similar to those used by colleges.
-- Provide civil immunity to anyone who in good faith reports a campus threat.
-- Require several state agencies to develop emergency response training programs for public school personnel.
-- Require every public school to conduct at least two lockdown drills per year.
-- Increase the penalty for "straw purchases" of firearms.
-- Exempt concealed weapons permit information from public disclosure under the Virginia Freedom of Information Act.
-- Allow the attorney general to investigate suspected election law violations without being asked by the Board of Elections.
-- Increase penalties for texting while driving.
-- Make it illegal to secretly use an electronic device to track a person's movements.
-- An enhanced penalty for assaulting an employee of the state facility that treats sexually violent predators who are civilly committed.
-- Relax the standard for a wrongfully convicted inmate to win exoneration.
-- Exempt from the Freedom of Information Act information about minors participating in parks and recreation programs.
-- Allow public college student organizations to exclude anyone who does not agree with their mission.
-- State that parents have a fundamental right to direct the upbringing, education and care of their children.
-- Repeal the law against "lewd and lascivious cohabitation."
-- Increase penalty for possession of contraband cigarettes with intent to distribute.
-- A two-year moratorium on use of drones by police and state agencies.
-- Require school boards to adopt anti-bullying policies.
-- Require doctors who test patients for Lyme disease to provide information that tests can produce false negative results.
-- Mandate cardiopulmonary resuscitation training for public school teachers and high school students.
-- Establish a two-year provisional license for Teach for America participants.
-- Eliminate bonuses electric utilities receive for using sources of renewable energy or building new power plants that use fossil fuels.
-- Create a new law against financial exploitation of incapacitated adults.
-- Toughen the law governing decertification of police officers convicted of certain crimes.
___
FAILED
-- Lift the state's ban on uranium mining.
-- Redraw Virginia Senate district boundaries to strengthen Republican districts and create another black-majority district.
-- Require background checks on private sales at gun shows.
-- Require background checks on all gun sales.
-- Ban military-style assault weapons and large-capacity ammunition magazines.
-- Require at least one armed employee or volunteer in every school.
-- Automatically restore the voting rights of nonviolent felons who have served their sentences.
-- Allow home-schooled students to participate in public school sports.
-- Repeal the 2012 law requiring women seeking an abortion to undergo an ultrasound.
-- Repeal the state's new regulations requiring abortion clinics to meet the same strict building standards as newly constructed hospitals.
-- Confer all the rights of "personhood" on fetuses.
-- Make it a felony to perform an abortion because of the gender of the fetus.
-- Bar state-funded abortions for poor women carrying mortally deformed fetuses.
-- Require drug screening of state welfare recipients.
-- Prohibit circuit courts from making interim appointments of lower-court judges previously rejected by the General Assembly.
-- Establish a panel to study creating an alternative state currency in case the Federal Reserve system collapses.
-- Allow no-excuse absentee voting.
-- Require school boards to minimize the number of bus stops within 500 feet of a sex offender's home.
-- Make it illegal to smoke with a child in the car.
-- Allow early, in-person voting.
-- Authorize localities to ban guns in public libraries.
-- Amend the "Right to Farm Act" to allow farmers to sell products incidental to their farming operation without government interference.
-- Allow hunting of coyotes on Sundays.
-- Allow hunting on private land on Sundays with the landowner's permission.
-- A constitutional amendment allowing the governor to seek a second term.
-- Require drivers and passengers to make sure it's safe before opening vehicle doors on the side adjacent to moving traffic.
-- Create a new offense, punishable by up to life in prison, for entering a school while armed or while carrying an explosive device with the intent to commit a violent felony.
-- Require youth sports programs using public school property to adopt procedures to deal with concussions.
-- Increase the mandatory retirement age for judges from 70 to 73.
-- Prohibit possession of unopened container of alcohol in the passenger area of a vehicle.
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