Virginia Democrats Ratify ERA, pass major gun control reforms, expand LGBTQ equality, raise the minimum wage, expand access to the polls, and more during historic General Assembly Session
Over the past 60 days, Virginia Democrats have been hard at work in Richmond delivering on all the promises we’ve made. Here’s a brief recap of just some of the historic change we’ve brought to the Commonwealth.
Virginia’s General Assembly…approved resolutions to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment, a century-long dream of progressives and feminists that would ban discrimination on the basis of sex and guarantee equality for women under the Constitution.
Both chambers are controlled by Democrats, who first passed it in the state’s House of Delegates by a 59–41 vote before the state Senate approved its companion resolution, 28–12. Seven Republican senators, including the Senate minority leader, joined with Democrats to approve the resolution.
“Discrimination against our gay, lesbian and transgender friends, family, neighbors and co-workers in employment, housing and public accommodation has always been abhorrent and unacceptable,” Speaker Eileen Filler-Corn (D) said in a statement Thursday, the Washington Blade reported.
“Today, we have laid a marker down that every Virginian can work hard, earn a living wage, and live their lives without fear of discrimination based on who they are or who they love,” she added.
RICHMOND — Gov. Ralph Northam on Monday signed a bill banning conversion therapy for minors, the first LGBT rights measure to reach the Democrat’s desk this year.
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“This issue is personal for me, as a pediatric neurologist who has cared for thousands of children,” Northam said in a statement. “Conversion therapy is not only based in discriminatory junk-science, it is dangerous and causes lasting harm to our youth. No one should be made to feel wrong for who they are — especially not a child. I’m proud to sign this ban into law.”
As the Supreme Court prepares to hear its first abortion case since the appointment of conservative justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch, Virginia just took a preemptive step to protect the right to an abortion, no matter what happens in the courts.
The state is on its way to raising the minimum wage for thousands of workers making $7.25 an hour.
After a tough negotiation between both chambers of the General Assembly, the minimum wage will increase from $7.25 per hour to $9.50 per hour on Jan. 1, 2021.
A year later, it will increase again to $10.50 an hour on July 1, 2022, and then $11.50 per hour, effective July 1, 2023.
