Delegate Ward Armstrong’s Ethics Reform Bill (HB655) passed the General Assembly in amended form this afternoon by a 37 to 2 vote in the Senate. The amended bill previously passed the House by an 88-10 vote in February. The legislation now awaits the Governor’s signature to become law.

During Tuesday’s meeting of the House Democratic Caucus, Virginia Congressman Jim Moran (D-8th) was officially named Chairman of the Interior Appropriations Subcommittee. Agencies under the Interior Subcommittee’s purview include: the Environmental Protection Agency, Department of the Interior, National Forest Service, Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Smithsonian Institute, the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the Holocaust Museum and the National Endowment for the Arts and Humanities.

The General Assembly passed legislation Monday sponsored by Delegate David Englin (D-45) to strengthen transparency and accountability in the budget process by improving the annual corporate income tax relief report produced by the Department of Taxation. Englin is working closely with the Commonwealth Institute for Fiscal Analysis, whose recent comprehensive report on tax expenditures suggests that Virginia forgoes $2.5 billion in revenue each year through tax expenditures that are not properly scrutinized by the General Assembly.

Today, the Virginia Senate passed House Bill 831, making it Delegate Scott Surovell’s third piece of legislation to pass both houses of the General Assembly. H.B. 831 passed the Senate on a 40-0 vote after having been reported unanimously from the Senate Committee on General Laws and Technology. It also drew bipartisan support in the House of Delegates which passed it on a 98-0 vote on February 16.

Today, the Virginia Senate passed legislation to change the charter school application process in Virginia but preserve the authority of local school boards to approve or reject charter school applications. The bill passed today makes no changes to the charter school approval process, and only small changes to the charter school application process. No school board will be compelled to approve new charter schools under this legislation

The General Assembly passed legislation Thursday sponsored by Delegate David Englin (D-45) to give the Alexandria City Council the power to improve retirement benefits for its deputy sheriffs, fire marshals, emergency medical technicians, and other public safety workers. House Bill 273 will empower the City of Alexandria to offer all of its public safety workers a pension plan that allows them to retire after 25 years of service, which is the standard across public safety professions.

The Virginia Senate Democratic Caucus today denounced Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli’s attempts to dismantle discrimination protections for gays and lesbians at Virginia’s colleges and universities. In a letter to the leaders of the state’s institutes of higher education, Attorney General Cuccinelli says that schools should strike protections for gays and lesbians from their nondiscrimination policies. Democratic Senators issued the following statements in response to the Attorney General’s actions:

House Bill 1300, allowing the trading of emissions credits in air quality non-attainment areas, was narrowly amended (21-19) by the Virginia Senate on the motion of Senator Chap Petersen (D-Fairfax), who filed a floor amendment to protect northern Virginia localities currently protected under state law from further decreases in air quality due to emissions trading. The amended bill then passed the full body on a vote of 27 to 11

U.S. Congressman Jim Moran (D-8th) issued the following statement regarding the Senate filibuster that has resulted in the suspension of federal funding for key transportation programs and an extension of unemployment benefits.

Today, the Virginia House of Delegates rejected reforms to simplify absentee voting and create fair representative districts. The decision was made in a 7:00 a.m. Elections subcommittee meeting. State Sen. R. Creigh Deeds (D-Bath) sponsored legislation that would have created a seven-member bipartisan commission to redraw districts for the Virginia House, Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives following the 2010 census.