FamilyFoundationBlog.com

The Family Foundation’s Annual Day at the Capitol is this Thursday, with an emphasis 0n education freedom — particularly legislation that provides tax credits for private school scholarships. We need to send a loud message to our legislators that, after years of dragging their feet while public education deteriorates (especially for the underprivileged who are trapped in failing schools by an education establishment unwilling to embrace reforms) and options and competition few, educational opportunity for all children is the right choice for Virginia.  
 
Registration for the event, at the Greater Richmond Convention Center, begins at 8:30. The program begins at 9:00 with a briefing  from lawmakers and policy makers, includes a visit with your legislators, and ends with a rally on the Capitol Square grounds. Some of our special speakers include Lt. Governor Bill Bolling, Secretary of Education Gerard Robinson and Family Foundation Chaplain, Bishop E. W. Jackson, Sr.
 
You will have an opportunity to meet with your legislators, get updates from The Family Foundation staff and enjoy optional tours of Mr. Jefferson’s Capitol, the Governor’s Mansion and the Virginia Supreme Court during the afternoon. Tours are available on a first come, first serve basis the morning of the event, so if you are interested get to Richmond early.
 
While our format is a bit different this year, it will be an extremely exciting Lobby Day at the Capitol. Christian and private schools from across the Commonwealth will participate with us. If you are affiliated with a Christian or private school, please share this information with the school and fellow parents and students, and encourage them to send a delegation to support this effort.

If you would like more information about arranging at special tour for your school or about the event, please e-mail amanda@familyfoundation.org or call 804-343-0010. To register online, click here.

Virginia took the lead in opposing ObamaCare — first, with last year’s Virginia Healthcare Freedom Act, then, later in the year, with a legal challenge to ObamaCare’s constitutionality. This year, HB 2147, patroned by Delegate Ben Cline (R-24, Rockbridge), would prevent insurance plans in the Virginia health insurance exchange, required by ObamaCare, from providing abortion coverage. 

HB 2147 was introduced as a preemptive measure to ensure that Virginia taxpayers are not forced to subsidize abortion in the event that the lawsuit is not successful. If ObamaCare was fully implemented today, Virginia could potentially include in its exchange health insurance plans that cover elective abortion. Pro-family citizens opposed to abortion would be mandated to fund this unethical destruction of human life. However, the new federal healthcare law allows states to opt out of abortion funding in their statewide exchanges. More than 30 states have either passed or are introducing opt-out legislation regarding the coverage of abortion in these exchanges, while Pennsylvania and Maryland include it.

Please contact your delegate as soon as possible (contact information here) and urge him or her to vote for the bill (or, click here to determine your delegate).

A bill (HB 1440), patroned by Delegate Bob Marshall (R-13, Manassas), to provide protection (civil recourse) for the unborn in cases where they lose their life due to the negligence of another will face an up or down final vote on the floor of the House of Delegates tomorrow.      
 
Virginia’s current wrongful death law operates in accordance with the “born alive rule.” The born alive rule dates back to a 1940s federal court decision declaring that a child could recover damages for injury caused in utero once they were born. By extension, if a baby is born alive (though sometimes barely and only through artificial means) and then dies, a parent can then pursue a wrongful death cause of action for the injury in utero.
 
Approximately 40 states have gone beyond the born alive rule and now allow for pre-birth wrongful death suits for injury caused to a fetus while in utero. HB 1440 would bring Virginia in line with current law in the vast majority of states. This bill defines life as beginning at conception and therefore has the practical effect of expanding the state’s wrongful death statue to encompass all unborn children.

Please contact your delegate as soon as possible (contact information here) and urge his or her vote for the bill (or, click here to determine your delegate).

Two years ago, we partnered with the Virginia Catholic Conference to hammer out an agreement with the biotech community to ensure that state funded research performed in Virginia would not involve embryonic stem cells or aborted fetuses.  The clause was added to all legislation involving biotech research in Virginia, thus protecting citizens of the Commonwealth from subsidizing unethical research. In 2010, the same agreement stood.  Now, it’s 2011 and the debate over the pro-life amendment is once again taking place. 
 
There are several bills this year originating from both chambers that would provide research and development tax credits to biotech companies. In order to prevent the funding of unethical research, each and every bill must include the pro-life amendment. The House Finance Committee added an amendment in line with the 2009 and 2010 pro-life amendment to one of these bills (HB 1447). Now, the amended bill will be voted on by the full House of Delegates tomorrow.
 
The Family Foundation and our pro-life partners at the Catholic Conference firmly believe that Virginia taxpayers should not be asked to pay for or subsidize research that involves the destruction of human embryos or the use of aborted fetuses (see position paper here and our recently completed study, Do No Harm, here). Not only is such research unethical, embryonic stem cell research has been a complete failure. That is the reason researchers cannot attract private investment and is looking for your tax dollars to subsidize their failed research — no one will pour money into a failure. So researchers have turned to (who else?) — the government — to subsidize failure. If we are going to subsidize research in Virginia, it should be in adult stem cell research, which is producing real results — real science providing real hope and real cures.
 
It is crucial that your delegate hear from you by tomorrow morning before the floor session begins. Legislators need to hear that the funding of life-destroying research will not be tolerated in the Commonwealth. Contact your delegate now and urge him or her to cast a vote in acknowledgment of the sanctity of human life (click here for contact information or click here to find out who your delegate is).

The pace of the General Assembly moves very fast, especially during the short session when committee hearings are compressed into a shorter period. Just this morning we were notified that four important proposed constitutional amendments, passed last week by the House, already are scheduled for tomorrow morning in a Senate Privileges and Elections sub-committee. Usually, there is at least a day or two respite and time to regroup right before or after “crossover,” but the pipeline is full of bills and the legislation continues to flow.

We need your urgent help to contact members of the sub-committee and ask them to vote for these important constitutional protections. Only four votes stand in the way killing these highly popular and needed measures without the full debate of the Senate, much less the full committee. So, your action is needed now.

HJ 615, patroned by Delegate Bill Janis (R-56, Henrico) and Bob Marshall (R-13, Manassas), would safeguard your tax dollars by banning tax and fee increases in the budget bill. The budget bill is supposed to be a spending bill only. But in recent years, governors and legislators have stuck tax and fee increases in it (such as when Mark Warner pushed through his infamous tax increase). If those revenues are needed, delegates and senators should have the courage to vote on tax increases separately, up or down, not buried in a must-pass budget with deadline pressure to approve so that state government can continue to function.

HJ 539, patroned by Delegate Mark Cole (R-88, Spotsylvania), is another important safeguard to your hard-earned tax dollars. It would require a three-fifths super majority vote of the General Assembly to raise state taxes and the same super majority for your city, town or county governing body to raise local taxes.

HJ 593, patroned by Delegate Bill Carrico (R-5, Galax), would protect Virginians’ right of religious expression by allowing prayer and the recognition of religious beliefs, heritage and traditions on public property, including public schools. This will safeguard from court action, for example, students who offer prayers at school assemblies.

HJ 614, patroned by Delegate Tag Greason (R-32, Potomac Falls) would allow the General Assembly to provide for loans and grants to, or on behalf of, candidates for the military chaplaincy who attend in-state nonprofit institutions of higher education whose primary purpose is to provide religious training or theological education.

Urgent action is needed since the sub-committee meets tomorrow! If these resolutions die in sub-committee, the opportunity to incorporate them into the Virginia Constitution will be set back three more years. Contact the members and ask they vote for HJ 615, HJ 539, HJ 593 and HJ 614 tomorrow morning in Senate Privileges and Elections sub-committee.