March
- Swetha Madiraju
- May 28, 2022
- 3 min read
The last day of the Virginia 2022 Legislative Session was March 12, 2022.
For this week’s post, I will be focusing on the events of the Legislative Session that occurred in March of 2022.
SJ 189, introduced on March 3, covered the topic of the Russian-Ukrainian crisis. It was not so much a proposal as it was an informational document. The purpose of this bill was to advise the General Assembly of the impact that this conflict has on the state and the General Assembly itself. It identified the background of the crisis, the current issues in Ukraine that need our attention, and how it affects the General Assembly itself. It reported how dangerous the conditions were for Ukrainian civilians, and that Russian forces had taken over the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, which could have massive impacts on the entirety of Europe. It encouraged decisions by the President to condemn the attack, as well as send U.S. troops to help Ukrainian civilians, and the Governor of Virginia declaring that all Russian goods and services must be boycotted. The Governor’s statement is related to HR 71, which was introduced on March 1. It explicitly stated that the Commonwealth of Virginia would now participate in a boycott of all Russian goods and services in order to support the effort to stop Russia from furthering their attack on Ukraine. This bill was passed by the House of Representatives on March 3rd, 2022. SJ 189 explicitly stated that the United States and the Commonwealth of Virginia support Ukraine, and urge Russia to stop their attack immediately. This resolution, with its full report on the Russian-Ukrainian crisis, was disseminated across the General Assembly and representatives of Ukraine who worked in the government. The last action taken on this bill is that it was left in the Committee of Rules in the Senate on March 12th, 2022.
SR 81, introduced on March, 10, covered the topic of officers in the Virginia State Navy. This bill commemorated the lives and legacies of 8 Black men who served in the state Navy during the Revolutionary War. This bill outlined how, before the Revolutionary War, Black men were very limited in their ability to support any of America’s war efforts. It recognizes, however, that former President George Washington allowed free Black men to enlist, and there were at least 420 Black men in the Virginia State Army, and at least 140 in the Virginia State Navy. The bill recognized eight specific Black individuals who played a crucial historical part to the war, but were not recognized as highly as their white counterparts: James Thomas, John Laws, Timothy Laws, James Sorrell, Caesar Tarrant, Cuffee, Minny, Mark Sterling. The interesting fact is, that some of these men were not actually officers. For example, Minny was an enslaved Black man who was killed in action as a Pilot during a skirmish on the Rappahannock River. These men, whether previously formally recognized by history or not, were not being recognized with the proposal of this bill. This resolution was copied and sent to the American Revolutionary Museum in Yorktown so that all Americans could see the type of impact these eight Black men had on the struggle for our country during the Revolutionary War. The last action taken on the bill is that it was passed by the Senate on March 11th, 2022.
I chose to cover these bills because I believed they covered topics that were highly controversial, yet made a strong impact on our society. Hundreds of other bills were proposed and even passed during the Virginia 2022 Legislative Session in March. For more information on which issues were discussed, visit https://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?221+lst+INT.
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