Senator Favola’s 2020 Legislative Successes

Senator Favola was the chief patron or a co-patron, on the following pieces of legislation. These measures make important strides in implementing the values she promised to fight for during her 2019 campaign. The quotes associated with the legislative topics are excerpts from Senator Favola’s floor remarks or news clips.

She works to make a positive difference in the lives of Virginians, every day.

Gun Safety

Affordable Health Care

Virginians want and need affordable healthcare. While much of the opportunity to make healthcare affordable requires federal policy reform, Senator Favola worked very hard this session to ensure that the laws of Virginia are helping as much as possible to ensure access to quality, affordable healthcare for all. She also passed legislation to ensure that insurance policies in Virginia will cover essential benefits. “It is unconscionable that someone could go to a doctor for basic care or take a child for immunizations and find out that such services are not covered," said Senator Favola.

As chief bill patron, Senator Favola negotiated and passed much needed balance billing legislation, commonly referred to as legislation that bans surprise medical bills. For far too long, Virginians have been paying their insurance premiums month after month, expecting to be protected from unexpected medical expenses, only to receive exorbitant bills for medical care that is provided out-of-network. SB 172 solves this problem for the patient and offers a reasonable solution to the providers. “Families should not go into bankruptcy because of a medical emergency. We must demand better from our healthcare system," said Senator Favola.

Protecting Children

In continuation of the Senator's work on improving Virginia's Guardianship Program, Senator Favola's bill encourages judges to create guardianship arrangements when the biological parents cannot care for a child but a relative is willing to serve in the parental role, rather than see the child placed in foster care. “This program will enable relatives to exercise the legal authority necessary to fulfill their new parental roles and, hopefully, serve as a catalyst to increase State funding to support these families,” said Senator Favola.

Supporting Families

Working families need paid sick days to care for themselves and their children. "We are all at risk when those who serve us, such as homecare workers, wait staff and teachers' aides cannot care for themselves or their sick children," said Senator Favola. While the Senate did not agree to pass this year’s paid sick day bill, the Senator will re-submit the legislation next session and continue the fight for workers and their families.

It has been time to raise the minimum wage for years, and to insist that workers hired under contract by State agencies be paid a prevailing wage, the passage of these two bills were major successes for Virginians. “Jurisdictions that have adopted similar policies have seen more economic activity, more stable communities and a reduction in the reliance on public programs,” said Sen Favola.

Climate Change and Protecting the Environment

Senator Favola sponsored passage of two major pieces of legislation and assisted with many other efforts in this area. She amended the Virginia Energy Plan statute to require a measurable set of implementation strategies to get us to a zero-carbon environment by 2045. Senator Favola also co-patroned a bill to discourage the use of single-use plastic bags. Senator Favola co-patroned the Clean Economy Act, which includes requirements that accelerate the closure of coal plants, employ a cap and trade model to reduce carbon emissions, and strengthen the regulatory oversight of Dominion. This makes Virginia a national leader on renewable energy.

Education

Senator Favola supported the expansion of subsidies to improve access to quality early childhood education. In other legislation, she sought to provide school systems with the flexibility to implement innovations in measuring academic achievement, outside of the SOL model. While that bill did not pass, Senator Favola will continue to lead on this issue. Senator Favola successfully passed legislation that provides certain protections to teachers, and legislation directing the Department of Education to establish an accreditation model that accurately reflects the challenges that new immigrant students face.

Criminal Justice Reform

For the past several years, Senator Favola has fought to expunge the records of juveniles convicted of non-violent felony offenses, if the juvenile has maintained a clean record for 5 years going forward. She was disappointed that the bill did not pass this year. However, the bill was was carried over to the 2021 legislative session so that the Judiciary Committee can devote more study of the issue. She looks forward to leading on this issue again next session. Senator Favola co-patroned legislation to create public defender offices in Manassas Park and the County of Prince William. These offices provide legal representation to criminal defendants unable to afford their own representation. Public defenders are vitally important to establishing and upholding our system of justice.