2025 Legislative Agenda
I am honored to represent our community in the 18th District in the Virginia House of Delegates! Below is a summary of the bills and budget requests that I have sponsored to introduce legislation to build a more just, equitable, and welcoming Virginia.
I look forward to hearing your priorities. I hope to be able to welcome you to Richmond or see you at a future town hall! You can sign-up for my electronic newsletter to learn about my work on behalf of our community and see tips on my website on how you can stay engaged with the legislative process.
I’ve summarized the bills and budget requests that I have introduced below, and I hope you click through to learn more about each one. I look forward to hearing about your priorities!
2025 LEGISLATIVE AGENDA
EXPANDING HEALTH CARE
I have introduced the following to expand high-quality affordable health care to all Virginians:
House Bill 2269 Reporting Threats and Violence Against Health Care Providers — Violence against health care providers has experienced a dramatic increase, and it is important to ensure safety for all providers and their patients. This bill requires hospitals to report threats and violence against health care providers to the Virginia Department of Health.
Budget Amendment Item Item 289 #2h Cover All Kids — This program provides health care to vulnerable kids by creating a Medicaid-like program for about 13,000 children in Virginia, regardless of their immigration status.
STRENGTHENING PUBLIC SCHOOLS
To ensure that each student in Virginia gets a world-class education, I sponsored:
House Bill 2219 Augmentative and Alternative Communication — This bill requires schools to provide teachers and staff with training on using augmentative and alternative communication before classroom instruction begins so they can communicate and fully engage with each of their students.
House Bill 2265 Special Education Licensure — We face a shortage of teachers across Virginia, including needing to fill nearly 600 vacancies in Fairfax County. This bill allows qualified licensed teachers with over 15 years of experience teaching preschool special education the opportunity to continue teaching in their classroom without needing extra training, if their superintendent recommends it.
House Bill 2541 Accessible Tech — Technology is ubiquitous in how we perform our jobs, access government services, and learn in school. This bill aligns Virginia’s Information Technology Access Act to federal accessibility standards by requiring state agencies, local governments, institutions of higher education, and local school districts to ensure their information and communication technologies are accessible to all persons with a disability.
PROTECTING VIRGINIANS FROM GUN VIOLENCE
To help reduce gun violence, I introduced:
House Bill 2241 Preventing Perpetrators of Hate Crimes from Accessing Firearms — America has experienced a sharp rise in hate crimes. Unfortunately, more than 25,000 hate crimes involve a firearm each year. This bill bans people convicted of misdemeanor assault from possessing a firearm, ammunition, or explosives if they intentionally selected their victim because of their race, religious conviction, gender, disability, gender identity, sexual orientation, color, or ethnic or national origin.
LIFTING UP WORKING FAMILIES
I am committed to lifting up working families and I’m proud to introduced:
House Bill 2180 Child Tax Credit — This bill provides targeted relief to working families and addresses child poverty for nearly 800,000 Virginian kids by establishing a one time, refundable state child tax credit.
House Bill 2218 Improving Tenant Rights — Tenants should be able to pay their rent in a manner that makes the most sense for their financial situation. This bill requires landlords to accept all lawful forms of payment for rent and security deposits and to offer a free form of payment.
House Bill 2264 Establishing Virginia Direct File — This bill re-establishes a free system to directly file our state taxes and requires Virginia to join the IRS’s Direct File program so that no one has to pay in order to file their taxes.
House Bill 2764 Public Sector Collective Bargaining - Every worker deserves a seat at the table. This bill ensures that Virginia’s public sector employees will be able to collectively bargain.
HONORING OUR VETERANS AND MILITARY FAMILIES
To honor our veterans and military families, I have introduced:
Budget Amendment Item 140 #6h Troops to Teachers Budget Amendment — This budget request funds the Troops to Teachers program at the College of William and Mary, which prepares veterans to teach in K-12 schools, thereby helping veterans transition successfully to the civilian workforce while filling our teacher gaps.
Budget Amendment Item 456 #5h Hope for the Warriors — This budget request provides funds to expand the capacity of Hope for the Warriors to provide comprehensive mental health and supportive services to post-9/11 service members, veterans, reservists, military spouses and their families in Northern Virginia.
PROTECTING OUR ENVIRONMENT
To ensure that Virginia meets our clean energy demands, I introduced:
House Bill 2266 Cost Sharing Small Generating Facility System Upgrades — Costly infrastructure upgrades are barriers to installing solar panels on our schools, government buildings, and parking lots. This bill spreads interconnection costs among projects on a transmission line, which will allows more solar energy.
House Bill 2604 Competitive Procurement of Fossil Fuel Infrastructure — This bill requires electric utilities to consider all types of power resources, including clean energy, through a complete a competitive procurement process before building nee fossil fuel plants.