The League of Women Voters supports HB44. Requiring electronic filing of all campaign expenditure reports is a significant step toward promoting transparency and making campaign funding information more easily accessible to the electorate, in the ability both to access the reports and to analyze the information they contain. The League of Women Voters supports HB162. The League believes that a public financing option for funding electoral campaigns reduces candidates’ reliance on large private donations and donations from vested special interests. A public funding option for campaign finance gives qualified individuals who don’t have deep pockets, or friends with deep pockets, more incentive to run for elected office, and increases the electorate’s opportunities to evaluate candidates on their merits and not just from paid advertisements. HB162 will give localities that wish to provide a public funding option for certain local elections the opportunity to do so via local ordinance. The League of Women Voters of Virginia supports the proposed Constitutional Amendment to restore the rights, including the right to vote, to those released from incarceration due to felony convictions, and those who, regardless of guardianship status, do have the capacity to understand the act of voting. The League also urges you to approve this implementing legislation, HB963. Democracy is most representative when everyone has a voice, and thus voting should be protected in our state Constitution. Only two or three states permanently disenfranchise individuals who have felony convictions. At present, it is estimated that many thousands of eligible people are still disenfranchised in Virginia, with a disproportionate effect on minority and lower income Virginians. People whose incarceration has ended should not be penalized for life without the vote. Everyone deserves a second chance. With respect to any citizen subject to adjudication of capacity, it is imperative that the court make an individualized determination as to the person’s capacity to understand the act of voting. Voter registrars have frequently lacked clear guidance from the court and, as a consequence, have disenfranchised citizens who should have the right to vote, because those citizens understand what it means to vote, know how to do it, and they wish to do it. If this resolution passes, the voters of Virginia would have an opportunity to voice their support or opposition at the ballot box in November. We approve the text of the resolution and urge the Committee to vote in favor.

The League of Women Voters supports HB44. Requiring electronic filing of all campaign expenditure reports is a significant step toward promoting transparency and making campaign funding information more easily accessible to the electorate, in the ability both to access the reports and to analyze the information they contain. The League of Women Voters also supports HB162. The League believes that a public financing option for funding electoral campaigns reduces candidates’ reliance on large private donations and donations from vested special interests. A public funding option for campaign finance gives qualified individuals who don’t have deep pockets, or friends with deep pockets, more incentive to run for elected office, and increases the electorate’s opportunities to evaluate candidates on their merits and not just from paid advertisements. HB162 will give localities that wish to provide a public funding option for certain local elections the opportunity to do so via local ordinance.

The Virginia Coalition for Open Government supports this bill because it turns campaign finance disclosure from a formal compliance exercise into a meaningful transparency tool that the public can actually use. Transparency only works if information is usable.
 Requiring reports to be filed is not enough if the data is buried in PDFs, scanned forms or systems that are difficult to navigate. A searchable, sortable database makes disclosure real, not just theoretical. Journalists, watchdog groups, academics and ordinary voters would benefit from an intuitive interface and would democratize access to information that already belongs to the public.

My husband and I are extremely concerned about proposed abortion bills and legislation. We have lived in this state for many years and never dreamed of these bills moving forward and are aghast at the thought of it. We are vehemently opposed to any such passage of abortion and whole heartedly in favor of preserving and protecting all life espeically of the most vulnerable unborn life that all science now admits. Please say "no" to such bills.