Public Comments for: HB787 - Administrative Process Act; appeals of case decisions regarding benefits sought.
Last Name: Cordeaux Locality: Newark

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Last Name: Spiro Locality: Hamburg Finkenwerder

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Last Name: Bowman Locality: Alexandria

Alexandria is a vibrant city based on history, culture, a waterfront and lots of tourism. If Virginia has money and space to build an arena then you have money and space to build new schools. Our school system is deplorable. It’s overcrowded. Think of your citizens before thinking about your quick money grab that eventually leads to an inevitable loss. We don’t want or need an arena. This is pure greed.

Last Name: Gordon Organization: Rivercity Residential Services, Bridging the Gap Family Services Locality: Richmond

My name is Michael Gordon. I am a recovering addict. My clean date is 06/06/2008. I writing this letter because it my duty as a health professional to bring to the table how important it is that we change the barrier crime law. I have spent countless hours and days working with other addicts who trying to find their pathway into recovery. The frontlines are thin because the people whom society deemed unworthy because of some past mistakes cannot work in the field that they could do the greatest good. I did not know when I received my sentence in 1990 for distribution of crack cocaine. I would be serving a life time sentence. Luck for me I don’t have a barrier crime, yet today after getting my GED, going to college and graduating with honors. I still can live in certain areas or have certain jobs. I went from the crack house to the White House and still that not enough for Virginia to forgive me of my past mistakes. We need more people who has made a deep commitment to change to share their experiences with others who are suffering!!

Last Name: Lieberman Organization: Legal Aid Justice Center Locality: 22902, Charlottesville, VA

My name is Michaela Lieberman and I’m an attorney and the interim director of Health Justice and Public Benefits at the Legal Aid Justice Center. We support HB 787 because it is an essential step in guaranteeing access to justice for individuals appealing the loss or reduction of their critical benefits like SNAP, TANF, and Medicaid. HB787 amends the Administrative Process Act to allow Circuit Court judges to review legal issues in additional to factual issues in administrative appeals of public benefits cases like SNAP, TANF, and Medicaid. Currently, the APA only allows judges to review how administrative hearing officers ruled on the facts of a case – not on how hearing officers ruled on or applied the law in a case. Here’s why this bill matters: When my client, a 21-year-old survivor of a traumatic brain injury who depended on extensive home-based personal care services to keep him living safely at home, lost more than half of his services after the State arbitrarily reduced them, he appealed the reduction because he faced the grave risk of institutionalization in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Even though my client raised this ADA argument at his Medicaid appeal hearing, the hearing officer assigned to his case ignored it. My client decided not to appeal the hearing officer’s decision to Circuit Court, in part because the APA would have prevented the Circuit Court judge from reviewing the hearing officer's legal analysis (or absence thereof); in its current form, the APA would have only allowed the judge to review whether the hearing officer got the facts right. So the APA- as it’s currently written – gives unelected, unappointed hearing officers the final say on what the law is in SNAP, TANF, and Medicaid cases. HB 787 would change that. It would allow Circuit Court judges to review administrative hearing officers’ legal findings de novo, just as judges can in all other administrative appeal cases that come before them. We urge you to vote yes on HB 787 so Virginians facing reductions in/losses of critical benefits like SNAP, TANF, and Medicaid have access to justice, too.

End of Comments