The FCDC Zoom Meeting

7:30 3rd Tuesday

Statement from the FCDC Chairs on the Attack on Congress

Dear Members and Friends of the Fauquier County Democratic Committee,

Two months after the election took place, early Thursday morning Congress accepted the Electoral College vote and declared Joe Biden and Kamala Harris the winners of the 2020 Presidential and Vice-Presidential elections. It has been exhausting to wait through numerous legal challenges, recounts, and presidential intervention prior to Congress’s confirmation. Even during the Congressional acceptance of the state’s electoral votes, there were numerous theatrics, mostly by those Republicans hoping to run for president in 2024.

More dangerous than the Congressional objections were the criminal actions of domestic terrorists who attacked and occupied the Capitol. A noose was erected on the West Front of the U.S. Capitol. Confederate flags were proudly waved as rioters paraded through the Halls of Congress. Anger, disbelief, disappointment and fear for our democracy were among the emotions many of us felt during this attack on Congress. Members of Congress had to be escorted to safety while doing their jobs. Their lives were endangered, not by a foreign army or agents, but by American citizens!

As Americans, we believe in the rule of law. We have watched a deterioration in the respect for law and order during the last four years. Subpoenas can be ignored. Evidence can be ignored. Crimes can be pardoned. In an attempt to overturn a legal election, there have been numerous attempts to invalidate election results, without any evidence. And we have now witnessed the utmost in disrespect for law and order, the attack on our Congress while they were performing their duties at the Capitol.

As frustrating as this two-month period has been, we have many reasons to celebrate. Overshadowed by the events on the Capitol on January 6th, was the victory of both Democratic Candidates in the Georgia Senate runoff elections. Democrats now control the White House and both houses of Congress. Here in Virginia, Democrats also won two runoff elections for vacant House of Delegates seats.

The wins in Georgia do more than give President Elect Biden the opportunity to take bold action on many policy initiatives. It represents another southern state that is shifting from red to blue, as we have here in Virginia. The efforts in Georgia to register voters and get them to the polls can be a model for improving Democratic results throughout the country. Here in Virginia, we have become a reliably blue state but we can still improve our registration, turnout and results here in Fauquier County and in the 1st & 5th Congressional District.

On Jan 20th we will have a new president. In 13 more days, we can be certain that law and order will be upheld. We have worked hard for many years to rid ourselves of this administration, and better days are ahead. On Jan 20th we will once again have a Democratic controlled government, and the country will be better for it.

With Hope for a Better 2021,

Whitney Petrilli & Larry Jackson, FCDC Chairs

Video About what Happened in Washington

Starting Friday January 1 several new laws go into effect.

1. Holding your phone while driving is illegal in Virginia. Let’s all keep our hands on the wheel and eyes on the road.
 
2. Virginia residents can apply for driving credentials no matter their immigration status. As always, please let me know if my office can assist you with any DMV questions.
 

3. Insulin co-pays are capped at $50 a month, a life-saving measure for the 1 in 10 Virginians living with diabetes.

4. Best of all: Most Virginia patients will now be protected from surprise medical bills. You can learn more about Virginia's new law here, and keep an eye on Congress for next steps nationwide.

Click here for Membership Application

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Here is the summary of the House Democrats’ non-budget legislation which passed during the 2020 Special Session:

COVID-19 Relief

• HB 5046 (Adams) Advancing innovations in telehealth.

• HB 5047 (Murphy) Prohibits manufacturers or distributors from selling necessary goods or services at an unconscionable price during a declared state of emergency.

• HB 5048 (Sickles) Mandating transparency requirements for congregate-care facilities during a public health emergency.

• HB 5059 (Willett) Providing certain liability protection for assisted living facilities in relation to COVID-19. 

• HB 5050 (Helmer) Authorizes the Governor, during a declared state of emergency due to a communicable disease of public health threat, to purchase and distribute PPE to private, nongovernmental entities.

• HB 5064 (Price) Providing rent payment plan opportunities for tenants negatively impacted by COVID-19.

• HB 5068 (Ayala) Prohibiting garnishment of stimulus relief checks.

• HB 5087 (Tran) Removing the sunset clause on Virginia’s short-term compensation program (work-sharing) to facilitate eligibility for CARES Act funds.

• HB 5093 (Watts) Granting flexibility in enforcing executive orders through civil penalty. Under current law, the only penalty for such a violation is a Class 1 misdemeanor.

• HB 5106 (Cole) Protecting prospective tenants whose credit is negatively impacted by COVID-19.

• HB 5113 (Roem) Ensuring local school board participation in the federal Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) no-cost breakfast and lunch program.

• HB 5115 (Price) Protecting housing security for individuals and families negatively impacted by COVID-19.

Policing and Criminal Justice Reform

• HB 5029 (McQuinn) Mandating the duty of one officer to intervene to stop use of excessive force by another officer.

• HB 5043 (Bourne) Creating a statewide Marcus Alert system.

• HB 5045 (Delaney) Banning sexual relations between officers and arrestees.

• HB 5051 (Simon) Requiring decertification of a law enforcement officer who is terminated or resigns for violation of law, serious misconduct in violation of statewide standards of conduct, or during an internal investigation.

• HB 5055 (Herring) Strengthening laws related to Citizen Review Panels.

• HB 5058 (Hope) Eliminates certain vehicle equipment offenses or the odor of marijuana as pretexts for a stop or search by law enforcement.

• HB 5049 (Helmer) Demilitarizing police departments by prohibiting the acquisition and use of certain weapons and military equipment by law enforcement agencies.

• HB 5062 (Mullin) Codifying prosecutorial ability to dismiss charges.

• HB 5069 (Carroll Foy) Banning the use of neck restraints by law enforcement except if immediately necessary to protect the officer or another person.

• HB 5072 (Lopez) Empowering the Attorney General to conduct “pattern or practice” investigations of police forces that appear to be violating constitutional rights, including unlawful discrimination.

• HB 5098 (Askew) Expanding the definition of hate crimes to include false 911 calls or reports to law enforcement against another person made on the basis of race, religious conviction, gender, disability, gender identity, sexual orientation, color, or national origin. 

• HB 5099 (Aird) Prohibiting no-knock search warrants.

• HB 5104 (Price) Strengthening the assessments and review of prior law-enforcement employment records required before hiring law enforcement officers.

• HB 5108 (Guzman) Diversifying the Department of Criminal Justice Services’ Committee on Training.

• HB 5109 (Hope) Standardizing and enhancing training by criminal justice academies and establishing required in-service training standards for law enforcement officers.

• HB 5148 (Scott) Increasing earned sentence credits.

Making Virginia a more Equitable Place

• HB 5052 (Bagby) Codifying Juneteenth as an official holiday in the Commonwealth of Virginia.

Fauquier County Democratic Committee stands in solidarity with our communities of color. We stand with millions of people across the country who are rightfully outraged by the killing of unarmed black people.

If we are complacent, if we are silent, we are complicit in perpetuating the cycle of institutional racism and violence for those most marginalized in our communities.

None of us can turn away, we must all speak out and hold each other accountable.

The death of George Floyd, Ahmad Arbery and Breonna Taylor are not isolated incidents. They are the result of systematic racism that has existed for generations.

These murders and the disproportionate deaths to COVID-19 in the black community are just the latest evidence that we live in an unequal world.

As Catherine Rampell of the Washington Post says, “There are two Americas. There’s the America where people can storm a statehouse with long guns, threaten elected officials, scream into the faces of cops and can still walk away unscathed. And then there is the America where citizens can march peacefully, or stand watching from their own front porches, and get sprayed with rubber bullets and paint projectiles. All while cameras roll.”

The cycle continues. More people die. More lives are destroyed. There are protests and promises to do better and the pattern repeats. Here in Fauquier County, some of our friends and neighbors live in fear and dare not venture out on public streets at night. How do we break this cycle? It starts with each of us. We at the Fauquier County Democratic Committee are committed to electing officials who understand this reality, will represent and uphold the rights of all people and will do the difficult work to dismantle the system of race-based oppression.

We stand for justice. We know what it looks like. We stand together!