Virginia will abandon the death penalty and legalize recreational marijuana while Maryland will ditch its pro-Confederate state song on Thursday, as measures aimed at stamping out racial inequities take effect along with hundreds of other new laws.
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Just one major change — a higher minimum wage — is coming to the District on July 1, which is the start of a new fiscal year in its two neighboring states and the day most of their laws begin. The District’s laws generally take effect with the advent of its fiscal year, on Oct. 1. But the city’s minimum wage, which is tied to inflation, is set to rise Thursday from $15 an hour to $15.20.
Many of the new laws in Virginia build on the fundamental policy flips that began last year as Democrats, who already held the Executive Mansion, took full control of the legislature for the first time in a generation. They passed a host of Democratic priorities in early 2020, including measures to expand access to voting, raise the minium wage, ban anti-LGBT discrimination, tighten restrictions on guns and loosen them on abortion.
Democrats focused on measures to improve police training and oversight in a special session later that year, responding to protests in Virginia and nationwide following the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody.
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This year, Democrats continued their overhaul of the criminal justice system, making the former capital of the Confederacy the first Southern state to abolish the death penalty and legalize recreational marijuana.
“It’s certainly one of the biggest changes to the Virginia statutes that we’ve had in some time with respect to marijuana, the death penalty,” said Senate Majority Leader Richard L. Saslaw (D-Fairfax), a longtime supporter of capital punishment who was persuaded this year to go along with the ban. “Despite what the Republicans say, it’s not the end of Western civilization.”
The long, surprising road to abolishing the death penalty in Virginia
The death penalty ban represents a striking about-face for Virginia, the second-most-prolific death-penalty state of the modern era behind Texas. Advocates for the change, including many Democrats, said execution had been disproportionately applied to Black defendants, while Republican opponents contended that the ultimate punishment should still be an option for the most heinous crimes.
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Another new law gives people convicted in criminal jury trials the option to be sentenced by a judge rather than a jury — something allowed in every other state but Kentucky. Advocates said the threat of jury sentencing, which tends to be harsher than what judges hand out, pressures people to forfeit their right to go to trial and accept unfavorable plea deals.
Adult possession of small amounts of recreational marijuana will be legal in Virginia, which joins 17 other states, plus the District. Parts of the law related to criminal penalties and a commercial marketplace will have to be reenacted during next year’s legislative session, which will begin in January.
In the area of education, a new law allows low- and middle-income Virginians pursuing jobs in certain high-demand fields to attend community college free. The G3 program, which stands for Get Skilled, Get a Job, Give Back, was a marquee campaign promise when Gov. Ralph Northam (D) ran for the Executive Mansion in 2017.
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In addition to tuition, fees and books, the program is one of the nation’s first to provide students with financial assistance for expenses such as food, transportation and child care, Northam’s office said. The help is available to students preparing for jobs in fields including health care, information technology, computer science, manufacturing and skilled trades, public safety, and early-childhood education.
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The state budget includes money to expand dental care to adult Medicaid recipients. Until now, the program has covered only children and pregnant women. Starting Thursday, employers are required to provide paid sick leave to the 30,000 home health workers serving Medicaid patients under another health-care-related law.
“It definitely will help,” said Rena Bumbray-Graves, 58, a home health-care worker in Woodbridge, Va. “At least when we get sick, we don’t have to contemplate continuing to work sick or .？.？. not being paid if you take off the time. A lot of people had to suffer during the covid time because of that.”
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Another new law allows insurers selling plans through the state’s health benefits exchange to offer abortion coverage, something that had been banned until now.
In the realm of election law, localities will have the option to offer in-person early voting on Sundays, which until now has been restricted to weekdays and Saturdays. And only law enforcement officials will be allowed to bring a gun within 40 feet of a polling place or a location where officials are counting votes.
A new suicide-prevention law would allow Virginians who feel they are at risk of harming themselves or others to put themselves on a do-not-sell list for firearms.
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In Maryland, for the first time since wrongly convicted felons who have been exonerated gained the right to seek compensation for their time behind bars, the state is creating a system to provide redress.
The law is named after Walter Lomax, who experienced problems getting approved for payment after spending 39 years in prison for a murder he didn’t commit. Lomax was one of five wrongly convicted men who collectively spent 120 years in prison and were awarded $9 million in compensation in 2019 after a long battle with the state.
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The law that bears his name sets the amount an exoneree is eligible to receive for each year of imprisonment to the state’s annual median income, averaged over five years.
It also requires an administrative law judge to decide whether an exoneree is eligible for compensation — instead of the state Board of Public Works, a three-member panel made up of the governor, comptroller and treasurer that has been making those decisions.
The judge will also decide whether to provide other benefits, including a state identification card, housing accommodations for up to five years, health and dental care, educational training and reimbursement for court fees.
U.S. House votes to remove statues of Confederate leaders from Capitol
The compensation measure is one of nearly 300 bills that become law in Maryland on Thursday. They include a repeal of the state song; an expansion of its 211 crisis call center so counselors can occasionally check in with people who need mental health support; an allowance for college athletes to profit from their names, images and likenesses; and a continuation of off-premise alcohol sales by restaurants, which was permitted during the coronavirus pandemic.
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The repeal of “Maryland, My Maryland,” an ode that glorifies the Confederacy, comes after more than 10 failed attempts over the past four decades by lawmakers who considered the song racist and unacceptable.
Speaker Pro Tem Sheree Sample-Hughes (D-Wicomico), the House bill sponsor, described the measure as one way the state could “take a stand on racism.”
It is the latest effort by the state government to remove symbols that represent the country’s racist past. In recent years, Maryland has removed a plaque from the State House walls that sympathized with the Confederacy and a statue from the State House grounds of Roger B. Taney that honored the former U.S. chief justice and slavery defender whose infamous 1857 Dred Scott decision said Black people could not be U.S. citizens.
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Also in Maryland, the state’s most populous jurisdiction will receive an increase in its minimum wage starting Thursday.
Montgomery County busi-nesses with 51 or more employees will be required to pay $15 an hour; companies with 50 or fewer employees will have to pay $14 an hour; and businesses with 10 or fewer employees will be required to pay $13.50 an hour.
Julie Zauzmer contributed to this report.