By Stephen Colecchi
Special to the HERALD

The 2004 session of the Virginia General Assembly is now history, and it was session of historic length and substance. The session saw a number of positive developments to protect human life and promote the wellbeing of poor and vulnerable Virginians. The budget crisis and tax issues dominated both the session and the news accounts.

Once again this year the legislative advocacy efforts of Catholics and other people of goodwill had a major impact on actions by the General Assembly. The Diocese of Arlington and the Diocese of Richmond adopted a joint legislative agenda and invited parishioners to exercise their civic and religious responsibilities throughout the 2004 session. Each diocese also equipped its legislative advocates for this task. The two dioceses worked in partnership with the Virginia Interfaith Center for Public Policy and the Virginia Society for Human Life on many issues.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that Catholics should be active in the political process. "The initiative of lay Christians is necessary especially when the matter involves discovering or inventing the means for permeating social, political, and economic realities with the demands of Christian doctrine and life." (#899) It also makes clear that Catholic social teaching is a guide for public engagement. "The Church’s social teaching proposes principles for reflection; it provides criteria for judgment; it gives guidelines for action." (#2423)

Recently the U.S. Bishops applied Catholic social teaching to public policy issues facing our nation in a statement entitled: "Faithful Citizenship: A Catholic Call to Political Responsibility" (Administrative Board, U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, November 2003). Much of the guidance they offer is also relevant to issues that faced the Commonwealth of Virginia this year.

A brief quote from "Faithful Citizenship" introduces each of the issues in this legislative report. Catholic advocates are encouraged to reflect on the full text of "Faithful Citizenship." It can be found at http://www.usccb.org/faithfulcitizenship/ and can be ordered by calling 800-235-8722 (item # 5-561).

"We support women in difficult pregnancies, and we assist those wounded by the trauma of abortion and domestic violence. … We urge Catholics and others to promote laws and social policies that protect human life and promote human dignity to the maximum degree possible. Laws that legitimize abortion, assisted suicide, and euthanasia are profoundly unjust and immoral. … We encourage the passage of laws and programs that promote childbirth and adoption over abortion and assist pregnant women and children." --Faithful Citizenship, USCCB, 2003

With strong support from the Church, the General Assembly passed legislation to criminalize the killing of a fetus (HB 1 – Del. Cosgrove; SB 319 – Sen. Stolle). The bill does not apply to abortions, but it begins to recognize in law the right to life of the unborn. It will also help protect pregnant women who are often the victims of domestic violence.

Two pieces of legislation supported by pro-life advocates, one requiring the administration of anesthesia to the unborn in second and third trimester abortions (HB 1315 – Del. Black) and another requiring abortion clinics to be licensed in compliance with current requirements for ambulatory surgical centers (HB 116 – Del. R. Marshall) passed the House, but died in the Senate Health and Education Committee.

Efforts to extend Medicaid coverage to more low-income pregnant women and their unborn children (Del. Baskerville, Sen. Devolites) were not incorporated into the state’s budget; they were victims of inadequate state revenues.

"Society has a right and duty to defend itself against violent crime and a duty to reach out to victims of crime. … In light of the Holy Father's insistence that this is part of our pro-life commitment, we encourage solutions to violent crime that reflect the dignity of the human person, urging our nation to abandon the use of capital punishment. We also urge passage of legislation that would address problems in the judicial system, and restrict and restrain the use of the death penalty through use of DNA evidence, a guarantee of effective counsel, and efforts to address issues of racial justice."

--Faithful Citizenship, USCCB, 2003

The House Courts of Justice Committee rejected bills to abolish the death penalty in Virginia (HB 129 – Del. Hargrove) and to exempt juveniles from the death penalty (HB 1341 – Del. Eisenberg).

Likewise the Senate Courts Committee tabled a moratorium on executions (SB 47 – Sen. Marsh) and carried over a bill to provide for a writ of actual innocence based on non-biological evidence (SB 218 – Sen. Marsh). Allowing a writ of actual innocence would have ended the 21-day time limit to introduce new evidence of innocence. Currently, only biological evidence can be considered more than 21 days after sentencing.

The good news/bad news is that SB 333 (Sen. Stolle) passed both the Senate and the House. It removes the 21-day time limit to introduce new evidence, but the criteria are very difficult to meet, e.g. any guilty plea excludes access to the process, "clear and convincing" is the standard of evidence, and the new evidence cannot have been available at trial. The bill allows no consideration of unethical or incompetent actions by lawyers.

"Marriage must be protected as a lifelong commitment between a man and a woman and our laws should reflect this principle. Marriage, as God intended, provides the basic foundation for family life and the common good. It must be supported in the face of the many pressures working to undermine it. Policies related to the definition of marriage, taxes, the workplace, divorce, and welfare must be designed to help families stay together and to reward responsibility and sacrifice for children." --Faithful Citizenship, USCCB, 2003

In keeping with the U.S. bishops’ recent endorsement of a constitutional amendment to define marriage to be a union between one male and one female, the Church supported General Assembly resolutions to urge Congress to support such an amendment (HJ 187 – Del. McDonnell, SJ 91 – Sen. Cuccinelli).

Recognizing housing as a basic human right, advocates successfully opposed a bill to ban Virginia Housing Development Authority mortgage loans to unrelated persons (HB 187 – Del. Black). A ban on loans to unrelated persons would have meant that low-income residents who need to pool their resources to qualify for home ownership, e.g. two welfare-to-work families with children, would not be able to do so. No other state has such a ban.

Unfortunately, no legislation was introduced to authorize local school districts to provide bus transportation to children attending parochial and private schools. The Church supports this initiative to improve transportation safety for children, reduce traffic congestion near private schools, lower air pollution, and support tax paying parents.

"Affordable and accessible health care is an essential safeguard of human life, a fundamental human right, and an urgent national priority. … With tens of millions of Americans lacking basic health insurance, we support measures to ensure that decent health care is available to all as a moral imperative. We also support measures to strengthen Medicare and Medicaid as well as measures that extend health care coverage to children, pregnant women, workers, immigrants, and other vulnerable populations."

--Faithful Citizenship, USCCB, 2003

Tragically, over 1 million Virginians lack health care coverage. Virginia’s Medicaid program only covers pregnant women with incomes below 133 percent of the federal poverty line (FPL), adults with children below 22 percent to 30 percent of the FPL, and aged, blind and disabled persons below 80 percent of the FPL. (The FPL in 2003 for a family of three was $15,260 per year or about $5,000 more than full time work at the minimum wage.) Despite the fact that extending medical coverage to more Virginians leads to a healthier workforce and promotes economic growth, Virginia did not expand Medicaid coverage for low-income parents, pregnant women, and the aged, blind and disabled. The budget did include $600,000 to enhance dental services to poor children and $750,000 for services to infants and toddlers with developmental delays and disabilities.

"The lack of safe, affordable housing is a national crisis. We support a recommitment to the national pledge of ‘safe and affordable housing’ for all and effective policies that will increase the supply of quality housing and preserve, maintain, and improve existing housing. We promote public/private partnerships, especially those that involve religious communities. We continue to oppose unjust discrimination or unjust exclusion in housing…."

--Faithful Citizenship, USCCB, 2003

In FY 2002, 43 percent of persons and families requesting shelter in Virginia were denied due to a lack of space. Over 50 percent of those entering shelters are employed full-time, but cannot afford housing. Rent for an average apartment requires 69 percent of the income of a typical family moving from welfare to work, more than twice the standard housing budget of 30 percent. Despite these stark realities, as with health care, the General Assembly did not allocate significant additional funds for affordable housing initiatives. Budget amendments to provide rental assistance to families in danger of homelessness failed, but the budget did restore $4.9 million in funding cut from homeless programs.

"The Gospel mandate to love our neighbor and welcome the stranger leads the Church to care for and stand with immigrants, both documented and undocumented. While affirming the right and responsibility of sovereign nations to control their borders and to ensure the security of their citizens, especially in the wake of September 11, we seek basic protections for immigrants, including due process rights, access to basic public benefits, and fair naturalization and legalization opportunities."

--Faithful Citizenship, USCCB, 2003

The Church supported some positive developments. Recent changes in federal law restored Food Stamp eligibility to many legal immigrants, but many low-income families are unaware of this nutritional assistance. The budget included a multi-lingual state outreach campaign to ensure low-income immigrant families know how to obtain Food Stamps (Del. Cox, Sen. Stolle). Initiatives to explore creation of statewide telephonic language interpretation services for state agencies (HB 302 – Del. Cox) and to study providing services to limited English speaking residents (HJ 71 – Del. Cox) passed.

A bill to grant in-state college tuition rates for immigrant children whose parents are working and paying taxes in Virginia failed in the House Education Committee (HB 838 – Del. Ebbin). The church successfully opposed legislation to prohibit admission of undocumented immigrant children to institutions of higher education (HB 156 – Del. Reid). The bill passed the House, but was defeated in the Senate Education and Health Committee. Officials in higher education opposed this bill and testified that immigrant children do not displace other residents in Virginia’s colleges and universities. In fact, since they pay out-of-state tuition, they actually contribute more than the cost of their education and create educational opportunities for Virginians. The Church believes that access to education is a basic human right.

The House General Laws Committee carried over bills to require every state agency, locality and court to verify lawful presence in the United States of any person showing residence in Virginia and restricting the use of identity documents issued by foreign governments (SB 521 – Sen. Hanger, HB 157 – Del. Reid).

"Efforts to provide for the basic financial needs of poor families and children must enhance their lives and protect their dignity. The measure of welfare reform should be reducing poverty and dependency, not cutting resources and programs. We seek approaches that both promote greater responsibility and offer concrete steps to help families leave poverty behind. Welfare reform has focused on providing work and training, mostly in low-wage jobs." --Faithful Citizenship, USCCB, 2003

Church teaching supports a living wage for all workers. A living wage is one that permits a frugal worker to secure the basic necessities of life and raise a family in dignity. Advocates supported an increase in the state minimum wage from $5.15 to $6.50 per hour (SB 22 – Sen. Miller), but the bill was rejected by the Senate Commerce and Labor Committee. In a more positive development, the Church and other advocates successfully opposed bills to invalidate local living wage ordinances (SB 428 – Sen. Wagner, SB 290 – Sen. O’Brien) in which localities set a wage for contracted workers above the federal minimum wage.

Two years ago Virginia only allowed the first $50 per month paid in child support to go to the child’s family if the family was receiving welfare, but to encourage parental responsibility and to aid children living in deep poverty, the General Assembly made the decision to allow all of the child support to go to families living below the poverty line. Tragically, Virginia’s tight budget means that the state will again retain a portion of the child support paid on behalf of poor children in TANF (welfare) households. In a hopeful development, the state budget did allow more of this child support to be paid to families (Dels. Hamilton and Callahan, Sens. Stolle and Howell); the final budget provides for $7.8 million in funding in the first year of the biennium (or 85 percent of the child support) and $3.9 million in the second year. Advocates will need to work for full restoration of child support payments to poor children in 2005. A long overdue TANF cost of living increase (Del. Hamilton and Sen. Devolites) did not make it into the budget.

"It is the duty of citizens to contribute along with the civil authorities to the good of society in a spirit of truth, justice, solidarity, and freedom. …Submission to authority and co-responsibility for the common good make it morally obligatory to pay taxes…."

--Catechism of the Catholic Church, # 2239-2240

"Because we believe that families need help with the costs of raising children, we support increasing child tax credits and making them fully refundable. These credits allow families of modest means with children to keep more of what they earn and help lift low-income families out of poverty."

--Faithful Citizenship, USCCB, 2003

Virginia’s tax system is unfair—the 20 percent of families with the lowest income pay 10.4 percent of their income on state and local taxes; the richest 1 percent of families pay only 4.9 percent.

Virginia’s tax system is inadequate. In 2003 Virginia ranked 43rd in state and local spending as a percentage of personal income. In particular, Virginia’s state and local spending on human services is low, ranking 44th in the country as a percent of personal income in 1999. This ranking means tens of thousands of working poor Virginians go without health care coverage, mental health services, quality day care and other essential services.

The Church supported tax reform with the following characteristics: updating income tax exemptions, deductions and brackets to make the income tax more fair; adopting a refundable state income tax credit to offset other taxes paid by the poor; increasing taxes to provide adequate state revenue for the needs of the common good, especially for vital human services; and broadening the sales tax base to more services and removing the sales tax on food. Our position was to make Virginia’s tax system fairer for all Virginians, especially for those of modest means, and to make tax revenue more adequate to the needs of the common good.

The sales tax was increased from 4.5 percent to 5 percent; the increase in this regressive tax was partially offset by a phased in decrease in the sales tax on food, ultimately reducing it to 2.5 percent. The "marriage penalty" was eliminated by raising the standard deduction for a couple from $5,000 to $6,000 or twice the $3,000 standard deduction for singles. Families will see some income tax relief from a modest increase in the personal exemption from $800 to $900. Working poor families with income just above the poverty line will benefit from the option of a non-refundable earned income tax credit set at 20 percent of the federal credit; this option eliminates the "cliff effect" where families owed hundreds of dollars more in state income taxes when their income rose just $1 above the poverty line. Finally, the generous "age deduction" will be means tested for future retirees. No changes were made to outdated income tax rates and brackets.

Although additional revenue was raised for critical needs of the common good and modest measures were taken to make taxes fairer, it is likely that the General Assembly will need to revisit the questions of fairness and tax reform in the future.

Colecchi is director of the Office of Justice and Peace in the Catholic Diocese of Richmond.