Legislation

Since taking office in 2016, Mike has passed 31 bills and served on 5 committees. He excels at turning his experiences and understanding of the communities of the Peninsula into real results for his constituents.

2021 Session Highlights

Criminal Justice Reform

No one in the House of Delegates knows the criminal justice system like Mike. This year saw a tremendous amount of progress in reforming the system, with the passage of life-changing legislation that will help divert youth offenders from the traditional juvenile court system and allow admission of evidence of the defendant’s mental condition, including development or intellectual disability.

Mike fought to legalize maijuana and ensure automatic expungement not only for certain misdemeanors, but also for human trafficking survivors.

Finally, Mike wrote HB2263, the life-giving bill that made Virginia the first state in the South to abolish the death penalty.

Community Safety

Mike decided to run for Delegate for the same reason he became a prosecutor — to keep our community safe. In 2021, Mike took that goal seriously, passing legislation designed to keep:

Kids safe by prohibiting guns on school property
Families safe by restricting domestic abusers from purchasing firearms and extending the background check period from 3-5 days to close the “Charleston Loophole” and aligning Virginia with the FBI’s recommendations, and
Our elderly citizens safe by improving Adult Protective Services’ ability to respond to cases of physical, emotional, and financial abuse of an incapacitated adult by their caretaker

Workers' Protections

The people of Virginia work hard and deserve to be treated and compensated fairly.

Mike passed legislation to ensure that first responders and frontline healthcare workers who contract COVID-19 on the job can receive workers compensation benefits.

He also worked with union leaders to Establish the Virginia Overtime Wage Act, which will protect workers by allowing them to sue their employees for unpaid overtime in state court instead of federal court.

Jobs & The Economy

Economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic will take time and effort from individuals and the government.

This session, Mike passed bills that will help Virginians recover and thrive. These bills:

Provide financial assistance to Virginians seeking higher education and training in high-demand fields from a Virginia community college
Support businesses impacted by the pandemic, and
Improve the infrastructure between Hampton Roads and Richmond

Education Funding

In 2021, Mike delivered on key educational initiatives, because he knows how critical education is to our citizens and our state. These initiatives:

Provided funding for improving the counselor-to-student ratio to 325:1,
Local programming to help address learning loss stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic, and
Restored funding for early childhood education initiatives

He also passed bills giving teachers a 5% pay raise and established new parameters for schools to safely resume in-person instruction.

Voting Rights

While other states have been chipping away at voting rights, Mike spent 2021:

He also worked to pass the Virginia Voting Rights Act, which builds on the process outlined in the federal Voting Rights Act before the act was cut down by the 2013 Supreme Court ruling in Shelby v. Holder.