Thank you for your ongoing support of New Virginia Majority. Here are some updates from our organization this month.
Success in Loudoun County
NVM organizers and community leaders scored a big win in Loudoun County. The rental assistance program through the American Rescue Plan will now be open to all Loudoun residents who qualify, regardless of their immigration status. The program, which is expected to begin this summer, is open to Loudoun tenants with a deferred rental balance and an income below 80% of the area’s median income. This is a big step forward for equity and accessibility for all.
Fighting for Rights Restoration in Virginia
NVM Members joined the Virginia NAACP, League of Women Voters of Virginia, Virginia Organizing, ACLU of Virginia, and Virginia Interfaith Center for Public Policy, with Delegate Don Scott, and Senator Mamie Locke in a press conference in Richmond to speak against the current rights restoration process of the Youngkin administration. Virginia’s three previous Governors have worked toward a more streamlined rights restoration process, which has helped returning citizens regain their civil rights.
The current administration’s new policy, which considers each application on unspecified criteria and ends the system of automatically restoring the rights of some felons who have served their terms, is a major step backward. “Continuing to disenfranchise returning citizens continues to punish them by denying their access to the democratic process. The [previous] process that was a pathway to becoming a productive member of society was not broken, and needs to be reinstated as quickly as possible” said Tram Nguyen, co-executive director of NVM.
Earth Day Town Hall with Delegate Tran
NVM Environmental Policy Analyst, Tyneshia Griffin, participated in Delegate Kathy Tran’s 3rd Annual Earth Day Town Hall, along with members of the League of Conservation Voters and Virginia Outdoor Adventures. “The event was an opportunity both to share with attendees what environmental justice means in the context of the state's climate and energy policies and what opportunities it presents to address issues of racism and economic injustice that are deeply woven into how energy gets produced and how much greater of a burden the expense of power is for working-class families,” Griffin explained.
Griffin also said, “We also discussed key pieces of legislation that we actively defended against and the importance of the passage of the Affordable Energy Act - both as a means of making the transition to renewable energy least costly, so our state regulatory agency will be more inclined to support it, but also to address the economic injustice of how much more working-class communities pay to power their homes relative to households with higher incomes.”
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In solidarity,
The Development Team
New Virginia Majority