BY MARY MARGARET CLOUSE
STAFF WRITER
THE CAPITAL NEWS SERVICE
Sen. Schuyler T. VanValkenburg, D-Henrico, was the chief patron for 21 bills introduced during the 2024 legislative session. Of those bills, 13 passed both the House and Senate, 5 were continued to 2025, and 3 were defeated by the Senate, stricken, or passed by indefinitely.
VanValkenburg, a History and US Government teacher at Glen Allen High School, was elected to the Virginia House of Delegates in 2017. In 2023, he defeated incumbent Sen. Siobhan Dunnavant, R-Henrico, for the 16th district Senate seat, making the 2024 Virginia General Assembly session his first term as a state Senator.
VanValkenburg’s priorities as a senator include education, reproductive rights, and gun violence prevention, according to his website. Many of the bills VanValkenburg introduced this session focused on these issues.
SB 44, or “Lucia’s Law,” named for a 13-year-old resident of Henrico County who was shot by another minor using his legal guardian’s gun, creates a class 5 felony penalty of child neglect for adults who allow a child to possess a firearm after being notified that the child poses a threat of violence.
“That’s really what we wanted to get at this session anyway, so I’m pretty happy with the final result and what we were able to get through,” VanValkenburg said.
The bill was signed by Gov. Youngkin on March 26, making SB 44 an outlier from the 30 other pieces of firearm legislation that the governor vetoed earlier that week.
SB 46, which prohibits public universities in Virginia from providing legacy students or students whose families have donated to a university with preferential treatment in their admissions process, was approved by Youngkin on March 8.
Youngkin has also vetoed legislation introduced by VanValkenburg, including SB 606, which would require the Commissioner of Elections to maintain the state of Virginia’s membership in the Electronic Registration Information Center, or ERIC.
The other pieces of legislation introduced by VanValkenburg and passed by the House and Senate had an action deadline of April 8th, by which point the governor had to either sign, veto, or recommend amendments to the bills.
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