Youngkin vetoes minimum wage hike, prescription affordability board bills

By Charlotte Rene Woods and Nathaniel Cline

Monday was Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s deadline to take action on the roughly 900 bills that Virginia’s legislature approved to send his way. Monday afternoon saw over 300 signatures and a handful of vetoes, while he had until 11:59 p.m. for his other signatures, amendments and vetoes to be posted on Virginia’s Legislative Information System.

Youngkin vetoed for the second straight year a widely backed bill to raise Virginia’s minimum wage that would have allowed it to climb from $12.41 per hour to $13.50 per hour by January 2026, and reach $15 by January 2027.

Democrats, including the bill patron Del. Jeion Ward, D-Hampton, and various advocates insisted that the increase is necessary to keep pace with rising living costs. However, Republicans and other critics warn it could burden businesses.

The governor’s veto excluded a statement.

Ashley Kenneth, president and CEO of the progressive Commonwealth Institute for Fiscal Analysis, said in a statement that the governor’s veto will continue making Virginia unaffordable for many working families and deepening barriers to economic opportunity for Virginians.

“Working people in Virginia drive our economy and deserve to be paid a fair wage for a fair day’s work,” Kenneth said. “Yet some businesses continue to exploit their workers through low pay that does not allow them to meet their basic needs.”

Prescription Drug Affordability Board proposal defeated again

A years-long quest to create a Prescription Drug Affordability Boardwas defeated again. 

The proposal would have created an independent, nonpartisan board of medical and health experts tasked with analyzing data to set payment limits on drug prices within state-sponsored health plans. 

While Democrats have largely led the effort to establish a board, some Republicans, including ​​Del. Ellen Campbell, R-Rockbridge, who co-sponsored the bill, have lent their support. 

“Big Pharma has gotten away with charging hardworking Virginians outrageous prices just so they can stay alive,” said Del. Karrie Delaney, D-Fairfax, who has been a key champion of the bill in the House of Delegates. 

No statement was attached to his veto by the time of this publication. Previously, Youngkin described the proposal as “noble in its intent” but warned it could “limit access to treatments and hinder medical innovation” when he rejected the bill last year. 

Other opponents of the bill included the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, a prominent trade group that has lobbied against the bill and expressed skepticism about it.

Charise Richard, a senior director of state policy at PhRMA, stressed in an interview last week that PDABs are relatively untested, despite their surge in recent years. 

Though at least 11 states have implemented such boards, Maryland was the first. Last fall the board approved a process to set an upper limit payment to cap drug costs on state health plans, its overall set up has been slow since its 2019 establishment and it’s not yet yielded the cost-savings at the core of its mission. An effort this year to expand the board resulted in heated debate in Maryland’s legislature.

Certain firearms will still be allowed in public areas

The governor vetoed an effort to prohibit assault firearms from being carried in public areas.

Senate Bill 880, carried by Sen. Adam Ebbin, D-Alexandria, would have prohibited certain firearms, including semi-automatic center-fire rifles, from being carried on any public street, road, alley, sidewalk or any other place everyone can go, with some exceptions, the proposal states.

The current law prohibits certain shotguns, semi-automatic rifles and pistols from being carried in specific localities and when they are loaded.

Ebbin’s SB 1450 was also vetoed. 

His bill would have created standards of responsible conduct for members of the firearm industry and required them to establish “reasonable controls” regarding the selling and marketing of firearms. The companion bill, carried by Del. Dan Helmer, D-Fairfax, was also vetoed.

Solar canopy bill rejected

A proposal from Del. David Bulova, D-Fairfax would have allowed localities to include solar canopy requirements for applicants seeking local developments

Solar canopies are structures over parking lots that provide shade to parked cars and generate electricity through solar panels on top. While the state law wouldn’t have required localities to include this idea in local ordinances, it would have empowered localities that wanted to do so. 

Though the bill passed with bipartisan support, it was ultimately vetoed. 

Mahmoud Khalil still detained in notorious Louisiana detention center as case is moved to New Jersey

By Bobbi-Jean Misick 

After former Columbia University student and permanent U.S. resident Mahmoud Khalil was detained by federal immigration officials over his involvement in student-led protests last year — a move that shocked advocates for free speech and immigrants’ rights around the country — he was taken to Jena, a small town of 4,000 in north-central Louisiana and home to one of the country’s largest and most notorious immigration detention centers. 

Since last week, Khalil — a Syrian-born Palestinian and permanent U.S. resident— has been locked up in the Central Louisiana ICE Processing Center, a privately-run immigration lockup with an average daily detainee population of nearly 1,200. 

Though the center’s surroundings appear peaceful and idyllic — tucked into a tall pine forest on the edge of town —  it has a troubled past that includes allegations of abuse and sexual assault, excessive use of force, overuse of solitary confinement, medical mistreatment or neglect and unfit living conditions. 

Earlier this month, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested Khalil in the lobby of his Columbia University apartment building, took him to New Jersey and quickly transferred him to Jena, more than 1,000 miles away from his pregnant wife, who is a U.S. citizen, and his attorneys in New York. 

Civil rights lawyers who work with immigrants locked up in Louisiana’s detention centers say they are concerned for Khalil, given the Jena facility’s unsettling history. However, they say they are not surprised that ICE transferred Khalil to Louisiana, where access to counsel is extremely limited, and where the courts skew conservative.

In a phone interview with Verite News last week, Anthony Enriquez, vice president of U.S. advocacy and litigation at civil rights nonprofit RFK Human Rights, said the Trump Administration is “forum shopping” Khalil’s deportation case — looking for the jurisdiction that will give the government the outcome it wants. 

“The government has the ability to do that with immigration,” Enriquez said. “It can arrest someone in a jurisdiction where the case law is very favorable to the person arrested, and then sweep them away to another jurisdiction.” 

Khalil’s attorneys are eager to get the case, and Khalil, out of Louisiana. On Monday (March 17), his attorneys asked a federal judge to transfer the case. On Wednesday, the judge obliged, ordering the case transferred to New Jersey. The New York Times reported that the order would not have an immediate effect on where he is being detained. A federal judge in New Jersey will have to make a decision on whether to transfer him out of Louisiana.

Khalil’s legal team did not respond to requests for comment. 

Representatives from the Department of Justice, ICE and the Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to requests from Verite News for comment on Khalil’s case or on immigration detention centers in Louisiana. 

‘The black hole’

Nora Ahmed, legal director of the ACLU of Louisiana, said she has visited Khalil in Jena since he was transferred there — a four hour drive from her office in New Orleans. 

She stressed the challenge that Louisiana’s “handful” of immigration attorneys who represent immigrants in detention face getting to their clients in remote areas. 

The Central Louisiana ICE Processing Center, where Khalil is detained, is more than 100 miles from Baton Rouge, the closest major city. 

“[Louisiana is] the place where you can cut off from outside eyes,” Enriquez said. “That’s the place where you can ensure that they won’t have access to lawyers or to advocates.”

Court filings reveal Khalil’s wife, Noor Abdalla, who cannot fly to Louisiana as she is in the last stage of pregnancy, is concerned about her husband’s well-being in Jena. She said her husband, who is Muslim and fasting for Ramadan, is finding it hard to sustain himself on the food provided to him after he breaks his fast at the end of each day. According to Abdalla, Khalil did not receive his daily medication for an ulcer until two days after he arrived in Jena. 

“I also worry about Mahmoud braving this period of detention,” Abdalla said in a sworn statement of support. “I cannot overstate how distressing this entire experience has been. … This experience has flipped our lives upside down.” 

The Jena facility, operated by private prison corporation GEO Group – ICE’s single largest private contractor – has been plagued with allegations of abuse and mistreatment since the late 1990s when it opened as a juvenile correctional center. In 2000, the federal government closed the facility, operated when GEO Group went by a different name, Wackenhut Corrections Corporation, for “excessive abuse and neglect,” including the use of chemical weapons on children. 

Last year, the ACLU of Louisiana and RFK Human Rights co-produced a report on the Louisiana immigration detention system called “Inside the Black Hole” that featured information gathered from interviews with more than 6,000 detainees over roughly two years. Prominent features of the report include prison-like settings, inadequate mental health and medical care, allegations of human rights abuses, and extremely limited access to language interpretation services and to attorneys.

Immigrants detained at the Jena facility reported rodent droppings on the facility’s kitchen surfaces, human excrement in a shower area and allegations of prolonged isolation leading to medical and mental health distress. 

In one example, detainees in Jena told interviewers they had to clean sewage in their cells without protective gear after toilets and drains overflowed in an isolation unit.

“The smell was unbearable. It burned my eyes and made it almost impossible to breathe,” the report quoted one man saying. “The sewage sat there for hours until we were given towels to clean it ourselves. They didn’t even give us gloves.” 

In 2023, Verite News reported on a Nicaraguan man who filed at least 29 grievancesagainst different aspects of his conditions of confinement before he died after suffering a heart attack inside the facility. And last year Verite News reported on federal oversight bodies findings that staff at the Jena detention center violated the civil rights of a Columbian man with epilepsy, by repeatedly assigning him to an upper bunk, threatening his well-being. 

The GEO Group did not respond to a request for comment.

This article originally appeared in Verite News on March 21st, 2025

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THEY DESERVE A SECOND LOOK

 words by charles brooks

UPDATE as of 3/16/25: The bill was ultimately advanced in the House for a final vote, which is expected to occur in the coming days before moving to the Senate

There’s an opportunity in 2025 for Maryland state lawmakers to address the state’s mass incarceration and sentencing policies with the Maryland Second Look Act.  

The proposed measure creates a pathway for men and women who served twenty plus years in prison to petition the court to have a judge review their sentence for possible reduction. The proposed measure is sponsored by State Senator Charles E. Sydnor, III, and House Delegate Cheryl E. Pasteur.  The proposal requires a comprehensive evaluation process to prove to the court they no longer pose a threat to society. The rigorous process allows the judge to measure their capacity to change, and as a result the proposed legislation cannot be viewed as a, “get out of jail free card”. 

How did we get here?

The proposed legislation directs attention to data revealing a startling portrait of Maryland’s prison population.  For one, Maryland leads the nation incarcerating the highest percentage of Black people - 72% and in sentencing young Black men to the longest prison terms.

Consider former Governor Parris N. Glendening (D), who back in 1995 infamously said, “A life sentence means life,” which essentially abolished any means to parole for those with life sentences. While the governor was removed from the parole process by the state legislature in 2021, it is not enough to make up for decades of wrongful denials. Thirty years later, 1,132 people are serving 50 years or more, 2,072 serving life with parole and 424 are serving life without parole sentences, making up 23% of the total prison population serving these extreme sentences.

What did we learn?

The Judicial Proceedings (Senate/SB 291) and Judiciary (House/HB 853) Committees held two hearings of informed, and spirited testimony that was at times, wrought with emotion from both supporters and opponents. 

They heard testimony from several of the formerly incarcerated who shared stories of their personal journey to redemption. Committee members also heard about their mission to positively impact their community.  Their work with conflict resolution. Mentoring. Substance abuse. Gangs. 

Their testimony, along with the recidivism data should dispel the notion of returning to a life of crime after serving over twenty years in prison.   

The state lawmakers also heard from the victims of serious crime who are in support of Second Look legislation.  In addition, key testimony was heard from advocates, attorneys, and criminal justice professionals who outlined the racial disparities in the prison system, the judicial limitations of parole and sentence review, the consequences of incarcerating people to long sentences, and the restorative practices taking place between prisoners and the victims.  

The opposition

Opposing the proposed Second Look legislation were Mr. Kurt Wolfgang, Executive Director of the Maryland Crime Victims Resource Center and the State’s Attorney for Baltimore County, Scott D. Shellenberger.  Arguing on behalf of the victims, they pointed to the required “five year waiting period”.  

If the court denies a petition for a reduced sentence, there’s a five year waiting period before another petition can be brought again to the court.  But there’s a limit imposed  of three petitions for sentence reduction. 

Mr. Wolfgang and Mr. Shellenberger highlighted the traumatic experience that would be revisited every five years by the victims, reopening unhealed wounds and revictimizing them. In their testimony, they presented anecdotal cases to both committees of the most heinous and brutal crimes to provoke an emotional reaction from committee members. 

The committee also heard from several family members who lost loved ones to criminal activity, describing their trauma as “a nightmare” and “absolute purgatory”. Mr. Wolfgang told the Senate Judicial Proceedings committee, “…to put them through more than what they have already gone through is wrong.”

Where do we go from here 

The Maryland Second Look Act is framed as sentence reform versus victims rights while overlooking the critical role of restorative practices. Across the country as well as in Maryland, restorative practices are used to promote healing while aligning victims rights with prisoner rehabilitation.   There’s a greater awareness today of how it helps to reconcile the fragile balance between meaningful sentence reform and recognizing the victims. 

This years’ 2025 legislative session provides another opportunity for Maryland lawmakers to pass meaningful sentence reform. Another opportunity to reconcile redemption, and one’s capacity to transform their life for the good to the trauma and emotional suffering experienced by the victims of the crime. There is widespread support for this legislation including the State Attorney’s for Prince George’s County and Baltimore City. 

There’s a sense of urgency as momentum picks up across the nation as lawmakers in New York, Michigan and Nevada are also looking at passing Second Look legislation. Maryland could join the 12 states, the District of Columbia, and the federal government who passed similar sentencing reforms in recent years. 

The spotlight is now on the Chair of the House Judiciary Committee, Delegate Luke Clippinger, and Chair of the Senate JPR Committee, Will Smith, to move this critical legislation out of committee.

Illustration credit: Veronica Martinez, Injustice Watch

Related posts

Can they get a Second Look?

Please support the news you can use and visit The Brooks Blackboard's website for more news!   

Take a look at my brief bio about my writing life and on social media:

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Can they get a Second Look?

 words by charles brooks 

They’re asking for a second look. 

They’ve been locked up, and languishing behind the walls for over 20 years. 30 years. 40 years in prison. When as a juvenile, or coming to age as an adult at 18 or 19 years old was met with the experience of making a regrettable mistake that cost lives. 

Trump’s Latest Order Aims to Stifle Legal Challenges to His Executive Actions

By Chris Walker

 The order requires agencies to demand “financial securities” from plaintiffs suing the administration.

On Thursday, President Donald Trump issued an executive order that aims to limit legal challenges to his administration’s actions by seeking to get judges to require monetary “security” payments from plaintiffs if an injunction is issued.

U.S. Education Department escalates crackdown on Gaza protests with warning to colleges

 By Shauneen Miranda

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Education Department on Monday warned 60 colleges and universities they could face repercussions if they fail “to protect Jewish students on campus.”

In a statement announcing letters to schools across the country, the department did not detail what consequences the schools could face, but the letters came less than a week after the administration announced that it would be canceling roughly $400 million in federal grants and contracts to Columbia University over “the school’s continued inaction in the face of persistent harassment of Jewish students.”

Trump Threatens Students, Universities If They Engage in Protests

By Chris Walker

Trump wrote that students taking part in “illegal” demonstrations at college campuses should be arrested or deported

In a Truth Social post on Tuesday morning, President Donald Trump said he would punish students who engage in demonstrations of any kind — a clear violation of their First Amendment speech and assembly rights — and threatened consequences for any college or university that allows protests to take place.