BLUE LINE FAMILIES OF VIRGINIA
Led by You and Me
Blue Line Families of Virginia devotes a lot of time to legislative research, meetings with legislators, meetings and discussions with stakeholders, and more, however the real work is done by YOU. Yes, you! Ultimately, special interest groups can argue for any number of things with the legislature, however the overwhelming voices of constituents they represent will influence them more than we can. The key aspect of that is that every one of you must make your voice heard. We cannot achieve anything if we all rely on our neighbor to speak. We must take the action and onus upon ourselves to email legislators. As of November 17th, we have close to 500 members. If each one of you send an email, we have a strong voice. If only half send an email... We do not compete among the growing crowd of special interest groups that do not support the police.
GENERAL ASSEMBLY CALL TO ACTIONS
Fighting for What We Believe In. Together.
The General Assembly is heating up! If you have been keeping up on our facebook, you know that there are a lot of bills that we are concerned about this session. Some examples are two qualified immunity repeal bills, bills to reduce the nature of the charge of Assault on Law Enforcement Officer, bills to make search warrant execution safer, and bills to account for cost of living increases for Virginia State Police.
Here is our general call to action: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-gDezEVrcyP7xlMhceLHYTwvdjZfcoee5PR-iI08gpw/edit
Some wins this session already have been that HB2045, one qualified immunity bill, has been defeated. HB2196, a bill to release law enforcement disciplinary records, has been defeated as well.
As we continue through the session, please send our calls to actions to all senators and delegates. Here are some bills to call out to Senators IN ADDITION to our general call to action.
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--Senate Judiciary Committee--
SB1440 (Weakens Qualified Immunity): This bill, while fully financially supporting individual officers, eliminates qualified and sovereign immunity as a defense when officers are perceived to have violated the criminal justice reform measured passed in 2020. This bill will drastically influence law enforcement response to calls because it will cause great financial risk to municipalities. This will open law enforcement officers to additional stress of being sued. This bill cannot pass. Send an email to the Senate Judiciary Committee by January 31st!
Finally, SB1475 (makes search warrants safer): This bill would resolve some of the safety issues associated with search warrants with the bills passed in the special session. Tell the Senate Judiciary Committee to SUPPORT this bill to keep warrant execution teams safe!!
SB1306 (weakens ability to charge assault on law enforcement officer): This bill requires bodily injury upon a law enforcement officer to charge this. So someone who charges at an officer with a knife, or shoots blanks at officers would not be eligible. This also abolishes the 6 month mandatory minimum. Email and call the Senate Judiciary Committee to tell them to vote down the bill by January 31st!
--Senate--
SB1165 (abolishment of death penalty): Senator Norment introduced a substitute to the bill to make cop killers and serial murderers eligible to be sentenced to the death penalty. Email and call ALL senators to tell them to support this AMENDMENT or vote down the bill as a whole by January 31st!
Here are some email lists to reach committees: https://members.vasheriff.org/page/ContactYourLegislator?fbclid=IwAR3O7sJCp3xhlt_tl7jtCHzr6Yf-tiuru3QP0WFSY9D7_4Rvoq5SJeW168o
PRE-SESSION CALL TO ACTION
November 2020
Introducing our first call to action! The VA legislature will be submitting bills for the regular session in January by December 22nd. We need to make our voices heard loud and clear before then. We are hoping to share our message with the legislators provided in the list. While these are our target contacts, your help in sharing the pro law enforcement position with ALL Virginia legislators is helpful - so email your legislators (and share your name and address so they know they represent you), email these legislators, and as many others as you have the time for.
These legislators are either potential swing votes on bills that endanger law enforcement or likely sponsors of these bills. We hope that by emailing them, we will get them to at least consider our perspective and inspire bi-partisan legislation that addresses Criminal Justice Reform, while keeping Officers and their families safe. Let legislators know how you feel. Help them understand that while additional funding for training and equipment, and additional opportunities for community bridge-building are welcome, removing protections in an already dangerous profession will hurt the Commonwealth.
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Please let us know if any of the legislators in this call to action are one of your legislators. As constituents, your voice is strongest.
You can find our letter at the below link. Please send a personal note along with it. Regardless of whether the above legislators are your representative, PLEASE email them! Remind them that while they represent their locality, they legislate for ALL Virginians. We have close to 500 followers this morning. That’s a lot of emails, and has the potential to sway their opinion.
NIGHTTIME WARRANTS AMENDMENT
Help out our SWAT and warrant execution teams across Virginia by asking senators to introduce and support an amendment to the nighttime warrant restrictions passed last session.
The law as signed indicates that warrants must be served during the day, or a LEO must find a Judge to justify the nighttime operation. The combination of knock and announce warrants and only daytime warrants will result in officers injured, or worse. Please email all senators and delegates - we know that’s a lot of people, but we need someone to introduce this amendment as well as support for the amendment!
Here’s our call to action template: https://docs.google.com/.../15ZNhvUvx.../edit
Here’s our pre-session call to action template for the Qualified Immunity issue and assault on law enforcement issue: https://docs.google.com/.../1-hPzH5Avv1RDlFCHNe6yW.../edit
Hit two birds with one stone and send out those two emails to all the senators and delegates!! Let them know we’re watching and we back the blue!
