We’re talking about the Virginia Senate’s attack on homeschool freedom and religious liberty this week.
As a quick refresher, a senator from Fairfax County put forth a bill that would eliminate Virginia’s religious exemption for homeschooling and managed to push it through to a sub-committee hearing in a matter of days.
The bill is S.B. 1031. It’s a blatant attack on the 0.6% of Virginia’s school-aged children who homeschool under the religious exemption. And that’s it. For the remaining 99.4% of the population… nothing at all changes.
When we left off yesterday, a group of us were waiting outside of Senate Room C to attend the sub-committee hearing and speak out against the bill. They didn’t like that we arrived early… so they made us wait in the hall.
The clerks arrived to let us into the conference room right at the appointed time. They then took their place in front of the hallowed high-back senator chairs in the front of the room – looking very nervous.
It wasn’t clear to me what their job function was, aside from unlocking the doors to let us in. But those poor kids were left to sit there in a room full of homeschool advocates for nearly an hour while everyone waited.
That’s right – the first senator was about an hour late for the hearing. Two others trickled in shortly after that.
Upon walking in, the senators did not make eye contact with anybody. They seemed to make a point of this. They made their way to their respective chairs in the front of the room without acknowledging anybody.
Then they sat down and proceeded to shuffle papers around incessantly – their eyes glued on their desk. Not once did I see them look up at the people gathered before them.
This went on for another 30 minutes or so before the sub-committee Chair made an announcement: the hearing would begin as soon as the other two senators arrived. He gave no explanation or apology for them being an hour and a half late. Then he hit us with a curve ball…
“Given our time constraints, we won’t be able to review each bill today,” he announced without looking up at the audience. “We’ll have to move review of S.B. 1031 to next Monday….”
The audience looked at each other in disbelief. Not only did they keep us waiting an hour and a half – after we all took the day off to be there… they also unilaterally decided not to review the bill we came to oppose. No doubt they were hoping for a lighter turn-out on the re-scheduled day.
The sub-committee Chair did offer something of an apology this time…
“I’m sorry, but that’s just the nature of the beast,” he said with something of an awkward smile.
I suspect that’s one of the most honest statements he made all day.
-Joe Withrow
P.S. The Education and Health sub-committee passed S.B. 1031 at the re-scheduled hearing on Monday – in front of a lighter opposition audience. The bill will now go before the full committee. If it passes there, it will go to the Senate for a floor-wide vote.
If you would like to follow this story, the HSLDA is tracking all the updates right here. And if you would like to speak out against the Virginia Senate’s attack on homeschool freedom and religious liberty, you can find a list of the senators who sit on the Education and Health committee here.
P.P.S. Thanks very much for allowing me to share this story with you. I promise we’ll get back to talking economics and investing soon.