Amid a docket of new policy proposals, a Virginia Senate panel heard a familiar one Monday when Sen. Jennifer Boysko again presented legislation to require employers to list a wage or salary range in all job postings and prohibit them from asking prospective employees for a salary history.

“This is the eighth time I have introduced this legislation,” Boysko told the Senate Commerce and Labor Committee before vowing to keep reintroducing the measure until it reaches the governor’s desk.

Boysko has pitched Senate Bill 370 as a way to help remedy gender pay gaps by deterring employers from relying on prior salaries to craft future compensation. The idea is that because women in Virginia as a group still make less than men, basing salary offers on past wages could perpetuate those disparities.

“Salary history is often a reflection of past discrimination,” Emily Yen, a lobbyist for the Virginia Education Association, told lawmakers.

Last April, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that in Virginia, the median usual weekly earnings of women who worked full-time were 80% of what their male counterparts received. Full-time workers were considered people who usually worked 35 or more hours per week at their sole or principal job.

Women’s labor advocates have also argued requiring employers to disclose wage or salary ranges provides needed transparency that can dampen inequalities by putting male and female applicants on more equal footing in compensation negotiations.

“When employers negotiate without giving salary range information to job applicants, applicants are more likely to rely on their past pay as a negotiation reference point, which perpetuates existing pay gaps,” wrote the National Women’s Law Center in a brief.

Boysko’s legislation would not prohibit prospective employees from “voluntarily disclosing wage or salary history, including for the purpose of negotiating wages or salary after an initial offer of employment.”

Employers who violated the new rules would be subject to civil penalties of between $1,000 and $4,000, depending on their history of violations, as well as potential damages.

The Senate committee passed Boysko’s legislation on a 9-6 party-line vote after concerns from Republicans about whether the bill offered employers a right to appeal any violation determinations by the state Commissioner of Labor and Industry.

“If you’re having a penalty, you should be able to appeal it to a court,” said Senate Minority Leader Ryan McDougle, R-Hanover.

The bill was amended in committee to outline an appeals process. It now heads to the Senate Finance and Appropriations Committee for review.

Photo via Tim Gouw on Unsplash. This article was reported and written by the Virginia Mercury, and has been reprinted under a Creative Commons license.

Virginia’s next General Assembly won’t convene until Jan. 10, but senators and delegates have already begun penning legislation. (And by that, we mean the Virginia Division of Legislative Services is hard at work translating their goals into the high-flown tones of state code.)

On Monday, the start of the 2024 session’s official prefiling period, lawmakers dropped the first bills that will be up for consideration this January.

Much more is yet to come as Democrats and Republicans jockey for ways to realize their key priorities on everything from hot-button issues like abortion access to the more bread-and-butter legislation that ensures state laws and agencies remain abreast of an ever-changing world. Democrats will have control of both the House of Delegates and Senate when lawmakers return to Richmond, but the slimness of their majorities means they aren’t guaranteed to get everything they want.

Here’s what was proposed on the first day bills could be filed:

Constitutional amendments on abortion

Two bills — House Joint Resolution 1 from Del. Charniele Herring, D-Alexandria, and Senate Joint Resolution 1 from multiple female Democratic senators — would start the process of amending the state Constitution to declare that “every individual has the fundamental right to reproductive freedom” and that the right should not be denied or infringed upon “unless justified by a compelling state interest and achieved by the least restrictive means that do not infringe an individual’s autonomous decision-making.”

No single bill has the power to change the state Constitution. Amendments require that a resolution be passed by a majority of both houses during a session and then held over to be passed again by the next elected legislature, with an election intervening between the two approvals. If it succeeds the second time, voters must approve the change in a referendum before it takes effect.

Constitutional amendment on felon voting rights

Two bills — House Joint Resolution 2 from Del. Elizabeth Bennett-Parker, D-Alexandria, and Senate Joint Resolution 2 from Sen. Mamie Locke, D-Hampton — would begin the process of amending the Constitution to restore voting rights to felons who have served their time. Currently, Virginia is the only state in the U.S. that strips voting rights from all felons for their entire life, with restoration only possible if they petition the governor and the governor decides to grant their request.

“A person who has been convicted of a felony shall not be entitled to vote during any period of incarceration for such felony conviction, but upon release from incarceration for that felony conviction and without further action required of him, such person shall be invested with all political rights, including the right to vote,” the amendment states. Read More