This morning, the House Committee on Health and Human Services heard a bill that is now very, very different than when it was first filed – and you need to be concerned about it!
HB 1304 (Ware) as originally filed, simply allows residents of facilities licensed by the Department of Behavioral Health to have access to email. But the Department asked to amend the bill this morning, to allow them to open residents’ mail, evaluate the contents, and then scan it and send it to the residents via email.
The Department claims that residents are receiving and sending illicit content via the mail and that this process will allow them to be certain no one is receiving drugs through the mail.
We note that the disAbility Law Center of Virginia receives incident reports from all state hospitals – hundreds every year – and we can not recall ever seeing an incident report when a resident received drugs in the mail.
Most troubling, however, is that the Department’s requested amendment changes the legislation from one that expands human rights into one that severely restricts human rights, and has done so without any notice to the community it will impact.
The House committee on Health and Human Services sent the bill to the subcommittee on behavioral health for further work. We expect it to be heard possibly as early as this Thursday, at 7:30 in the morning. Please check the meeting schedule to confirm and to find the link for the meeting, if you would like to observe:
https://lis.virginia.gov/schedule
If you would like to speak to the bill, go to this link prior to the start of the meeting:
https://hodspeak.house.virginia.gov/about
The members of the Behavioral Health Subcommittee can be found at this link:
https://lis.virginia.gov/session-details/20261/committee-information/H24003/committee-details
The mission of the disAbility Law Center of Virginia is to advance independence, choice and self-determination; protect legal, human and civil rights; and eliminate abuse, neglect and discrimination of people with disabilities through zealous and uncompromising legal advocacy and representation.
There are hundreds of bills currently before the 2026 legislature. dLCV is looking for volunteers to help sort through them to identify proposals that might impact people with disabilities. If you are interested in serving as a Bill Reviewer, please email ga@dlcv.org with “Bill Reviewer” in the subject line. A member of our team will follow up with the next steps.