Virginia House passes Suetterlein’s Parole Transparency Bill

RICHMOND – Senator David Suetterlein’s Senate Bill 5 to make Parole Board votes public cleared its final legislative hurdle and is on its way to Governor Glenn Youngkin’s desk. The House of Delegates voted 96-3 to make the powerful Parole Board’s votes public.

“Virginians should know who is making this critical public safety and individual liberty decisions on the Parole Board,” said Suetterlein.

The Parole Board’s lack of transparency came to the public realization in 2020 following a series of highly controversial acts by the Parole Board then controlled Governor Ralph Northam’s appointees.

An email later made public showed a Parole Board employee telling Chair Adrianne Bennett that she felt “drunk with power” to which Chair Bennett replied, “Wave that wand of power and let’s cut them loose. There needs to be a silver lining to all this! Give me more!!!”

In keeping with his much-repeated campaign pledge, Governor Youngkin fired all of Northam’s Parole Board appointees and appointed their replacements on his first day in office. Now Suetterlein’s SB5 making the votes of the current and all future Parole Boards public heads to Governor Youngkin.

Senate General Laws Chair George Barker and a majority of Senate Democrats have strongly supported Suetterlein’s identical sunshine legislation the last three years, but the House Democratic leadership refused to allow consideration of the 2020 and 2021 bills.

“For three years there has been strong bipartisan agreement in the Virginia Senate, but the last two years the House Democratic leadership refused to even allow consideration. Speaker Todd Gilbert and General Laws Chair Jay Leftwich immediately allowed consideration and we then saw amazing bipartisan support in the House too,” said Suetterlein.

Following its 96-3 vote in the House of Delegates, Senate Bill 5 will soon be formally communicated to Governor Youngkin.

“When someone is arrested for violating Virginia law, everyone can look up those that enacted that law as well as the names of the arresting officer, the prosecutor, the judge, and the appellate judges. Only when it gets to the Parole Board does anonymous action replace transparency. When SB5 is signed into law, we can bring the disinfecting benefits of sunshine to the Parole Board,” said Suetterlein.