Among the efforts of the State and Local Government Policy Clinic, Roland Eberhard ’26 and Madhavi Subramaniam ’26 worked with Del. Atoosa Reaser on two bills requiring school officials to provide information about how to limit access to lethal means and safely store firearms to parents of students believed to be at risk of violence or suicide. They were signed by Gov. Glenn Youngkin on March 24.
To prepare for the session, Eberhard said they made fact sheets to inform delegates about the bills, spoke with lawmakers to gain their support and wrote testimonies to present in committee.
“I learned about many things: the political process in Virginia, how ‘X’ legislation impacts ‘Y’ stakeholders, the importance of having precise language in legislation for it to have the intended effect, why listening to your constituents’ concerns is arguably the most important duty as a politician, the negotiation process between lawmakers when trying to get a bill passed and methods for tailoring legislation for it to have more bipartisan, or partisan, appeal,” he said.
Subramaniam said most firearm-related legislation this year didn’t become law, but the passage of Reaser’s bills shows that lawmakers can find common ground.
“One of the most rewarding aspects of this work was speaking with legislators individually, particularly those who typically oppose gun safety legislation,” she added. “Attempting to bridge these ideological divides during quick, 10-minute meetings was both challenging and exciting, and ultimately successful.”
In her newsletter, Reaser, an attorney herself, praised the contributions of Eberhard and Subramaniam, noting that their efforts helped gain “broad bipartisan support for these measures and built strong coalitions that led to the bills being signed into law.”
To read the full article, please click here: https://www.law.virginia.edu/news/202505/clinic-students-help-pass-bills-preventing-gun-violence-math-education-criminal-justice