Dear ,
All of us on staff at the Virginia Interfaith Center are thrilled that the Board of Directors has appointed Reverend Dr. LaKeisha Cook as VICPP’s new Executive Director, effective yesterday. LaKeisha succeeds Kim Bobo, who served in that role for nearly a decade.
LaKeisha becomes the tenth executive director and first African American to head our 43-year-old organization. She served as Co-Executive Director for the past year alongside Kim, who retired last week. Together, they worked to ensure a smooth transition to advance the organization’s mission. We are grateful for Kim's dedicated service to VICPP and look forward to continuing the work with LaKeisha.
At the same time, we are taking a deep breath as the 2025 General Assembly is finishing its final "reconvened session" today. The GA is going late this evening, but each chamber took action on Governor Youngkin’s vetoes and proposed amendments to their bills. While final results need approval from both chambers, here is where several of our policy priorities stand so far:
- HB2153 - Faith and Housing – Legislators voted to APPROVE the governor's proposed amendments that ask the Department of Housing and Community Development to publicize a list of strategies that localities can use to stimulate the development of affordable housing. While this doesn’t have the same focus as the bill we were initially advocating, it has the potential to provide a useful tool in the conversation about affordable housing.
- HB1649 / SB740 - Bias Reduction – Legislators voted to REJECT the governor's proposed amendments to require that persons licensed by the board of medicine complete two hours of training that address health care during pregnancy and postpartum. The amendment does not specify what kind of training is required, we opposed it.
- HB2158 - Higher Education in Prison – Legislators voted to REJECT the governor's proposed amendments which would delay enactment of several components focused on the evaluation and expansion of higher education programs in Virginia’s state correctional facilities.
In addition to the proposed bill amendments, the legislators also took action on numerous governor-proposed budget amendments, including some that affect immigrants. We have been watching these two closely:
- Amendment 192 (likely REJECTED): Lease of Culpeper Correctional Facility to Culpeper and Page Counties. This would transfer an unused correctional facility to the counties under the condition that they would not be eligible for further state funding. This is concerning because the locality could enter into an agreement with ICA or ICE to hold individuals with the extra space.
- Amendment 154 (likely REJECTED): Restore language requiring localities to comply with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Detainers. This would require law enforcement facilities to hold individuals for up to 48 hours after they would have otherwise been released, allowing extra time for ICE to pick up individuals held in custody.
Bills with amendments rejected by the legislators will be sent back to Governor Youngkin in their original form for his action, while bills with amendments approved today by the General Assembly are on track to become law in July.
If you want to catch up on the status of all VICPP’s priorities, check out our Bill Tracker. We will continue to keep you updated on the progress of all these important policies, and on the organization settling in with our new leader.
Thank you for your support!
The VICPP staff team | 
