Statement on Governor Spanberger's Veto of legislation that protected people with ID/DD and mental health disorders

sent by email

June 1, 2026

Dear Governor Spanberger,

As advocates for people with autism, serious mental illness, dementia, and intellectual and developmental disabilities, the problems we are trying to solve are rarely simple enough for campaign speeches. Those who join our fight do so because it matters to them—because they view protecting vulnerable people as a moral imperative. We were deeply disappointed by your veto of SB335/HB246 and concerned about the message it sends to people with disabilities, mental health conditions, dementia, and their families.

People with autism, serious mental illness, dementia, intellectual and developmental disabilities, and other similar conditions often experience their environments and process information in unique ways that can be misinterpreted by a police officer as noncompliant or aggressive. When an encounter with law enforcement unexpectedly escalates, people with these medical conditions can find themselves charged with felony assault on a law enforcement officer and facing a mandatory minimum six-month jail sentence regardless of whether their disability was the driving factor behind their behavior and even when, as is most often the case, there is no injury to the officer. Your veto leaves these Virginians and the families who care for them, unprotected from the unintended and unexpected consequences of calling law enforcement for help. 

This legislation was the result of careful and deliberate efforts by a broad coalition of autism, intellectual disability, mental health, justice reform organizations working with legislators over many years.  It was reviewed and recommended by the Virginia Disability Commission in November 2023 and by the Autism Advisory Council in 2025. The General Assembly passed this legislation three years in a row.  For families across Virginia who live with the daily reality that a loved one could face harsh penalties and devastating collateral consequences during a moment of crisis, this veto was deeply painful and discouraging.

Your veto statement says this bill “would effectively create a new legal standard applicable to just one criminal charge for a specific group of people.”  However, Virginia law already provides similar narrowly tailored affirmative defenses for specific populations facing specific charges. For example, sex trafficking victims have an affirmative defense to certain charges under § 18.2-361.1. And parents who safely surrender a newborn have an affirmative defense to certain child neglect proceedings under Virginia Code 18.2-371.1. The legislature created those defenses because it recognized that treating certain vulnerable people identically to everyone else produces unjust outcomes. SB335/HB246 followed this same approach. The problem is not that this would create an affirmative defense for a specific group of vulnerable people. Instead, the real problem is that Virginia law makes no allowance for disability-driven behavior. This is at odds with the principle, enshrined in the federal Americans with Disabilities Act for over 35 years, that our institutions must account for the realities of disability rather than punish people for them.

The protection this legislation would offer is uniquely important for Virginians with serious mental illness, dementia, intellectual and developmental disabilities because Virginia has the most draconian such law in the nation. Virginia is the only jurisdiction in the United States where you can receive a mandatory minimum of 6 months for simple assault on a law enforcement officer, an offense that does not require any actual physical contact. The affirmative defense created by this legislation would have allowed people with these conditions to prove that the conduct was a result of their disability and, therefore, not fully within their control.

Your veto statement further suggests that your proposed amendments would have maintained the bill's intended purpose. Respectfully, they would not have. As we explained to your staff, this legislation deliberately focuses on whether the person's behaviors were “a result of” their disability because assault and battery is a general intent crime: the prosecutor only needs to prove that the person intended the physical act, not that they intended any specific harm or consequence.  Your amendments replaced that framework with an intent-based defense modeled on Virginia Code § 19.2-271.6, but there is no intent element to negate for crimes like assault and battery.  Your amendments would have effectively eliminated the protections these Virginians need when they are charged with assault for conduct driven by their disability. The General Assembly rejected your amendments because they understood this.

We are deeply concerned that the years of work invested by disability advocates, mental health professionals, affected families, legislators, and stakeholders across Virginia were ultimately set aside despite extensive discussion and review over multiple years. The proposed amendments, which would have rendered the bill legally meaningless, and subsequent veto reveal a fundamental misunderstanding of the problem this bill seeks to address. To set their work aside without engaging the people most affected is troubling. We ask you and your staff to sit down with the families and organizations who have worked on this legislation for years, to learn from what they know, to hear what people with these disabilities and their families have experienced, and to be the governor who finally signs this critical legislation. 

Respectfully,

The Arc of Virginia 

Charlottesville Region Autism Action Group (CRAAG) 

Commonwealth Autism 

Decriminalize Developmental Disabilities 

Justice Forward Virginia 

Mental Health Virginia 

Virginia Autism Project 

Vocal Virginia