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Department of Motor Vehicles Subcommittee

Tuesday, February 24, 2026·41m·▶ Watch / Listen

The DMV Subcommittee advanced five of six bills heard, with the lone casualty being Senate Bill 135 — a DMV data-sharing bill tabled 6-3 over sharp privacy objections — while a closely contested towing information bill (Senate Bill 595) survived on a narrow 5-4 vote.

Key Actions

·SP41 / Senate Bill 41 – Voluntary DMV Contributions for Highway SafetyNo Vote

+ 5 more actions

Controversies

Whether Senate Bill 135 contains sufficient statutory protections against federal data sharing

Delegate Fagan(s) argued that when looking at the bill there is nothing specifically stating that there won't be any sharing within the federal government, despite the patron's verbal assurances. Senator DeSteph countered that the national-level organization running the database confirmed it does not share with anyone outside of DMVs, and that DMV's counsel reviewed the bill and came back saying roughly the same thing.

+ 2 more controversies

Notable Quotes

“The subcommittee for the Department of Motor Vehicles will come to order. The clerk will open the roll. As a quorum is present, The clerk will close the roll. I did not see the order in which everyone came in the room, so I'm just going to go right down the list. So we're going to start off with Senator Rome, followed by Senator Steph and then Senator Diggs. Hi. Good morning, Madam Chair. And this one is SP41. So this bill will. Same one that came before you last year, same one”

Senator Rouse — Senator Rouse was justifying the need for Senate Bill 41, which would allow voluntary DMV contributions to the Virginia Highway Safety Improvement Program.

+ 4 more quotes

Votes

Report Senate Bill 41Passed
Table Senate Bill 135 (motion by Delegate Fagan(s))Passed
Report Senate Bill 595Passed
Report Senate Bill 396 with substitute conforming to House Bill 1224 languagePassed
Report Senate Bill 399Passed
Support Senate Bill 309Passed
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TranscriptPreview
The subcommittee for the Department of Motor Vehicles will come to order. The clerk will open the roll. As a quorum is present, The clerk will close the roll. I did not see the order in which everyone came in the room, so I'm just going to go right down the list. So we're going to start off with Senator Rome, followed by Senator Steph and then Senator Diggs. Hi. Good morning, Madam Chair. And this one is SP41. So this bill will. Same one that came before you last year, same one that we passed out of here, and that's why it's back here again, so you can figure out what happened in between. So this bill would allow voluntary contributions at the DMV for basically people to, if they so choose, put money toward the Virginia Highway Safety Improvement Program. Those y' all who've known me since I was in your chamber know I have been fighting a losing battle for years to get more dedicated funding to Virginia Highway Safety Improvement Program. And, well, now I think we're going to finally win that battle, which is great. Why do we need that? Because we know that innovative…
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