Virginia governor Glenn Youngkin has vetoed two bills that would have stripped tax exemptions for the United Daughters of the Confederacy, an organization that has opposed the removal of statues of southern state generals during the US civil war and other markers of the southern states’ attempt to secede from the Union in defense of slavery.
The Republican governor vetoed several measures, including those related to maintaining access to contraception, saying in a statement they were “not ready to become law”.
The rejected Confederacy-related bill would have removed tax exemptions for real estate and personal property owned by several Confederacy heritage groups, including United Daughters organisations the Confederate Memorial Literary Society and Stonewall Jackson Memorial.
“Narrowly targeting specific organizations to gain or lose such tax exemptions sets an inappropriate precedent,” Youngkin wrote in his veto statement, but added that property tax exemptions were “ripe for reform, delineated by inconsistencies and discrepancies”.