Skip to content

Election 2026 · Public beta

Independent, source-first accountability

TheStatedRecordFind a race
Race deskLatest recordMethodologyAbout
Back to the race record

Checked against the record · Virginia 2nd District 2026

Did Elaine Luria pass the Gold Star Families Act for tax relief?

Matches stated direction. Her bill never got a House vote, but the relief it sought became law through a broader change in a December 2019 spending act she voted for.

ADVERTISEMENT

Elaine G. Luria

Veterans: the Gold Star Families Act

Matches stated direction

What they say

Her plan says she introduced and passed the Gold Star Families Act to give Gold Star families tax relief.

“In Congress, I served on the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee and was instrumental in passing the PACT Act–the largest expansion of veterans’ benefits in our lifetime. I also introduced and passed the Gold Star Families Act to provide tax relief for Gold Star families and championed legislation to provide three cost of living increases to veterans.”

Source: Elaine Luria for Congress

What the record shows · Dec 20, 2019

The bill she introduced was H.R. 2481, the Gold Star Family Tax Relief Act, on May 2, 2019. It drew 172 cosponsors and its only recorded action is the referral to the Committee on Ways and Means on the day of introduction; the House never voted on it. Its identical Senate companion, S. 1370, passed the Senate without amendment by unanimous consent on May 21, 2019 and was then ordered held at the House desk, where the House never took it up; no version of the bill became law. The harm it addressed was ended seven months later in another bill, by a different and much broader instrument than the one she proposed. Her bill would have amended section 1(g)(4) of the Internal Revenue Code to treat military survivor benefits as earned income, a change confined to those benefits. Division O, title V, section 501 of the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2020 instead struck paragraph (4) of section 1(j) outright, repealing the trust-rate treatment for every child's unearned income rather than reclassifying survivor benefits; the amendment her bill proposed was never enacted, and no subparagraph (D) was added to section 1(g)(4). She voted for that act on December 17, 2019 (Roll Call 689, agreed to 297 to 120), and it became Public Law 116-94 on December 20, 2019.

Sources: Congress.gov, Congress.gov, U.S. Congress via Congress.gov, Office of the Clerk, U.S. House of Representatives

Limit: Her bill never got a House vote, though its Senate twin passed the Senate. The relief became law in a 2019 spending act she voted for, through a broader change. Her words here were read in the Internet Archive's snapshot of 2026-08-03, because her campaign site returns HTTP 403 to automated readers, and the wording is unconfirmed against the live page.

ADVERTISEMENT

Keep reading

More from this race

  • Elaine G. Luria: every check on the record
  • Veterans and the military: where each candidate stands
  • Virginia 2nd District 2026: the full record
  • Did Elaine Luria champion three cost-of-living raises for veterans?
  • Did Elaine Luria vote to lower prescription drug costs and cap insulin at $35?
  • Did Elaine Luria support overturning Citizens United?
  • Does Elaine Luria support banning members of Congress from trading stocks?
  • Did Elaine Luria secure $85 billion for the Chesapeake Bay Program?
  • Was the COPE Act Jen Kiggans's first bill to pass the House?

See something wrong or incomplete? Report it for review.

ADVERTISEMENT
TheStatedRecord

Public words, official records, and the context between them.

Explore

Race deskMethodologyAboutContact

Trust

PrivacyTermsCorrections

© 2026 The Stated Record

Sources stay attached.