For a list of key bills introduced by legislators from Southwest and Southside, see accompanying story.
As lawmakers descend on Richmond on Wednesday for the start of the 2024 General Assembly session, they will find a state Capitol that might look and feel quite different from previous years. Not only are 54 of the 140 legislators new to their seats, but in the aftermath of the November election Democrats now control both chambers of the legislature.
Additionally, members in recent weeks have moved into their offices in the new General Assembly Building, which opened in October after seven years of construction. The 14-story building also houses almost a dozen meeting rooms for committees, subcommittees and the Department of Legislative Services, which aids legislators in drafting bills, among other amenities. A new tunnel connecting the $300 million facility with the nearby state Capitol opened to the public earlier this month.
But despite the Democrats’ recent victory — a consequence of which will be Wednesday’s likely election of Del. Don Scott, D-Portsmouth, as the first Black speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates in the body’s 405-year history — the state government will remain divided as Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin holds veto power over most legislation that the legislature will send him in the coming 60 days.
And Youngkin in return has no choice but to rely on the goodwill of Democratic lawmakers who will have the final word over his first biennial state budget, which he introduced in December. In his proposal, the governor called for another $1 billion in tax relief over two years and an overhaul of Virginia’s tax base that would pay for a reduction in the income tax by raising the sales tax rate.
“I think primarily this session will be about defining Democratic and Republican visions for the elections to come,” said Stephen Farnsworth, a political scientist at the University of Mary Washington. “Youngkin’s proposal to adjust taxes did not get a warm welcome from the Democratic majority, and that early impasse may be a sign of continuing partisan disagreements in 2024.”
While there may be some areas of agreement — largely in retaining the status quo — a significant number of new initiatives, including major tax reform, doesn’t seem likely in a divided government during highly partisan times, Farnsworth said.
After Youngkin rolled out his budget, he received pushback even from some fellow Republicans, who scoffed at his plan to offset a $2.3 billion budget deficit caused by his proposed 12% reduction of all income taxes with an increase of the state’s sales tax rate from 4.3% to 5.2%.
Youngkin’s plan is “bad for rural Virginia,” Sen. Bill Stanley, R-Franklin County, told Cardinal News in a recent interview. “Areas that helped get the governor elected are being left on the side of the road,” Stanley said, adding that if the sales tax gets raised for everyone it means the poorest would pay — and they would essentially be funding Youngkin’s proposed income tax cut.
Sen. David Suetterlein, R-Roanoke County, in an interview last week said that he is “not interested in raising the sales tax,” which he called “very regressive,” on working Virginians.
“We’ll take a look at what the bill says, but it’s been a mistake for the commonwealth to keep increasing the sales tax over the last decade, and I don’t want to see it increased further,” Suetterlein said.
Del. Sam Rasoul, D-Roanoke, the legislature’s only remaining Democrat from west of Charlottesville, also dismissed Youngkin’s proposed sales tax as “regressive,” adding that it was a nonstarter for Democrats.
“It doesn’t benefit working and middle-class Virginians the way we would like any of these benefits to,” Rasoul said of the governor’s plan, “so we will continue focusing on trying to make sure that public education and mental health will have the right investments.”
Del. Joe McNamara, R-Roanoke County, who in previous years has been Youngkin’s go-to guy for tax legislation in the House of Delegates, said that he would not be sponsoring a bill seeking to increase the state’s sales tax this year, but he stopped short of saying that he would vote against such measure.
“I think we’ve done a fantastic job for Virginians with some of the tax reductions we’ve already had, particularly the elimination of the state portion of the grocery tax and the substantial increase of the standard deduction,” McNamara said in a phone interview on Friday.
“When we go into the next two-year budget, there are certainly a lot of positive things that will make Virginia a lot more competitive and a much better place for Virginians to live. But I would just caution people to not get too wrapped around specific details because things will change as we go through that process,” he said.
Many of the different views about tax policy among lawmakers from both sides of the aisle will likely be resolved during the budget process as opposed to in the legislative process, McNamara added. “It could very well be quite different from what we are looking at right now, but I would hope that there might be some of the other very positive attributes of the proposal included in our final legislation.”
Farnsworth, the political scientist, said that Youngkin “might have misstepped” on his tax reform proposal. “Even some Republicans have their doubts about how the proposed adjustment would work to the advantage of core Republican voters, especially older voters.”
However, his tax plan may bring Youngkin positive assessments from conservative media outlets beyond Virginia. “These ideas are consistent with Republican philosophy, and as the governor’s term draws to a close, he may want more positive comments wherever he can get them,” Farnsworth said.
And unlike last year, when the Republican-controlled House stopped many major Democratic proposals before they even reached the floor, the GOP’s last line of defense will now be Youngkin himself, Farnsworth said. “What you are likely going to see will be a higher number of gubernatorial vetoes.”
Aware of their limitations, Republicans and Democrats alike will introduce legislation and propose measures to satisfy their activist base, Farnsworth added. “When an issue is killed in committee or by gubernatorial veto, its supporters will use those facts as evidence for why their party should be in control across the board,” he said. “You get a lot more attention by being extreme and getting nowhere legislatively than you do by quietly getting an item into the budget.”
Several Republicans have already filed legislation that is unlikely to go anywhere in a legislature controlled entirely by Democrats.
For example, Sen.-elect John McGuire, R-Goochland, has reintroduced a measure that would ensure parental notification by public schools in cases where a student identifies as a gender other than his or her biological sex.
The proposal, named Sage’s Law after a Virginia teenager whose adoptive mother said the teen was bullied and assaulted at school after they asked to be called by a boy’s name, was blocked by Senate Democrats last year.
“Protect kids and empower parents,” said McGuire, a previous member of the House of Delegates who announced after his election to the state Senate in November that he would challenge Rep. Bob Good, R-Campbell County, for the Republican nomination in Virginia’s 5th Congressional District.
“It’s a simple goal, but this goal has been blocked in the past,” McGuire said in a statement. “No one loves a child more than their parents. Our children should be number one. I urge everyone to support Sage’s Law this year.”
And Sen. Mark Peake, R-Lynchburg, introduced Senate Bill 68, which would require public school student-athletes — both K-12 and collegiate — to participate on sports teams that align with their birth gender, not with how they identify. A similar proposal already failed in before a Democratic-controlled Senate committee last year.
Despite the reality of divided government, Democrats are pushing legislation that would restrict gun ownership, while Republicans are hoping to pass measures that would do the opposite.
Sen. Creigh Deeds, D-Charlottesville, has reintroduced a proposal seeking to ban future sales of assault-style weapons. If passed, Deeds’ SB 2 would make it a Class 1 misdemeanor to possess or sell assault-style weapons and high-capacity ammunition feeding devices. An identical measure cleared the Senate with bipartisan support last year, but it failed in the GOP-controlled House.
Across the hall, Del.-elect Tom Garrett, R-Buckingham County, has introduced House Bill 16, which would allow concealed-carry permit holders to bring their firearms onto state property — including Richmond’s Capitol Square and the surrounding area. It is unlikely that Garrett’s proposal would win over enough Democrats, who in 2021 passed legislation banning guns on most state properties.
And a freshman lawmaker from Southside wants to do away with concealed handgun permits altogether. Del.-elect Tim Griffin, R-Bedford County, has filed House Bill 389, which would allow anyone who is eligible to obtain a concealed-carry permit to carry a handgun openly without such a permit anywhere in the commonwealth.
Griffin filed a separate bill seeking to give any adult over age 21 who applies for a concealed handgun permit the option to also apply for an enhanced concealed handgun permit, which would allow them to carry a firearm anywhere a law enforcement officer can do so, once they have demonstrated their skill in handling a firearm during a live-fire shooting exercise.
Griffin also wants to bring back the death penalty as a punishment for capital murder, which Democrats repealed in 2021, making Virginia the first Southern state to do so. Griffin’s House Bill 394 also would require the Supreme Court of Virginia to prioritize the review of cases in which a death sentence has been imposed over other cases pending in the court.
Neither of Griffin’s proposals is likely to find support among House Democrats. However, lawmakers from both parties have signaled that they would work together on other initiatives.
For example, Stanley, the Republican senator from Franklin County, has cosponsored a proposal with Deeds, his Democratic colleague from Charlottesville, aimed at lowering the cost of medicine by setting limits on how much Virginia consumers would pay for certain medications.
The legislation would create a Virginia Prescription Drug Affordability Board, an independent body of health and medical experts using “proven, data-based strategies to lower prescription drug prices,” according to a joint statement by the lawmakers.
Such boards have been established in both Republican and Democratic administrations across eight states, including most recently in Minnesota and Colorado. The proposal is part of a broader three-bill prescription drug affordability package, including a measure for transparency on pharmacy benefit managers fees, and a measure that would improve the efficiency for state government prescription drug spending.
“Virginians of all ages, and in every corner of the commonwealth, have dealt with the unaffordable cost of prescription drugs for far too long,” Deeds said in a statement. “Prices are rising faster than the rate of inflation and are massively contributing to the unaffordable health care crisis Virginians are dealing with. We have contributed a bipartisan, bicameral bill that will address the cost of medication and make life more affordable for all Virginians.”
In the House of Delegates, Del. Karrie Delaney, D-Fairfax, and Del. Nadarius Clark, D-Suffolk, are carrying the bill.
And there are other areas where lawmakers from both parties are coming together. McNamara, the Republican delegate from Roanoke County, said in last week’s interview that he will likely sign on as the co-patron to a Rasoul proposal that would direct the Virginia State Corporation Commission to conduct a study on how Virginia utilities are spending federal money for various programs.
“We want to ensure that federal dollars that are available are properly being tapped into to ensure Virginia is getting its fair share, and we’ll be working in a bipartisan way to make sure that Virginians receive every federal dollar that we can,” Rasoul said.
The legislative fight over the ban of skill games also continues this year, with special interests taking precedence over party affiliation.
During the 2020 legislative session, the General Assembly banned the games at the behest of casinos, but a lawsuit by former NASCAR-driver-turned-Emporia-truck-stop-owner Hermie Sadler resulted in an injunction that kept the games operating. Sadler mounted an unsuccessful bid for the Republican nomination in the newly created 17th state Senate District last year, and he is being supported in his legal fight to overturn the skill games ban by Sen. Bill Stanley, R-Franklin County.
In October, the Supreme Court of Virginia in an unexpected move reinstated the state’s ban on slots-like skill machines in the commonwealth, overruling a decision by a lower court, and the Virginia Attorney General’s Office gave local prosecutors some leeway by encouraging them to allow owners of businesses offering the machines time to phase them out.
But two Democratic senators from the Tidewater area — Sen. Louise Lucas, D-Portsmouth, and Sen. Aaron Rouse, D-Virginia Beach — have filed legislation that would reinstate a regulatory framework, tax and enforcement structure for skill games.
Most notably, the proposal would reestablish the Virginia ABC Authority as the regulatory and enforcement agency for the skill games industry, clearly define skill games and differentiate them from games of chance, establish a 15% tax rate on gross profits generated from skill games and set a five-terminal limit in ABC-licensed establishments and a 10-terminal limit in truck stops.
Farnsworth, the political scientist, sees other areas of potential bipartisan agreement, such as more spending for public education and Youngkin’s proposed $500 million budget allocation for behavioral health programs, which includes $300 million to expand the number of waiver slots for Virginians with developmental disabilities.
“When there is a divided government, the main thing that parties can do is take positions that make themselves look good while making the other side look bad,” Farnsworth said.