For a list of key bills introduced by legislators from Southwest and Southside or relevant to our region, see our accompanying legislative roundup.
As the General Assembly reached the midpoint of its 2024 session on Tuesday, lawmakers in the coming weeks will continue to spar over proposals relating to partisan issues, including gun control, cannabis and tax reform, as all legislation but the budget bills cleared their originating chambers ahead of what is known as crossover.
Nearly all signature bills by Democrats passed in both chambers in the first half of this year’s session, because after their takeover of the entire legislature in November the party now holds a 51-49 majority in the House of Delegates and a 21-19 edge in the Virginia Senate. For Republicans, this means that Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s veto pen marks the last line of defense to reject measures reaching his desk that they deem too liberal.
“The midterm grade is an incomplete,” said Stephen Farnsworth, a political scientist at the University of Mary Washington. “So far Republicans have been doing what Republicans do, and Democrats have been doing what Democrats do, each side doing what they can to lock in their base voters, but the hard questions have yet to be answered.”
Of the 2,270 bills and resolutions introduced this year, at least 1,010 had passed in the House by Tuesday evening, and 637 in the Senate.
Guns
Despite the unlikeliness of such legislation getting signed into law, Democrats advanced more than a dozen gun control proposals seeking to prohibit the sales of large-capacity magazines in Virginia, raise the age to purchase an assault weapon to 21 and make it more difficult for people who shouldn’t have a gun to get access, among several other measures.
Most notably, a ban on assault-style weapons passed the Senate by a 21-19 party-line vote earlier this month. Sponsored by Sen. Creigh Deeds, D-Charlottesville, SB 2 would make it a Class 1 misdemeanor to possess or sell assault-style weapons and high-capacity ammunition feeding devices.
Deeds told the Senate Courts of Justice Committee last month that his legislation is based on the Federal Assault Weapons Ban of 1994, which expired in 2004. “For a long time we have looked at bills considering assault weapons,” Deeds said, adding that since the 2023 session, the U.S. Supreme Court “has allowed states assault weapons bans to stay in place.” A companion measure carried by Del. Dan Helmer, D-Fairfax County, cleared the House earlier this month on a 51-49 party-line vote.
Despite their minority status in both chambers, Republicans filed several proposals seeking to expand gun rights — none of which made it out of committee. And Youngkin has already made it clear that there was little room for additional gun control laws that Democrats will send to his desk.
“The governor is asking the General Assembly members to hold accountable those criminals that commit crimes with guns by lengthening and making more severe the penalties in order to keep criminals off the streets,” Youngkin spokesman Christian Martinez said in January.
Cannabis
Youngkin has also shown little regard for legislation carried by Democrats that would create a legal adult-use marketplace for cannabis products in the commonwealth, and a vast majority of Republicans — including some previously open to the idea — have fallen in line.
On Monday, the House of Delegates on a 52-48 vote passed HB 698, sponsored by Del. Paul Krizek, D-Fairfax County. It would issue licenses to allow up to 60 microbusinesses that currently are not among the state-sanctioned sellers of medical cannabis to start cultivation by July 1 in preparation for retail sales beginning Jan. 1, 2025.
Under Krizek’s proposal, five medical marijuana companies would also be allowed to begin retail sales, and each would be required to provide grants of up to $400,000 to six micro-businesses and to help those businesses get established through acceleration programs.
The Senate passed a rival proposal by Sen. Aaron Rouse, D-Virginia Beach, on Tuesday on a 21-18 party-line vote. Rouse’s SB 448 would legalize cannabis sales starting on Jan. 1, 2025, and allow all medical marijuana companies already operating in Virginia and new businesses to begin at the same time.
Whether Youngkin would sign either measure remains an open question after he told reporters in January that “this is an area that I really don’t have any interest in.”
Alexandria arena
But Farnsworth, the political scientist, said that the governor might use some of the more contentious bills that Democrats are sending his way as bargaining chips for what could advance as his administration’s legacy project: the proposed sports arena in Northern Virginia that would become home to the NBA’s Washington Wizards and the NHL’s Washington Capitals.
“The governor may be able to get a stadium in exchange for generous education funding or a legal cannabis marketplace,” Farnsworth said. But he also cautioned that Youngkin still may have a problem selling his deal to reluctant Republicans.
“Folks in Southwest Virginia or Southside are a long way from those major league games in NoVa. If you’re representing these areas, there are dozens of other things you’d rather spend taxpayer dollars on than on a sports arena project.”
Youngkin has pushed for the creation of the Virginia Sports and Entertainment Authority, which would be in charge of the Potomac Yard development in Alexandria, where the two major league sport teams hope to move. Proponents say that the project would spur development in the region, producing more state tax revenue — and that the bonds for the project could be repaid with revenue generated from the arena district.
But opponents question whether there would be enough revenue to pay off those bonds, and say that the development would require additional expenditures to improve transportation in the neighborhood.
The House on Tuesday by a 59-40 vote passed HB 1514, sponsored by Del. Luke Torian, D-Prince William County, that would set the legal stage for the arena. But Sen. Louis Lucas, D-Portsmouth, refused to docket the companion bill in the Senate, stating that it could leave taxpayers on the hook for the bonds issued for financing.
But the House measure that is now headed to the Senate leaves a door open for further negotiations, Farnsworth said. “There may be a deal, and there may not be, and we may not know until the very last hour of the session.”
Abortion
While Republicans did not make restricting access to abortion a legislative priority this year after Senate Democrats blocked several measures — including Youngkin’s proposed 15-week ban — during the 2023 session, freshman Del. Tim Griffin, R-Bedford County, still gave it a shot.
Griffin’s HB 1364 sought to prohibit all abortions in Virginia outright, with no exceptions for rape and incest, unless the procedure is necessary to save a mother’s life. Griffin told the members of a House Courts of Justice Committee that his bill could save tens of thousands of lives this year, and “millions of lives” over the course of a generation, but the Democratic-led panel unanimously smacked down his proposal last week.
The panel also rejected a much narrower measure by Del. Phillip Scott, R-Spotsylvania County, which would have prohibited terminating pregnancies based on the sex or ethnicity of a fetus. Scott’s HB 1184 was defeated on a 5-3 party-line vote.
But Democrats used another Griffin measure to force a floor vote on abortion in order to get Republicans on the record on one of the nation’s most divisive issues in a presidential election year. Against all expectations, a Democratic-led House committee on Thursday advanced Griffin’s HB 404 to the House floor. The measure would have cut off public funding for abortions in Virginia with no exceptions for cases of rape, incest, to save the life of the mother or others covered under federal law.
After refusing both a less far-reaching Republican substitute to the proposal and Griffin’s motion to strike his bill, House Democrats pushed the measure to the floor on Monday, where it was defeated 95-1, with two abstensions and two absences.
Prescription drugs
However, this session has also produced a number of bipartisan proposals, including legislation aimed at lowering the cost of medicine by setting limits on how much Virginia consumers would pay for certain medications.
SB 274, sponsored by Deeds, the Democratic senator from Charlottesville, and Sen. Bill Stanley, R-Franklin County, would create a Virginia Prescription Drug Affordability Board, an independent body of health and medical experts that would allow Virginia to set reasonable rates for certain high-cost, burdensome prescription drugs.
The measure passed in the Senate with bipartisan support on a 23-16 vote Tuesday. On the same day, a companion measure in the House, carried by Del. Karrie Delaney, D-Fairfax, passed by a bipartisan 52-46 vote.
‘Skill’ games
Also on a bipartisan basis, both chambers of the legislature backed legislation that would establish a regulatory framework and tax structure for ‘skill games,’ benefiting small businesses and generating an estimated $200 million in tax revenue for the commonwealth.
SB 212, sponsored by Rouse, the Democratic senator from Virginia Beach, and Sen. Timmy French, R-Frederick County, among others, passed in the Senate by 32-8 on Tuesday. The House passed the companion measure, HB 590, last month, also on a bipartisan 65-34 vote.
Sales tax for schools
And in the House on Tuesday, lawmakers by a 69-28 vote approved a sweeping proposal that would allow all Virginia localities to impose a local sales tax hike of up to 1%, with the revenue used only for the construction or renovation of schools once such a levy is approved in a voter referendum.
Under current law, only Charlotte, Gloucester, Halifax, Henry, Mecklenburg, Northampton, Patrick and Pittsylvania counties and the city of Danville are authorized to impose a local sales tax increase, should voters approve it in a referendum.
But HB 805, sponsored by Del. Sam Rasoul, D-Roanoke, would extend the same opportunity to all localities in the commonwealth. A House committee earlier this month incorporated HB 60 by Del. Tommy Wright, R-Lunenburg County, which would have given Prince Edward County authority to levy the tax increase, into Rasoul’s measure.
Budget and taxes
But with the session’s adjournment still another 30 days away, the battle over the state’s biennial budget still lies ahead.
After the Senate Finance and Appropriations Committee and a House subcommittee last week effectively killed Youngkin’s tax plan for this year by carrying it over until next year to allow further study, the budget process remains the only vehicle for Youngkin to get at least some of the changes to the tax code that he had asked for when he rolled out his budget proposal in December.
At the center of Youngkin’s proposal are $1 billion in tax relief over two years and an overhaul of Virginia’s tax base that would pay for a 12% reduction in the income tax — with a top rate of 5.1% — by raising the sales tax rate from 4.3% to 5.2%. But chances are slim for most of these proposals to survive the scrutiny of Democrats, who fear that more tax relief would divert much needed additional funding for K-12 education.
The deadline for money committees of both chambers to present their individual budgets is Sunday at midnight.