The General Assembly is a week and a day away from its closing gavel. This year’s session took up 3,048 bills and resolutions, which is more than four times as many players as there are at any one time in Major League Baseball.
If you can’t name the utility infielder for the homeless Athletics team or the left-handed late-inning reliever for the Kansas City Royals, then imagine what it’s like trying to keep up with all these bills. As in sports, the stars get the attention while others toil in obscurity. This year’s session has been dominated by redistricting and will conclude with a budget being passed. In between, we have some other major pieces of legislation moving through — on cannabis, on collective bargaining for public employees, on data centers, on energy, on guns, on housing, on minimum wage, on paid family and medical leave, on lots of other things.
Here are 10 other measures that haven’t gotten as much attention but maybe ought to.
1. Boards of visitors
Under current law, when a governor appoints someone to a board of visitors — the governing body for state-supported colleges — that appointee takes office immediately and is not confirmed by the General Assembly until later. That is different from the federal system, where a presidential appointee to a position that requires Senate confirmation can’t take office until the Senate approves. The Virginia system worked fine for years in a more genteel era but finally exploded into controversy last year when the Democratic-controlled Senate objected to multiple board appointees by then-Gov. Glenn Youngkin, a Republican.
A Senate committee voted not to confirm some Youngkin appointees, but then the legal question arose as to whether that was enough: Did the committee vote kill those nominations, or did that require a vote of the entire General Assembly? A Fairfax County judge ruled that the committee vote was sufficient; then-Attorney General Jason Miyares, a Republican, appealed to the Virginia Supreme Court, which declined to hear the case.
A bill by Del. Lily Franklin, D-Montgomery County, clarifies all that and changes the process to mirror the federal system: Appointees can’t take office until they’re confirmed by the full General Assembly. Her bill passed the House 62-35 and passed the Senate after Lt. Gov. Ghazala Hashmi broke a rare tie vote.
2. College sports study
State Sen. Creigh Deeds, D-Charlottesville, introduced a budget amendment that would do two things: First, it would raise the cap on what share of the athletic budgets at James Madison University, Old Dominion University, Virginia Tech and the University of Virginia could come from mandatory student fees; that would be of particular interest to JMU, which generates more money from student fees than any other college in the country, according to the Knight-Newhouse College Athletics Database.
Second, it would authorize a study into college athletics in Virginia.
The first provision did not survive internal discussions in the Senate Finance Committee; a modified version of the second one did. The Senate version of the budget directs the legislature’s investigative arm, the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission, to produce a report that, among other things, would “evaluate approaches taken by other states to create sustainable funding models for intercollegiate athletics,” “assess the local, regional, and statewide economic impact of college athletics” and “consider the impact of” the state’s current caps on the use of mandatory student fees for athletics “in light of evolving trends in intercollegiate athletics.” That report would be due Nov. 1, 2028.
Next step: We’ll have to see if this provision makes it into the final version of the budget. If so, this is potentially a significant study.
3. Correctional officers
On the morning of Nov. 17, a correctional officer at the River North Correctional Center in Grayson County was killed in the line of duty, and two other staff members were injured. An inmate has since been charged. That indictment brought to light a loophole in state law: Correctional officers are not considered on the same legal plane as others in law enforcement. The statute that lays out the penalties for killing a law enforcement officer also includes fire marshals and deputy fire marshals, but not correctional officers.
Del. Mitchell Cornett, R-Grayson County, introduced a bill to fix that. HB 295 sailed through the House 87-7 but then was unexpectedly defeated in the Senate Courts of Justice Committee, 8-7, because of Democratic concerns about adding to a statute that involves mandatory minimum sentences.
A related bill that Cornett introduced, adding correctional officers to a list of law enforcement personnel covered by a malicious bodily injury statute, also passed the House easily — 88-8. Unlike the aggravated murder bill, the malicious bodily injury bill (HB 294) passed the Senate Courts of Justice Committee, 8-7, but was then referred to Senate Finance, where it was put off until 2027 on a party-line 10-5 vote.
4. General Assembly pay raise
The budget proposals include a provision to raise the pay for state legislators. This has often been reported as “lawmakers vote themselves a pay raise.” Or, if you prefer a partisan angle, “Democratic lawmakers vote themselves a pay raise.” Not to get all technical, but technically speaking, that’s not right. The pay raise wouldn’t take effect until 2028 — after the next legislative elections in 2027. Realistically, most of the legislators will be back (or at least hope to be back), but, legally speaking, they’re voting to raise the pay for whoever gets elected next year, not who’s in office now.
That quibble aside, let’s look at the actual numbers. Delegates are currently paid $17,650 a year; senators $18,000. Under the proposed increase, that would go to $50,000 a year for each.
That’s a pretty whopping increase — 278%.
That pay rate also hasn’t increased since 1988, which is before some legislators were even born. The House is slightly lower than the Senate because during the 1991 recession, the House voted to reduce delegates’ pay by 2%.
A 2024 study by the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission looked at compensation for state legislators. That report found that the pay for Virginia House members is 90% below the median of other “hybrid” legislatures (meaning states without full-time legislatures). The Senate salary was 86% below the median.
That 2024 study found that if legislative salaries had kept up with inflation, legislators should be paid close to $50,000 a year.
Whenever legislators’ pay gets raised, it’s always controversial. I’ll just offer this insight: Virginia typically describes the General Assembly as a part-time legislature. That’s not really so. The legislature meets just part of the year, but committee meetings go on year-round. So do constituent inquiries and requests to speak to this group or meet with that group. That JLARC study found that legislators work a median of 30 hours a week. That’s not quite the standard 40-hour work week, but it’s enough to cut into a regular job. The system works great for someone who is retired or is independently wealthy. If you want people from a wider range of professions in the General Assembly, you do need to take into account both the time commitment and the financial hit that some people might have to take.
5. Hunting dogs
If you live in certain parts of Virginia, especially Southside, this is an issue that generates a lot of passion on both sides. HB 1396, by Del. Marty Martinez, D-Loudoun County, would require that those who use hunting dogs obtain a $19 license. For those keeping track of “affordability” bills, this is one that would make hunting $19 less affordable.
The most controversial part of the bill, though, doesn’t involve dollars. It was the original provision that banned hunting dogs from chasing animals “onto or across” someone’s property without their permission. Much of the commotion surrounding hunting dogs has been dogs that pursue their quarry onto somebody’s land who doesn’t want them there. Dogs, it seems, can’t read “no trespassing” signs.
The provision was struck from the bill early on, but that didn’t stop dog hunters from howling long afterward. The current version directs the Department of Wildlife Resources to “promulgate regulations” that, among other things, deal with “the implementation of practices that prevent a hunting dog from entering onto real property on which the permit holder does not have written or verbal permission to hunt.”
The revised bill passed the House 55-39 and is currently pending in a Senate committee.
6. Jan. 6 education
Del. Dan Helmer, D-Fairfax County, introduced a bill to define how schools can teach about the events at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. The measure contains three parts:
First, teachers shall not “describe, portray, or present as credible a description or portrayal of the actions precipitating or involved in the events of the January 6, 2021, insurrection as peaceful protest.”
Second, teachers cannot “state, suggest, or present as credible a statement or suggestion that there was extensive election fraud that could have changed or actually changed the results of the 2020 presidential election.”
Third, if schools teach about the events of that day, they must “describe the January 6, 2021, insurrection at the United States Capitol as an unprecedented, violent attack on United States democratic institutions, infrastructure, and representatives for the purpose of overturning the results of the 2020 presidential election.”
The bill passed the House 63-35 and the Senate 21-19 and now goes to the governor.
7. Movie captions
There are two bills — HB 602 by Del. Phil Hernandez and SB 722 by Sen. Angelia Williams Graves, both D-Norfolk — that would require movie theaters to show a certain number of movies with subtitles.
The measure would apply to companies that operate five or more theaters in Virginia (so wouldn’t apply to standalone operations such as the Grandin Theatre in Roanoke or the Buchanan Theatre in Botetourt County or The Lyric in Blacksburg). It would also require subtitle screenings to be offered at popular hours — so at least once between 5:59 p.m and 11:01 p.m. on the first two Fridays a movie is shown, and between 10:59 a.m. and 11:01 p.m. on the first two Saturdays and Sundays of a movie run.
Hernandez has said he was motivated to introduce the bill because he has a deaf sister. His bill passed the House 79-17 and the Senate 23-17. The Senate version passed by similar margins; they now head to the governor.
8. Porn tax
Republicans have spent a lot of time calling attention to bills that Democrats have introduced that would raise taxes (most of which appear to have been defeated). One Republican legislator, though, introduced a bill to create a new tax. Del. Eric Zehr, R-Campbell County, introduced a bill to impose a 10% tax on the gross receipts of “adult websites” for “all sales, distributions, memberships, subscriptions, performances, and other content amounting to material harmful to minors that is produced, sold, filmed, generated, or otherwise based in the Commonwealth.”
On a voice vote, the House Finance Committee continued the bill until next year.
9. Secretary of rural affairs
This is an idea that arose out of a paper by a University of Virginia Law professor (Andrew Block) and one of his students at the time (Antonella Nicholas) — that Virginia should have a secretary of rural affairs to make sure rural areas aren’t overlooked. Del. Israel O’Quinn, R-Washington County, and state Sen. Laschresce Aird, D-Petersburg, last year introduced bills to initiate a study of the position. Those didn’t make it through then, so they tried again this year.
The Studies Subcommittee of the House Rules Committee voted 5-0 to table O’Quinn’s bill, a polite way of killing it. Meanwhile, the Senate passed Aird’s version on a voice vote. Curiously, when Aird’s version came before the House Rules Studies Committee, the members voted 5-0 to recommend it. Why the difference? Don’t know, but the answer in a Democratic-controlled General Assembly could be that Aird has a “D” after her name and O’Quinn doesn’t.
10. U.S. 58 bonds
For those not familiar with the road, U.S. 58 runs across the state’s southern border, from Virginia Beach to the Cumberland Gap (and then into Tennessee). It is the longest numbered route in Virginia. Upgrading U.S. 58, which runs through parts of Virginia that have no interstate highways, has been a decades-long endeavor. The most difficult part of the U.S. 58 work has been the section over the Blue Ridge Mountains, where work is underway in Patrick County to expand two lanes into four lanes. The names alone are sufficient to give you some sense of the topographical challenges: The current project goes over Lovers Leap and intersects with a local road named Cloudbreak Road.
The two legislators who represent Patrick County — Del. Wren Williams and state Sen. Bill Stanley, both Republicans — introduced bills to increase the amount available for bonds for U.S. 58 from $1.3 billion to $1.632 billion to speed up construction of the next section, Crooked Oak, which is not currently funded.
Stanley’s bill passed the Senate unanimously, but now is in the House Appropriations Committee, which previously decided not to advance Williams’ version.
Are there 10 other overlooked bills we should mention? No doubt. You can look up all legislation, and its status, on the General Assembly’s website. If there’s particular legislation you’re interested in, let us know.
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