The 2026 General Assembly session is now in the rear-view mirror, except for the portion of it that still lies ahead, which will presumably resolve a tiny little unfinished piece of work known as the state budget. That brings us to the first of 10 observations about this year’s session:
1. Party control does not guarantee harmony — or unanimity
After last November’s elections, Democrats expanded a slim majority in the House into a big one — 64-36. The Senate wasn’t on the ballot last year, so the 21-19 Democratic margin stayed the same. And, of course, Democrats now hold office as governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general. Nonetheless, the legislature’s final days were marked by a dramatic showdown between top Democrats over data centers that kept the legislature from completing its main duties — passing a budget.
On the one side, Senate Finance Chair Louise Lucas, D-Portsmouth. On the House side, House Appropriations Chair Luke Torian, D-Prince William County, with the support of House Speaker Don Scott, who, like Lucas, is D-Portsmouth.
That wasn’t the only conflict between Democrats in different chambers; there was also some infighting over who should get named to judgeships in Chesterfield County.
What explains this apparent Democratic dysfunction? Let’s turn to a former Republican legislator, who has a long memory — former Del. David Ramadan, at one time R-Loudoun County and now a professor at George Mason University. He posted: “Lesson of the day: the biggest fights in legislative bodies usually aren’t Democrats vs. Republicans — they’re House vs. Senate, regardless of party.”
2. Even without the budget, this was a consequential session
Republicans might wish it were a little less consequential, but this is what happens when the same party controls both chambers: They can pass a lot of items on their agenda. Maybe not everything (see above) but a lot.
This session voted to raise the minimum wage, institute paid family and medical leave, restrict gun ownership in multiple ways, legalize retail sales of cannabis, legalize so-called “skill” games, establish a right to contraception, allow state employees to unionize and, well, the list goes on. This legislature also sent four constitutional amendments on to voters — congressional redistricting in a special election April 21 and three others for November, those dealing with guaranteeing a right to an abortion, guaranteeing the right to a same-sex marriage (in case the U.S. Supreme Court ever changes its mind), and automatically restoring the civil rights of convicted felons.
With more than 3,000 bills, there was a lot to keep track of in Richmond. We’ll publish a lengthy list of bills and what happened to them on Tuesday. At the risk of saying “we have to pass this bill so you can see what’s in it,” many of the more complicated pieces of legislation — especially those dealing with energy — will require a closer look to figure out what actually made it in as the legislature convened in marathon sessions to complete its non-budgetary work. We’ll be reporting on some of these bills for a long time, especially those dealing with energy and housing.
3. The battle over data centers is complicated
What is holding up the budget is Lucas’ insistence that the state end its tax breaks for data centers eight years early — 2027, rather than 2035. For some, data centers are a simple issue: They use a lot of energy (and water). Some think we should have a moratorium on their development. Those tax incentives also mean the state is forgoing $1.9 billion in taxes each year, which is a lot of money that could be spent on whatever you think it should be spent on. However, the issue is a lot more complicated than that. Those tax abatements really ought to be measured against the $9.1 billion in gross domestic product that data centers account for each year in Virginia. Nobody’s studied what happens if those tax incentives are done away with: If data centers keep coming, then those tax breaks were, indeed, a giveaway. If they stop coming, then maybe those tax incentives were a bargain to secure that much investment.
There are other issues at play, too: The state promised these tax breaks through 2035. If Virginia now changes the rules, what message does that send to other business sectors? Does it mean the state can’t be trusted to keep its word?
While data centers are concentrated in Northern Virginia, rural voices have started to speak up to say: Hey, wait a minute. We’re just now getting a shot at data centers. Shutting down the tax incentives looks like a case of Northern Virginia saying, “Hey, we’ve got ours, but you can’t have yours.” That’s essentially what the Danville-based Future of the Piedmont Foundation said last week when it urged legislators to keep the tax incentives; they just said it in more formal, diplomatic language.
Those who say data centers are bad for the grid, and maybe even bad for the environment, might well have a point, but they don’t have much to say about rural localities who feel they’re about to be the victims of a switcheroo.
4. Gaming was a big issue that didn’t follow partisan lines
In the old days, we called this gambling. Of course, in the old days we called cannabis marijuana but now advocates of both prefer a higher-class name. It wasn’t that long ago that we didn’t have gaming in Virginia, at least legally. Now the question is what kinds will be allowed and how should it be regulated.
This session approved legalizing the so-called “skill” games found in many convenience stores — what critics call “neighborhood slot machines.” It also approved adding Fairfax County to the list of localities eligible to host a casino.
However, the legislature rejected so-called “igaming” or online gaming. It put off discussion of creating a Virginia Gaming Commission until next year.
Meanwhile, Roanoke’s quest for a casino never came up (and likely would have been defeated if it had been, since all the Roanoke Valley legislators were opposed to the measure and nobody else was going to push for it).
5. The “affordability agenda” may require some accounting
“Affordability” was Abigail Spanberger’s main theme in last year’s governor’s race; that word became so popular that Republicans in the session embraced it as well, just in different ways. So did the General Assembly make things more affordable?
That’s hard to tell — and may depend on either your point of view or where you are in the economy.
Spanberger celebrated “passage of the full Affordable Virginia agenda” and listed 16 bills (not counting their companion bills in the other chamber) that passed. Many of those are energy-related bills, such as a bill to establish a Virginia Weatherization Task Force “to improve energy efficiency.” It will take time to see what impact they have.
Republicans were quick to point to bills that they said made Virginia less affordable, such as returning Virginia to the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative.
Some bills may make life more affordable for some but less affordable for others. For instance, the paid family and medical leave bill involves a payroll tax. Any tax makes things less affordable, at least in the short run. For those who take advantage of the bill’s provision, the measure may well make life more affordable. For those who don’t, well, they’re still paying the tax but aren’t using the benefits. Perhaps society as a whole is better off, but some individual members of that society may not be. This is a classic contrast between the two parties’ philosophies — Democrats who view things through the lens of community and Republicans who tend to see things more individualistically.
Sorting out the bottom line on “affordability” is going to take some time.
6. The car tax survives
The so-called “car tax” may indeed be “the most hated tax in Virginia,” as it’s often called, but these days it’s not much more than a campaign slogan. The difficulty with getting rid of this tax is that it’s not a state tax, it’s a local tax. Any local government in Virginia could do away with the tax right now. That’s not happening because the tax is a big source of revenue for local governments, which have few ways to replace it. That’s why the car tax has been a state issue — the state has money. Maybe not enough, according to Democrats, but at least more than local governments. When Republican Jim Gilmore won the governorship in 1997 on a campaign of “no car tax!” the idea was that the state would repay local governments to keep them whole. Some of that happened, but part of the tax remains.
Republicans this year wanted to abolish the tax right now, but they also knew Democrats would vote that down, which is exactly what happened. From the Democratic point of view: State revenues may be flush now, but we all know those surpluses come and go.
Del. Lily Franklin, D-Montgomery County, and state Sen. Dave Marsden, D-Fairfax County, introduced measures to set up a study on how the tax could be eliminated. Republicans thought that a half-measure; the sponsors portrayed it as prudent legislating. Franklin’s bill passed the House 68-35 (picking up a few Republican votes) but then went to the Senate Finance Committee, where a party line vote put the measure off until next year. That was no surprise: The panel had already done the same to Marsden’s bill.
There may be bigger disconnects in politics, but the disconnect between the attention given to the car tax issue, and the lack of interest in some quarters in the legislature for dealing with it, is quite wide.
That brings us to this:
7. The Senate Finance Committee is where bills go and never come back out
To be fair, any bill that gets referred to the budget-writing committee in either house is in some jeopardy, but the Senate Finance Committee seems like a legislative Hotel California: “You can check out anytime you like but you can never leave.” OK, that’s a bit exaggerated, but the Senate Finance Committee does have a reputation as a place where bills go in but don’t come back out.
Case in point: Franklin’s car tax study bill passed the Democratic-controlled House (with a few Republican votes) but never came out of a Democratic-controlled Senate Finance Committee. You’d think authorizing a study would be easy, but nope, not this one. Put off until next year.
Del. Eric Phillips, R-Henry County, had a bill that would have designated the state police as the lead agency to investigate incidents in state prisons that result in either death or injury to inmates or officers, or alleged or suspected incidents of inmate suicide. That seemed pretty non-controversial in the House, where it passed 97-0. However, it went to Senate Finance and never came out — continued until next year.
Del. Paul Krizek, D-Fairfax County, was the point person on a bill to create a state Gaming Commission to regulate all these new gaming enterprises the state is authorizing. It passed the House 97-0; continued in Senate Finance.
In all, 158 bills went to Senate Finance and were continued until 2027. By contrast, its two House counterparts, the House Appropriations Committee and House Finance Committee, continued only 38 bills between them. No other committee came anywhere as close to Senate Finance when it came to delaying action. Most committees ended the session with a “continued” docket in the teens or single digits. The Senate Transportation Committee didn’t continue any bills.
8. Personalities matter
We may be a government of laws, as the saying goes, but personalities do matter. The data center debate, and the resulting lack of a budget, is a direct consequence of that. Yes, there are legitimate concerns at play on both sides, but what often matters in the close quarters of the General Assembly are the personalities involved. In this case, state Sen. Louise Lucas, D-Portsmouth, who presides over the Senate Finance Committee with a power not seen in many years. Lucas is old enough to remember the political heavyweights of yore, when legislators such as state Sen. Ed Wiley or House Speaker A.L. Philpott could kill a bill just with a well-timed stare. Lucas is a formidable figure not just in the Senate, or even in the entire legislature, but in state politics, period.
When Democrats regained the Senate in the 2023 elections — midway through the term of Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin — some noted that the results positioned Lucas to become the most powerful political figure in the state. Youngkin learned the lesson the hard way when Lucas spiked his proposal for a sports arena in Alexandria that would host the NBA’s Washington Wizards and the NHL’s Washington Capitals. The question now is how a new governor, a Democrat, will navigate around Lucas. Spanberger may be trying to figure that out right now.
9. Aird rises, Griffin gets smackdown in mid-session shake-ups
This year had what seemed like an unusual number of changes in committee memberships. The session began with the news that Del. Sam Rasoul, D-Roanoke, would not be returning to his customary spot on the budget-writing House Appropriations Committee. That was never explained, but it was widely believed that Rasoul was made to pay a price for his outspoken support of the Palestinian cause and criticism of Israel. Some pro-Israel groups had wanted Rasoul to lose his chairmanship of House Education; he kept that but was moved from Appropriations to Health and Human Services.
The most dramatic committee change came when House Speaker Don Scott stripped Del. Tim Griffin, R-Bedford County, of all his committee assignments after a clash with Del. Cia Price, D-Newport News, which some felt went beyond the bounds of propriety. The practical effect there may be negligible. Griffin was a junior member of the minority party, anyway, and has never had a bill passed in his three years in Richmond — a consequence of being a minority party member whose bills are ideological ones that Democrats delight in killing.
The Senate saw several changes, some for unexplained reasons, others related to Adam Ebbin’s departure to join the Spanberger administrator as a cannabis policy adviser. The most notable move in the Senate is the rapid ascension of Sen. Lashrecse Aird, D-Petersburg. In mid-session, she became chair of the Senate Committee on Local Government and gained a seat on the budget-writing Senate Finance Committee. Aird also figured as one of the key players on the cannabis bill. She also secured passage of a far-less noticeable bill that I’ve written about several times over the years — one that sets in motion a study of whether the state should create a Secretariat of Rural Affairs. Aird is a rising star.
10. There’s still a lot at stake in the budget
While the battle over data center taxes is what has held up the budget, there are a lot of other differences between the House and Senate versions of the budget that we’ll be paying attention to in the coming weeks.
The biggest one that’s of interest to Southwest Virginia is funding for the proposed inland port, a fancy name for a rail-to-truck cargo hub, in Southwest. The Senate version includes the $35 million that Youngkin proposed before he left office; the House has just $2 million.
Likewise, there are differences in funding for the medical school and biomedical research institute in Roanoke. The House budget has $13 million to support enrollment growth at the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine and $6 million to start a Patient Research Center at the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute. The Senate version has nothing for either project.
Also of interest are two proposed budget items that don’t involve money, just authorizing language. The House includes a proposal by Del. David Reid, D-Loudoun County, that would authorize a partnership between the public George Mason University in Fairfax County and the private Averett University in Danville, a collaboration that would allow GMU to plant its green-and-gold flag in the southern part of the state in some unspecified but potentially important way. The Senate version includes a proposal from state Sen. Creigh Deeds, D-Charlottesville, that would launch a pretty comprehensive study of college athletics in the state — especially how they’re funded, and how much they contribute to the economy.
Yes, it’s money that matters, as the great philosopher Randy Newman once counseled, but sometimes the language matters, too.
You can read about the differences between the House and Senate budgets here. For more political news and analysis, see West of the Capital, our weekly political newsletter. Not signed up? You can sign up here: