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Lawmakers will take up thousands of bills during this year’s short legislative session, with an election looming that could reshape the makeup of Virginia’s House of Delegates and make history in the executive branch.
A number of hot-button issues are top of mind for lawmakers from the Southwest and Southside region as they prepare for the 2025 session, which kicks off Monday after a delay caused by Richmond’s water crisis.
A constitutional amendment that would enshrine access to abortion is in the crosshairs of some Republicans, while a tussle over how to use the state’s $4.7 billion budget surplus is expected by others. Some lawmakers — along with Gov. Glenn Youngkin, as outlined in his budget amendment proposal — hope to use that surplus to provide tax relief to residents. A fight over solar energy and where to build solar farms has already begun, with some Republicans drawing lines in the sand and attempting to shore up land-use rights on a local level.
Democrats hold a slim one-seat majority in both chambers, but Youngkin’s veto pen looms large after the 2024 session, when he killed a record number of bills that had passed the General Assembly. Regardless, members from both parties see areas where they can compromise to pass bipartisan legislation outside of party line points of contention.
Cardinal News reached out to each of the lawmakers in the Southwest and Southside regions to get an idea of their priorities ahead of the 2025 session and the bills they plan to put forth. More than half of the 29 lawmakers responded. See what they had to say, in alphabetical order, below.
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Senate
Sen. Creigh Deeds, D-Charlottesville
“My priorities don’t change,” Deeds said in a phone interview. “I’ve been working to build a mental health system or health care system that works with people where they are in Virginia, statewide.”
Deeds chairs the Senate Commerce and Labor Committee, which means he’ll have a responsibility to make sure electricity suppliers in the state meet Clean Economy Act mandates while remaining affordable and reliable for Virginia’s residents, he said.
“Electricity will be a large portion of my priorities this time, along with health care,” he said.
Deeds also chairs the Health and Human Services subcommittee of the Senate Finance Committee.
“I have a bigger responsibility for health care and health care budget and making sure we meet needs all across Virginia,” he said.
Sen. Travis Hackworth, R-Tazewell County
Hackworth’s SB 1281 would allow residential customers of Appalachian Power whose electric bills are more than 25% above the statewide average to choose a different provider. The bill is a top priority for him in the 2025 session, his office said.
“AEP customers should have options to purchase their electricity — a basic need — without being held hostage by greedy corporations that put investors and shareholders profits before their customers,” he said in a statement.
Sen. Todd Pillion, R-Washington County, is a co-sponsor of the legislation. Pillion declined to discuss his legislative priorities for this story.
Sen. Chris Head, R-Botetourt County
Head said in an email that the bills he has filed and plans to introduce in the 2025 session can be broken down into three categories: business/workforce/economic development, health care and community needs.
His filed bills include SB 788, which would include coverage of injuries or diseases under workers’ compensation that are caused by repetitive and sustained physical stressors, including repetitive and sustained motions, exertions, posture stresses, contact stresses, vibrations or noises.
SB 791 would require the development of a common curriculum for practical nursing programs to be used at each community college that offers such a program. SB 792 would require the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia to publish the following data from most colleges and universities: tuition and fees, student retention and graduation rates, wages of former students three years after graduation, and the 20 baccalaureate and 20 associate degree or certificate programs with the highest average annual wages following graduation.
SB 931 restricts public schools and libraries from purchasing, distributing, exhibiting or loaning materials with obscene content.
SB 797 would allow the board of visitors for the Virginia School for the Deaf and Blind to establish a campus police department.
SB 790 would allow people who work with those who are at risk of experiencing an opioid overdose to access and administer opioid antagonists like naloxone and to receive training for their use.
SB 793 would require the electronic filing of claims under the Virginia Birth-Related Neurological Injury Compensation Program.
SB 789 would establish a refundable tax credit of up to $2,000 for married couples per newborn or stillborn birth. SB 924 clarifies that drug-checking products are not paraphernalia. SB 295 requires a health care provider to notify an insurance carrier if fees apply to submit a payment for a claim and to allow for alternative payment methods when applicable.
SB 794 would require producers of tires sold in Virginia to join a tire stewardship program and directs that program to establish a statewide collection of discarded tires for recycling or resale.
SB 798 would require retail franchise agreements to be governed by Virginia law.
SB 795 would establish the private Virginia Transportation Museum as a public educational entity under the state’s purview. SB 796 would allow the Virginia Recreational Facilities Board to dissolve. SB 927 would create a Virginia Sports Tourism Fund.
SB 1001 would make personal property used directly in the initiation, production, generation, transmission or distribution of electricity by Appalachian Power exempt from sales and use tax.
Sen. Emily Jordan, R-Isle of Wight County
“I am proud to be carrying two bills centered around maternal health,” Jordan said in an email.
One of those, she said, is a bill to locate maternal health nurse navigators in each health district across the state.
“When women enter care during pregnancy, the intention is that the health care provider will provide women the option to be contacted with additional resources that pertain to their specific needs. The same post delivery. Oftentimes, women are unaware of the additional resources that exist that could frankly help save a life,” she said.
She also plans to carry a bill regarding dyes in the food served at K-12 schools.
“In the United States, for instance, Red No. 3 is banned in cosmetics because it caused cancer in trial-tested rodents, yet we still have this harmful dye in food that is often served to children,” she said. “For some children in school, breakfast and lunch may be their only meal that day — I think it’s a minimum obligation that we ensure those meals are truly healthy.”
Sen. Mark Peake, R-Lynchburg
Peake said that Democrats in the House and Senate have not been supporters of the legislation he’s put forth in the past.
“I don’t anticipate a whole lot being done this session in reality, I think we do have some very important issues as far as tax relief goes,” he said. “Those issues will get a lot of attention and take up a lot of our time this session.”
Regardless, Peake said, his main focus for the session will be on public safety.
He plans to carry a number of bills, including one that would eliminate violent offenders from those who could qualify for shorter sentences under the Second Look Act. The act would allow people who have proven they are not a threat to society to petition for reduced sentences after they have served at least 10 years. Peake also plans to put forth a bill against bail for violent offenders and a bill to keep violent criminals from receiving earned sentence credits. Earned sentence credits allow inmates to reduce the amount of time they serve in prison by taking part in educational programs while maintaining good behavior.
Aside from public safety, Peake plans to put forth bills to scale back early voting from its current period of 45 days. He said the current length of time puts a burden on registrars and elections officials.
Sen. Bill Stanley, R-Franklin County
Stanley introduced bills regarding internet safety, education, safety for children, marijuana testing, Hurricane Helene recovery, health care and animal welfare.
One, SB 905, would create an internet safety advisory council to help schools implement internet safety programs for students, while another, SB 908, would define cyberbullying in the Virginia code and make it a crime.
“It also mandates that the school boards implement clear policies that will protect the victims of cyberbullying,” he said in a phone interview.
Another bill, SB 915, would enhance career and technical education opportunities by permitting public schools to partner with private higher education institutions, he said. SB 913 would prohibit public bodies from awarding contracts to acquire imported goods from a business that uses forced or indentured child labor.
“We say, as Virginians, we’re committed to ethical sourcing of our products,” he said.
His SB 914 would increase the mandatory minimum sentence for people convicted of child sexual assault to life in prison without parole.
Another bill would enhance professional development for health care providers and educators to support children with autism.
He also introduced SB 912, which would establish regulations and a threshold for the levels of THC when administering a drug test to determine if a person who works in manufacturing or utilities is high while at work.
“If you smoke marijuana, it’s in your body for 30 days, you can still test positive. But what levels demonstrate a person is high on the job?” he said.
Another bill, which he based on Hurricane Helene, would create a work group to set standards and enhance responses when there are disasters, with the goal of providing more resources quickly to stricken localities.
His SB 911 would require agriculture producers to notify beekeepers in advance of aerial pesticide application to protect pollinators.
He also introduced bills that could allow the sale of equipment used for MRIs or CT scans outside of hospitals to support access in rural communities and another that would affect the monetary awards for children who were victims of medical malpractice. Among his other bills: one to support advertisements at race tracks, another to support animal welfare at pet shops, another that would require non-human primates to be transferred to a sanctuary after animal testing, and lastly, one that would eliminate dark money in politics.
Sen. David Suetterlein, R-Roanoke County
Bills filed ahead of the session by Suetterlein cover issues including tax relief, internet privacy for children and support for work-based learning or career and technical education in K-12 schools.
SB 782 would make permanent the enhanced standard deduction and the refundable Earned Income Tax Credit, both of which are currently set to expire in January 2026. The sundown of the enhanced standard deduction would result in a tax increase of $632 per family for more than 85% of Virginia taxpayers, he said. His bill would also continue the 15% refund under the federal Earned Income Tax Credit that would provide up to a $1,206 benefit to low-income working Virginia families in 2025, his office said in a statement.
SB 783 would ban companies from knowingly processing children’s personal data for the purposes of targeted advertising, sale of personal data or profiling, his office said.
SB 784 would require the Board of Education’s Employment, Enlistment and Enrollment Readiness accountability system to include and incentivize work-based learning experiences, or career and technical education, in K-12 schools.
House of Delegates
Del. Terry Austin, R-Botetourt County
Austin plans to carry a bill that he put forth last year to allow guardians to be given a grant to transport their child to school if they live on a rural road when it is not economically feasible for the school division to pick up one or two children. The bill, he said, would also allow school divisions to use smaller vehicles to transport children to school to allow drivers without a CDL license to drive those vehicles in lieu of a large school bus.
“CDL [licenses] are a real issue for some of our rural divisions, to get drivers,” he said in a phone interview.
He also plans to carry a bill that would establish a board for tow truck drivers, which he anticipates could create some controversy in the General Assembly.
“I think we need the ability to do an assessment of what is equitable or what’s not equitable, make sure [tow truck drivers] do get paid for their services,” he said.
He also plans to introduce a number of budget amendments, including roughly $130 million for an expansion of the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine, among others.
“We get 65,000 applicants every year for 49 slots, so we need to double that capacity there and get more space, it’s a growing entity,” he said. (Update: A previous version contained an extra digit).
Del. Jason Ballard, R-Giles County
Ballard said in an email that he plans to propose legislation that would extend tax credits for the purchases of firearm safety devices, expand Tobacco Commission funds to localities throughout the New River Valley and protect the rights of landowners and landlords.
“Since being elected in 2021, I have made it a priority to stand up for the conservative values of the New River Valley,” Ballard said in an email. “We have a lot of work to do this session and I remain committed to protecting our elections by requiring photo ID to vote, securing our schools by increasing investments for school resource officers and passing SAGE’s Law protecting parental rights, and ensuring hardworking Virginians keep more of their hard-earned money by eliminating the car tax and tax on tips.”
Ballard also pre-filed an “anti-terrorism” bill championed by Attorney General Jason Miyares. HB 1650, patroned by Ballard, would create a new crime under state statute against an individual or group that commits, conspires, aids or abets an act of terrorism, as defined in the bill, or provides direct or indirect material support for an act of terrorism if it results in an injury or death to any person.
Del. Ellen Campbell, R-Rockbridge County
“After traveling around The Commonwealth with The Rural Health Committee, it was eye opening to see how much work is left to do. This year, I think you will see a focus on a number of bills that improve the lives of our neighbors in rural localities,” Campbell said via email.
She noted that issues top of mind for her include workforce development, water quality and behavioral health.
“Another priority for me in particular will be extending the benefits of the Line of Duty Act to campus and private police officers. Over the last few years, we’ve seen two separate tragedies in Bridgewater and Wintergreen where campus and private police officers gave their lives protecting others. The least we can do in Richmond is give something back to their families,” she said.
The Line of Duty Act provides benefits to family members of public safety officers who were killed or disabled in the line of duty.
Campbell signed on to HB 1724, a bill patroned by Del. Karrie Delaney, D-Fairfax, during the 2025 session that would create a Prescription Drug Affordability Board. That board would be an independent body of health and medical experts whose goal would be to lower the cost of medicine by creating upper payment limits on how much Virginia consumers will pay for certain high-cost medications, according to a statement by Freedom Virginia. Similar legislation passed both the House and Senate during the 2024 session but was ultimately vetoed by Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin.
“I hear from so many constituents on a regular basis having to make the decisions… Do I pay for groceries, do I put gas in my car, do I pay for my utilities or do I buy the prescription drugs that I really need?” Campbell said during a press conference.
Del. Tom Garrett, R-Louisa County
Garrett’s legislative priorities include a bill that, he said, would keep decisions at the local level regarding use of land for solar energy or other projects.
“This is the bedrock upon which our federalist system is built at the local and state level,” he said during a phone interview.
He also plans to put forth legislation to attract and retain career and technical education teachers. That legislation, he said, would allow those teachers to vest in Virginia’s retirement system at an accelerated pace.
He plans to put forth another bill that would allow localities to sell and tax consumer-grade fireworks. Those taxes, he said, would go toward public safety infrastructure like fire and rescue squads.
Garrett said he also anticipates a battle between Democrats and Republicans in the General Assembly on the constitutional amendment regarding access to abortion.
Del. Terry Kilgore, R-Scott County
Kilgore plans to introduce energy-related bills, including one that would count nuclear power as a zero-carbon energy producer to allow it to be produced in Virginia under the 2020 Clean Economy Act, and another regarding electric utilities. Right now, he said, if utilities don’t meet requirements under the renewable portfolio standard, they have to make deficiency payments. Those payments often end up passed on from the utility company to the ratepayer, he said.
“In my area, I’m trying to do anything I can to reduce or lessen the burden on my citizens, and this basically runs up the electric bill,” he said in a phone interview.
“I’m going to try to take that out of the statute,” he said of the deficiency payments.
He plans to introduce a bill that would make flying drones over infrastructure a criminal offense.
Kilgore also said he plans to support a budget amendment that would set up a fund to support recovery from Hurricane Helene and future disasters. He said he is working with Pillion on a budget amendment to support renovations and new construction at University of Virginia at Wise to accommodate increased enrollment.
Del. Danny Marshall, R-Danville
Marshall plans to file bills during the 2025 session that include a “housekeeping” issue that would update the city of Danville’s local charter, based on a request from the city council. He plans to carry that bill in the House of Delegates and said Sen. Tammy Brankley Mulchi, R-Mecklenberg County, plans to carry the bill on the Senate side. Sen. Mulchi did not respond when asked about her legislative priorities ahead of the 2025 session.
Those charter updates include changes to the text and organization of the document to grant greater administrative flexibility to the city, clarify responsibilities and powers, implement best practices adopted by other localities in Virginia, harmonize the charter with state law where necessary, enhance readability, and protect the interests of the city and its residents by ensuring that the charter is the best-governing document possible, said Clarke Whitfield, Danville’s city attorney.
Another bill, which Marshall characterized as a major deal for the Danville area, would codify incentives that the General Assembly’s Major Employment and Investment Commission agreed to, to support construction of the Berry Hill megasite, which is anticipated to be an economic boon for the region. Development of the site began in 2008, and after a decade of work, Tennessee-based Microporous, which manufactures components for electric vehicle batteries, has committed to building in the region.
“The development in Berry Hill is a long time coming,” Marshall said during a phone call on New Year’s Eve. “It’s been a lot of work from a lot of different people, so now we’re getting some apples off the apple tree.”
Marshall said he anticipates the Berry Hill bill to gain bipartisan support and said that Senate President Pro tempore Louise Lucas, D-Portsmouth, had planned to carry the legislation on the Senate side.
Del. Joe McNamara, R-Roanoke County
McNamara said he would like to see lawmakers work together to decrease the cost of living for Virginians and to expand economic growth.
“Every year I’ve been in the General Assembly, I carry a very heavy tax docket, and this year will be no different,” he said during a phone interview.
He’s supportive of Youngkin’s efforts to lessen the burden of the car tax on low-income families and to expand the standard deduction. He said he also hopes to eliminate what’s left of the food tax. He plans to put forth about a dozen tax-focused pieces of legislation.
He plans to partner with Suetterlein to make permanent the expanded standard deduction.
Aside from tax-specific legislation, he plans to introduce a bill to allow Virginia to stay on permanent daylight savings time, which has been a perennial issue of his.
Del. Will Morefield, R-Tazewell County
One of Morefield’s main legislative priorities is to provide “significant relief” for Hurricane Helene victims, he said.
“We hope to announce the details of the House Appropriations committee proposal in the coming days ahead,” Morefield said via text message on Monday. Morefield sits on the Appropriations Committee and represents a district hard hit by Helene.
He also plans to file legislation that would freeze Appalachian Power rate increases for a period of two years and provide for more residents of Appalachian Power’s service territory to be appointed to the Commission on Electric Utility Regulation.
“The rising cost of electricity is severely impacting rate payers in Southwest Virginia,” he said. “It is heartbreaking to hear the recent stories of so many who are struggling everyday just to make ends meet.”
Another of Morefield’s priorities is to file a bill that would direct the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission, or JLARC, to explore and develop a proposal for a monetary or tax incentive to attract physicians to distressed rural communities.
“I believe it is imperative the Commonwealth take an aggressive role to attract physicians to some of our most economically distressed localities. If we expect to grow, we must have the same access to health care that more affluent communities are afforded,” he said.
Del. Chris Obenshain, R-Montgomery County
Obenshain said disaster relief for people affected by Hurricane Helene needs to be a top priority of lawmakers heading into the session.
He said he hopes that the disaster aid put forth by Gov. Glenn Youngkin in his proposed budget amendments will receive bipartisan support.
“To me, that would be the No. 1 priority from a regional perspective, going into the session,” Obenshain said during a video interview.
Aside from that, he plans to put forth legislation that would provide tax relief for working families and support Youngkin’s budget amendment proposals, including the car tax credit for low-income families and the elimination of tax on tips. He also said he’s a proponent of legislation that would support economic growth in the New River Valley region.
Access to child care, he said, is another issue he would like to tackle, as it affects the workforce and local economies. He wants to incentivize employers and child care providers to increase access to that service and hopes to gain bipartisan support for that effort.
Public safety is another issue he plans to address to protect victims of crime and children who have been victims of abuse. He also plans to address threats on college campuses.
Obenshain is expected to sign on to a bill championed by Miyares’ office and patroned by Del. Jeb Arnold, R-Smyth County, according to a statement sent out by the attorney general’s office Tuesday morning. HB 1846 would require the local commonwealth’s attorney to make a reasonable effort to notify the victim of an offense for which a person is required to register on the Sex Offender and Crimes Against Minors Registry — or the victim’s immediate family member, if the victim has died — when the registrant applies for a change of name with the court.
Del. Eric Phillips, R-Henry County
Phillips said one of his main focuses for the upcoming session is public safety — specifically funding and support for volunteer fire departments in rural communities to attract and retain firefighters. Often, he said, the first people to arrive at the scene of an accident or a fire in rural communities are members of the nearby volunteer fire department, but, after the COVID-19 pandemic, volunteerism has decreased and the cost to maintain truck fleets has increased.
Phillips also plans to carry bills related to affordable housing and construction. Those bills would focus on workforce training for the construction, HVAC and plumbing fields and on a reduction of regulations that he said can drive up the cost of construction.
“It’s a multifaceted problem,” he said during a phone interview. “There’s not enough developers and builders that are licensed to do the work. There’s not enough tradespeople to hire as subcontractors. The barriers to get into some of these trades have become really cumbersome, burdensome and overregulated.”
Other areas of focus for Phillips in the 2025 session include improved transportation infrastructure, specifically the U.S. 220 corridor; preserving local land-use rights regarding construction of data centers and solar energy infrastructure; and improving access to health care in rural communities.
Del. Sam Rasoul, D-Roanoke
Rasoul, who chairs the House Education Committee, plans to carry a comprehensive omnibus bill with support for students with disabilities in K-12 schools and support for schools in impoverished areas, along with other funding support for schools.
He said he also would like to streamline the process to allow high school students to take college classes — and potentially receive college credit for those classes — in an effort to reduce college debt. Cellphone use policies in schools are another area ripe for streamlining, he said. He plans to codify best practices regarding cellphone restrictions and tier out those policies from elementary schools to middle school to high school.
Rasoul said he would like to introduce legislation that would support a school’s ability to get information from social media companies if there is ever a credible threat of harm toward students, on those platforms.
“We want social media companies to be able to provide critical information when there is a credible threat of violence to the schools in a timely manner,” he said during a phone interview.
Outside of education, Rasoul said he plans to put forth a bill that would propose the refurbishing of a portion of Catawba Hospital to provide treatment for substance abuse disorder. He expects that effort to receive broad bipartisan support.
Another bill he plans to put forth would require natural gas companies to infuse an odorant into interstate pipelines, to help the detection of leaks in the transfer of gas.
Rasoul expects debates on the floor over budget amendments between Democrats and Republicans.
Del. Chris Runion, R-Rockingham County
Runion plans to support Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s budget amendment proposals regarding tax relief and local land use regarding solar in the 2025 legislative session. His priorities also include advocating for updates to the Interstate 81 corridor, and a push for enhancements to railway transportation to alleviate highway congestion, and raising awareness of needs in farming communities, he said in an email.
Legislation he’s introduced includes:
- HB 1603, which would remove the $4 million cap on state money to the Department of Rail and Public Transportation that may be applied to the Shortline Railway Preservation and Development Fund.
- HB 2247, which would clarify grant processing in regard to the Virginia Water Quality Improvement Fund.
- HB 2506, which would establish income tax credits for buyers or builders of energy efficient homes in an effort to promote housing affordability.
- HB 2246, which would clarify existing regulations regarding funerals and disagreements among next of kin.
- HB 1571, which would clarify existing regulations for funeral directors and removes a monthly reporting requirement to the state registrar.
- HB 2507, which would permit the board of visitors of the Virginia School for the Deaf and the Blind to establish a campus police department.
- HB 2504, which would establish a grant program for housing and vehicles for volunteer emergency services.
Del. Wendell Walker, R-Lynchburg
Walker said the issue that is top of mind for him going into the 2025 session is tax relief for Virginians.
“The surpluses that have come into Virginia shows that we’re on the right track,” he said during a phone call on New Year’s Eve.
He noted that he has ideas for how that surplus can be used.
“There’s a lot of needs out here: public education, public safety, health issues, those are going to be some of my priority items going into 2025,” he said.
He noted that 2025 will be a busy year — with the short session and elections in the latter half — but that he doesn’t anticipate many major battles in the General Assembly during the session.
Del. Wren Williams, R-Patrick County
Williams said he plans to focus on the issues that matter to the 47th District, from expanding funding for sheriff’s departments to upholding Second Amendment rights to expanding access to health care in rural communities.
“I look forward to working with the incoming Trump administration, promoting his America First agenda, and ensuring that our communities cooperate with ICE officials to combat illegal immigration and ensure that our communities are safe,” he said, via email.
Williams also pre-filed a bill championed by Miyares that would support the attorney general’s office in its prosecution of criminals in child sex trafficking or sexual assault cases. HB 1556 would authorize the attorney general to conduct criminal prosecutions in cases that involve criminal sexual assault or commercial sex trafficking against children.
Del. Eric Zehr, R-Campbell County
Zehr said one of his main legislative priorities for the upcoming session would be to “help Virginians understand the ramifications of the abortion [constitutional] amendment.”
The amendment, if passed, would enshrine access to abortion in Virginia’s constitution. In order for a constitutional amendment to be adopted, it must pass the General Assembly twice, with a state-wide election between each passage. The amendment is expected to be voted on by the General Assembly for the first time in the 2025 session.
“I’m going to be asking for transparency,” Zehr said, regarding the amendment, in a phone interview.
He also plans to seek transparency surrounding bills that would allow for solar energy production to take place in Southwest and Southside Virginia.
“I would like to see these solar companies reporting on their actual output on a regular basis,” he said.
Another area of focus for Zehr would be to increase protections for health care workers. He mentioned possibly including health care workers under enhanced assault protections, similar to police officers.
“These people are trying to help, and they should not be open to attack,” he said. “I think putting some stronger deterrents in place will help our health care workers.
He said he would also try to protect senior citizens against gift card fraud, among other priorities.
