Following the General Assembly is often like watching a basketball game without a scoreboard. There’s a lot of running back and forth, a lot of shouting and cheering, but it’s sometimes hard to know what the score is, or even who’s ahead.
We’re now at the legislative equivalent of halftime, so let’s pause to see what we know.
On Thursday, we’ll publish a list of all the bills we’ve been following (plus some that we haven’t) and update their status. Here, I will look at some of the larger themes playing out.
1. Both parties are using the session to shape the fall elections
In the military, there’s the concept of “shaping the battlefield,” trying to position troops (and damage the other side) to prepare for a victorious battle. Both Democrats and Republicans are doing the same in the General Assembly.
In his budget proposals in December, Gov. Glenn Youngkin pushed to use some of the budget surplus for a tax credit for those paying what he called “the most hated tax in Virginia,” the so-called “car tax” (which is actually a local tax, not a state tax). He also pushed to stop taxing tips.
Youngkin had to know that the Democrats who hold slim majorities in the General Assembly would vote these measures down (which they did) and he might secretly be happy that they did. Both these issues — “No car tax!” and “No tax on tips!” — are likely to surface in the fall as Republican talking points. Republicans remember how potent the former was as a slogan for Jim Gilmore in the 1997 governor’s race, particularly in Northern Virginia, a region where they need to hold down Democratic margins. “No tax on tips!” is a newer innovation, but speaks to how the Republican base is realigning toward working-class voters. Republicans are going after the waitstaff vote.
Meanwhile, the two legislative money committees — both controlled by Democrats — have instead proposed using part of the surplus for a one-time refund to all taxpayers. Their fiscal argument: Just because there’s a surplus now doesn’t mean there’ll be one in the future so it’s not wise to commit to a multiyear tax credit program. Their political argument: They’re giving tax relief to everyone, not just car owners.
Senate Democrats also used some clever parliamentary maneuvers to force Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, the expected Republican nominee, to vote on a bill to guarantee a right to obtain and use contraception. She voted “no,” killing the bill. After she went on record doing that, Democrats produced an extra vote they had intentionally withheld, brought the measure up again, and passed it.
Republicans have also used debates over energy bills to preview their expected campaign attacks on the Clean Economy Act, with state Sen. Mark Peake, R-Lynchburg, introducing the phrase “solar factories” to refer to what Democrats call “solar farms.”
We’re now starting to see at least some of the outlines of the fall campaign.
2. Constitutional amendments set up fall campaigns — and possible 2026 referendums
Democrats have set three proposed amendments to the state constitution in motion. Under Virginia’s rules, they’ll need to pass the legislature again next year before they could go to voters in November 2026. The Senate isn’t up for reelection, so those “yes” votes are locked in. The House of Delegates will be on the ballot this fall, so if Republicans won control, they could block these amendments next year. That makes all three fodder for the fall elections.
The most controversial will be the one that would write abortion rights into the constitution. That amendment passed on party-line votes in both chambers.
Another would automatically restore civil rights to felons once they’ve served their time. It passed the House 55-44, picking up four Republican votes, but passed the Senate on a party-line vote.
The third would guarantee the right to same-sex marriages. The Virginia Constitution currently contains language banning such unions. That passage has been rendered moot by the 2015 U.S. Supreme Court decision that ruled such bans unconstitutional, but it would come back into force if the court ever changed its mind. This amendment would repeal that ban and add language to guarantee the right to same-sex marriages if the U.S. Supreme Court ever reverses itself. It picked up seven Republican votes in the House to pass 58-35 with two abstentions and picked up three in the Senate to pass 24-15.
3. Democrats are trying to scuttle some of Youngkin’s initiatives
The proposed budgets for both chambers takes $25 million that Youngkin wanted to spend on lab schools and uses it elsewhere. The House version specifically says it should be redirected to the state’s historically Black colleges and universities; the Senate version just strikes it out without elaboration.
The legislature also wants to strike a proposed expansion in Northern Virginia of Operation Ceasefire, a crime prevention program launched by Attorney General Jason Miyares.
4. Senate Democrats are trying to ‘legislate through the budget’
Budgets are about spending, but sometimes legislators use it to slip in new laws, as well. This is called “legislating through the budget” and is frowned upon, but it’s still done anyway whenever it suits the majority. The Senate Finance Committee has done this at least two ways in its version of the budget: with so-called “skill” games and local sales tax increases for school construction.
Last year, it seemed as if every convenience store owner in the state flooded into Capitol Square to lobby legislators to legalize (and regulate) the games. This year, no such effort took place, and now we know why. Last year, Youngkin proposed so many amendments to a bill to legalize skill games that the whole thing died. This is another way to get the issue back before the governor and perhaps in a way that might make it difficult to kill.
Senate Finance also wrote into the budget something else the governor vetoed last year — a measure to give all localities the power to hold referendums on whether to raise the local sales tax to generate money to pay for school construction. Currently, only nine localities have that power.
5. Energy and data centers dominate the session
The proliferation of data centers in Northern Virginia has sparked controversy that has now made its way to Richmond with bills to regulate them in new ways. Data centers were further politicized by a state report that found that if they continue to grow at the current rate, the state demand for electricity will triple by 2040. All that overlaps with conflicting points of view on energy: Republicans would like to gut or repeal the Virginia Clean Economy Act, which requires the state’s utilities to go carbon-free by 2050. Democrats don’t. Meanwhile, rural localities are increasingly blocking solar projects, raising questions about how the state is going to achieve its carbon-free goals; that prompted bills that would have created a greater state role in siting those projects. Proponents insist that’s not a state takeover of the process, but opponents worry it’s a first step. Then, throw in concern coming out of Appalachian Power territory in the western part of the state about high electric bills — which led to multiple bills from Republican legislators looking for ways to freeze or reduce those.
The current score: The Clean Economy Act remains intact, and likely will as long as Democrats control the legislature. The most controversial bill on solar siting was unexpectedly killed in the Senate when one Democrat voted with Republicans. After a late flurry of action Tuesday, two bills dealing with Appalachian Power rates passed their respective chambers, although the versions differ. See the story by Cardinal’s Matt Busse for the details. Some bills requiring site assessments for data centers also passed each chamber.
Whatever the outcome of these particular bills, it’s likely that issues related to energy production — and energy demand, particularly by data centers — will occupy a lot of legislative time in coming years. They also likely occupy a lot of campaign time this fall; Republicans have signaled that they’ll make the case that the Clean Economy Act is driving up electric bills. Whether that’s really the problem is a matter of dispute, but there’s no dispute that this will be a Republican line of attack.
6. The shadow of Trump looms over Richmond
Democrats are nervous about what President Donald Trump might do about Medicaid. State Sen. Creigh Deeds, D-Charlottesville, has warned that if Medicaid funding is reduced, a special session might be necessary to reorder the budget because the state might have to make up the difference. We saw some of the fallout from that in the budgets the two money committees released Sunday. Youngkin had promised $127 million toward helping localities in Southwest Virginia recover from Hurricane Helene. Instead, both panels cut that to $25 million. Lucas told Radio IQ that this was due to uncertainty about what Trump might do, and how that would impact the state budget. That means localities that voted 70% or more for Trump (and in some cases 80% or more) will get less funding because of what their preferred candidate might do in office.
7. Mixed results for Southwest and Southside
How you feel about this session so far likely depends on where you stand politically. When it comes to regional projects that aren’t partisan, the results are mixed. Youngkin zeroed out funding for the New College Institute in Martinsville for the second year of the budget; the Senate has stuck with that while the House has proposed $1 million. A proposal to study a possible expansion of Virginia Commonwealth University’s dental school into “Southern Virginia” was voted down. A bill to enable Bristol to deal with a blighted property — the former Virginia Intermont College — hit an unexpected roadblock in a House committee.
On the other hand, $25 million in state aid for Helene recovery is $25 million more than we have now. And there are some state investments in the region in one budget or another: $15 million for site preparation for an undisclosed economic development project in Pulaski County, $6.5 million to expand enrollment at the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine, $5 million for labs in Roanoke to aid the growth of the region’s life sciences sector. (You can read more about the budgets in this story by Cardinal’s Elizabeth Beyer.)
To fully evaluate this year’s session, we’ll need to wait — not just for the final gavel to fall, but to see what the governor inks his signature to.
Why is there a Canadian flag flying in Wytheville?
We’re apparently in a trade war with our neighbor to the north, so why is a flag from the other side flying in Wytheville? I’ll explain in this week’s edition of West of the Capital, our weekly political newsletter that goes out Friday.
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