By Morgan Sweeney
(The Center Square) — Gov. Glenn Youngkin signed Virginia’s budget for fiscal years 2025-2026 Monday after the state’s General Assembly voted to pass it in a special session convened for that purpose.
The $188 billion biennial budget was agreed upon at the tail end of last week after protracted and extensive negotiations between Youngkin and conferees.
Despite the Republican governor holding the line and not allowing taxes to be increased, he and the Democratic-majority General Assembly were able to reach a compromise due in large part to general fund revenues to date exceeding forecasts. They’re currently expected to surpass original projections for the year by over $1 billion.
“While Virginians’ elected officials can sometimes be far apart on policy, today demonstrates and reiterates that we can come together to deliver for the Commonwealth. This budget resolution was empowered by the strength of our labor market, with more Virginians working than ever before and investments by businesses large and small that have fueled record revenues for the Commonwealth,” Youngkin said in a statement.
Democrats tried to include a digital sales tax in the compromise budget – something they adopted from Youngkin’s December budget proposal – but the governor objected to the tax without the accompanying tax breaks he had included in his introduced budget.
While the sales tax would have increased revenues by over $1 billion, the budget passed Monday relies on $525 million from excess revenues to help implement some Democratic priorities.
Chair of the Senate finance committee Sen. Louise Lucas, D-Portsmouth – one of the most vocal critics of some of Youngkin’s budget proposals and goals – lauded the conferees’ work and praised the final product.
“I want to take this moment to thank the conferees and the committee staff for their hard work and dedication,” Lucas said. “There’s a lot to love about this budget…. This is a win for the commonwealth.”
The budget includes 3% raises for teachers and state government employees each year and increased funding for K-12 schools and higher education. It also includes additional funding for law enforcement, mental health and substance abuse treatment services, transportation and conservation, among other initiatives.
Notably, the budget lacks one other item for which Democrats fought intensely: Looping Virginia back into the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. On Youngkin’s first day in office, he issued an executive order to sever Virginia’s ties with the initiative, viewing it as a burden to Virginia’s pro-business environment and as a “backdoor tax” to residents whose energy bills could be raised by utilities trying to recoup costs.
Legislation making Virginia a part of the Initiative was passed in 2020. The Initiative attaches a cost to CO2 emissions. Participating states – a coalition of 11 Northeastern states before Virginia joined – place limits on how many CO2 emissions power plants can produce. Plants can purchase emissions credits if they need more allowable emissions or risk penalties and fines. A lawsuit claiming Youngkin acted outside the scope of his powers as governor by effectively repealing passed legislation through executive action is ongoing.
Del. Richard Sullivan, D-Fairfax, lamented the death of Democrats’ efforts to incorporate RGGI back into Virginia policy through the budget from the floor – while vowing to resurrect it in the future.
“I will vote today for the budget, Mr. Speaker, because of the long list of important advances it makes for the commonwealth. But my vote will be tempered by great disappointment at an opportunity squandered by our governor,” Sullivan said. “Also my vote will be filled with resolve to get Virginia back into RGGI just as soon as possible. This is not over.”
Republicans aren’t thrilled with many aspects of the freshly approved budget, but most voted to pass it.
“While the budget isn’t what a Republican House of Delegates would have produced, the document signed by the Governor today is a significant improvement over the budget sent to him at the end of the regular session,” said House Minority Leader Del. Todd Gilbert, R-Shenandoah, in a statement.
“Today’s budget contains no tax increases and does not require that Virginia rejoin the failed Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. It reflects compromise, with both sides dealing in good faith to meet our most basic responsibility,” Gilbert said
If lawmakers had not been able to compromise with the governor by June 30, Virginia would have been at risk of a government shutdown.
By Morgan Sweeney
(The Center Square) — Gov. Glenn Youngkin signed 100 bills into law on Tuesday and vetoed four, bringing his tally so far this session to over 360 bills signed and a record 132 vetoed.
In addition to his vetoes, this batch included more Democrat-sponsored legislation, several health care bills, and an anti-discrimination bill lauded by the governor.
With the Democratic majority in the General Assembly, the percentage of Democratic legislation the governor signs in each round of bill action will likely continue to grow. Youngkin is almost halfway through the legislation sent to him by the body, but both the House of Delegates and the Senate passed substantially more legislation patroned by Democrats than Republicans.
Thus far, signed Democratic legislation hadn’t drastically outpaced signed Republican legislation, but on Tuesday, the governor signed 62 more Democratic bills than Republican. All of the governor’s vetoes, however, have been Democratic legislation.
One of the health care bills responded to recommendations made by the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission, which conducts reviews on the effectiveness of state agencies and policies.
In December, the Commission released a report on Virginia’s state psychiatric hospitals, revealing turnover rates much higher than those for most state government employers. This was due to staff feeling unsafe at work, as well as some uncompetitive pay. House Bill 806, introduced by Del. Sam Rasoul, D-Roanoke, partially addresses the problem by requiring nursing staff and psychiatric technicians who work at least 36 hours per week to be designated as full-time employees. The bill also attempts to add some employee pay and benefits protections.
HB 503, patroned by Laura Cohen, D-Fairfax, dictates that licensed behavior analysts be included in the commonwealth’s definition of “credentialed addiction treatment professionals,” to help meet the demand for addiction treatment. No organizations or individuals testified against the bill when it was presented to the committee or subcommittee.
House Bills 314 and 515 both concern state hospitals’ discharging practices.
Several others aim to improve Virginia’s health insurance landscape, updating reporting requirements and penalties for noncompliance for pharmacy benefit managers, prioritizing premium reduction targets for the Commonwealth Health Reinsurance Program, and regulating insurance companies’ interference with patients’ prescription drug coverage.
HB 1085, also patroned by Rasoul, establishes a PFAS Expert Advisory Committee to aid the state in reporting and containment of per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or “forever chemicals.”
In the press release from his office regarding his latest signing session, the governor celebrated signing HB 18 and Senate Bill 7, companion hate-crime and discrimination bills, tying them into his efforts to combat anti-semitism.
“As one of my first executive orders, I formed the Commission to Combat Antisemitism, which issued a recommendation that Virginia revise its laws to ensure Jewish Virginians are protected from hate crimes, along with Muslims, Sikhs and other ethnic and religious groups. Today, after two years of hard work, I’m pleased to sign SB7 and HB18 which codify that recommendation,” Youngkin said.
The bills were sponsored by Sen. Bryce Reeves, R-Orange, in the Senate and Del. Dan Helmer, D-Fairfax, in the House.
Youngkin vetoed bills requiring the state Board of Education to create and adopt model policies on climate change curriculum and enforcing penalties for retail sellers of unmarked invasive plant species, as well as a bill from Sen. Ghazala Hashmi, D-Chesterfield, enabling academic research on aggregated district court case data.
“[We wanted to allow] those kids who grew up and had a dream to be a police officer,” State Senator Jeremy McPike (D) WFTF Radio. “And what happened was the governor just crushed those kids’ dreams.”
“Peter Newsham, Chief of Police for Prince William County, also advocated for McPike’s bill. He said his jurisdiction is the most diverse part of the state and having Spanish speakers, let alone DACA recipients, on staff can help reach communities that are afraid to speak to cops.”
“As passed, the budget doesn’t just remove Youngkin’s income tax rate reductions while keeping an expanded sales tax on certain digital transactions, it ups the ante. Their budget expands the sales tax to include business-to-business transactions which are typically untaxed because taxing them only results in “pyramiding” — piling on costs at every stage of completing the final consumer product, with those costs passed on to consumers,” writes Chris Braunlich at The Jefferson Journal.
Delegate Ian Lovejoy (R-22, Prince William County) was one of the few Virginia lawmakers who passed any new legislation on fentanyl. This deadly drug kills four to five Virginians a day.
The bill, awaiting Governor Glenn Youngkin’s signature, standardizes how children. “We’re seeing fentanyl dig deeper and earlier and younger into the school system.
More than 1,500 children and teenagers under the age of 20 died from fentanyl in 2021, four times as many as in 2018, reported Science News in April 2023.
Despite that fact, Democrats in Richmond aren’t doing much to combat the deaths, said Lovejoy.
“Democrats are afraid to add new crimes to the books because they don’t want to piss off their base,” said Lovejoy. “No laws got stricter about any crimes. No new crimes were created. We only weakened offenses in the code.”
On Tuesday, Abigail Spanberger (D-Va., 7th. Prince William, Stafford, Fredericksburg) joined Prince William County Police Chief Peter Newsham in Woodbridge to warn about the dangers of smoking fentanyl through a straw, which is an increasing number of people who consume the drug way of using the drug, reports Insidenova.com.
Spanberger used the press conference to which Potomac Local was not invited to talk about her new bill, Dubbed the Targeting Online Sales of Fentanyl Act. The bill would require the U.S. Government Accountability Office to investigate the methods used to enable the online sale of fentanyl and assess efforts by federal law enforcement and online providers to combat the practice.
Lovejoy said Spanberger toured the halls of the Virginia Capital multiple times during the 2024 General Assembly session, which ended March 9, and notes she failed to lobby any Democrats in the House to pass new legislation combating fentanyl.
In addition to curbing fentanyl use, Democrats failed to strengthen the penalties for drug dealers whose fentanyl kills its users. A Senate bill that would have upped the charge to felony homicide died in the Senate Courts of Justice Committee, with local Democrats Scott Surrovell (Fairfax) and Jennifer Carroll Foy (Prince William County) voting to kill it.
“I think that’s when she should have sat down with her democratic colleagues and said, ‘We need to move the ball forward on meaningful fentanyl legislation.’ She could have been very public about it, signaling that she wants and supports more aggressive fentanyl legislation, and she was mute on all those issues,” said Lovejoy.
Lovejoy, a freshman in the House of Delegates and the only Republican Delegate in Northern Virginia agreed to a wide-ranging interview about his first General Assembly session. We’ll bring more of that to you in the coming days.
(The Center Square) — The use of a male pronoun interrupted the Virginia Senate’s proceedings on Monday.
The state’s first senator to openly identify as transgender, Sen. Danica Roem, D-Prince William, addressed Lt. Gov. Winsome Sears, who presides over the chamber, with some questions. Sears seemingly offhandedly referred to Roem as “sir” in her second response to the senator.
Roem quietly and immediately left the chamber. After a few moments, several other senators also rose and left. Sears tried to continue with the agenda but obliged when Sen. Scott Surovell, D-Fairfax, requested a recess. They reconvened minutes later, but the commotion still appeared to be interfering with the Senate’s business, so Sears put the Senate at ease.
“Let it be known, I am not here to upset anyone. I am here to do the job that the people of Virginia have called me to do,” she said.
She softened some as she went on but still demanded that she be shown “respect and dignity,” appearing frustrated with the interruptions from the incident.
“It is never my intention to make anyone offended, and I hope that others would consider that they would try not to offend me, as well.”
She also exhorted the body to show grace to each other in such instances.
The chamber returned to its normal proceedings.
Roem did not make a public statement on Monday and was silent on X, formerly known as Twitter, where legislators sometimes comment on chamber business.
“My district is hurting. This issue has torn apart our community,” Thomas lamented before the committee’s vote.
Kathy Kulick of the HOA Roundtable highlighted the contentious nature of the issue and emphasized the potential conflict between economic interests and environmental concerns. Kulick pointed out the influence and intimidation of the data center industry on localities, highlighting the need for state-level legislation to guide land use change requests.
“Localities are being overwhelmed by the enormous financial influence and intimidation of the industry,” Kulick told Potomac Local.
Chap Petersen, representing residents in a lawsuit against the Prince William Board of County Supervisors over the PW Digital Gateway development, echoed concerns about the data center industry’s overwhelming impact on rural areas. Petersen criticized the General Assembly’s inaction, emphasizing the environmental cost and the need for immediate legislative measures.
“The data center industry is overwhelming the Rural Crescent in Virginia. The environmental cost will be incalculable,” said the lawyer and former Democratic State Senator from Fairfax. “The General Assembly has done nothing for years. To defer the issue for ‘more study’ is a joke.”
The ongoing legal battle over the PW Digital Gateway development, approved by Prince William supervisors in December 2023, underscores the high stakes. Residents, supported by organizations like the American Battlefield Trust, argue that approving massive data centers near historical sites like the Manassas Battlefield National Park would irreversibly alter the region’s character and damage its historical significance, Insidenova.com reports.Â
The rezoning vote in December cleared the way for two companies, QTS and Compass Datacenters, Inc., to build the nearly 100-foot tall data center buildings on what has been billed as the world’s most significant data center complex, on nearly 900 acres next to the battlefield, a tourist magnet, and the site of the first major Civil War battle in 1861.
“Multiple Democrat-sponsored pieces of gun legislation aimed at strengthening firearm laws advanced in Virginia’s House of Delegates this week,” reports Morgan Sweeney at The Center Square. “A bill to watch this legislative session sponsored by Del. Dan Helmer, D-Fairfax, House bill 2 creates a class 1 misdemeanor for any person who imports, sells, manufactures, purchases, possesses, transports or transfers an assault firearm and prohibits anyone convicted of such violation from purchasing, possessing or transporting a firearm for three years from the date of conviction.”
