The first full week of the 2026 legislative session included swearing in new legislators from special election wins, subcommittees and full committees having organizational meetings, and starting to take up bills, focused largely still on those vetoed by Youngkin last year.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK,  After the standard “sky is falling” complaints by the GOP delegates about completing the last step of raising the minimum wage to $15, Delegate Sullivan called out a little hypocrisy: I remember when you first brought this bill…and we were told this was going to tank our economy, this was going to cause economic chaos in Virginia, and drive businesses from Virginia. And then for the last four years, every year, the Governor came to us and talked about how Virginia was doing great. Jobs were up, wages were up, businesses were coming to Virginia. And this great cataclysm that had been predicted because we were raising the minimum wage just a little bit for people at the lower end of the income scale never came to pass. 

Reuse, recycle…bills that is

A handful of bills previously passed through the legislature many vetoed by Youngkin over the past couple years are now moving forward, out of committee, with the hopes of a friendlier gubernatorial pen.

• $15 minimum wage (HB1, Ward)
• class action lawsuits (SB229, Surovell)
• minimum age of adjudication delinquent (SB18, Locke)
• free school breakfast (HB96, Bennett-Parker; SB4, Roem)
• restricting the use of solitary confinement (HB35, Cole)
• Income qualified energy efficiency and weatherization task force (HB3, LeVere Bolling)
• allow every locality to hold referendum on raising sales tax to fund school construction (HB334, Rasoul)
• data center site assessment requirements for rezoning (HB153, Thomas)
• rejoining (ERIC) Electronic Registration Information Center, (SB57, VanValkenburg)
• electric vehicle rural infrastructure program and fund (HB324, Sullivan)
• all localities must meet housing targets of 7.5% increase in stock (HB804, Helmer)

Ballot language for constitutional amendments

With the second reference passage of the four constitutional amendment resolutions last week, this week the “enabling” legislation dropped, which details how and when voters will have the opportunity to vote on these proposed constitutional changes.

Mid-decade redistricting: Assuming HB1384 (Torian) and SB769 (Lucas) pass, on a special election on April 21 voters will answer the question “Should the Constitution of Virginia be amended to allow the General Assembly to temporarily adopt new congressional districts to restore fairness in the upcoming elections, while ensuring Virginia’s standard redistricting process resumes for all future redistricting after the 2030 census?”

Reproductive freedom: Assuming HB781 (Herring) and SB449 (Boysko) pass, on the November 2026 ballot voters will answer the question “Should the Constitution of Virginia be amended to (i) protect the freedom to make personal decisions about prenatal care, childbirth, postpartum care, birth control, abortion, miscarriage management, and fertility care; (ii) protect doctors, nurses, and patients from being punished for these decisions; and (iii) allow for restrictions on access to abortion during the third trimester of pregnancy except when the patient’s health is at risk or the pregnancy cannot survive?”

Right to vote: Assuming HB963 (Price) and SB6 (Locke) pass, on the November ballot voters will answer the question “Should the Constitution of Virginia be amended (i) to provide for the fundamental right to vote in the Commonwealth, (ii) to revise the qualifications of voters so that a person convicted of a felony is not entitled to vote during his period of incarceration but is automatically invested with the right to vote upon release from incarceration, and (iii) to update the existing prohibition on voting by persons found to be mentally incompetent to instead apply to persons who have been found to lack the capacity to understand the act of voting?”

Marriage equality: Assuming HB612 (Cohen) and SB311 (Ebbin) pass, on the November ballot voters will answer the question “Should the Constitution of Virginia be amended to (i) remove the ban on same-sex marriage; (ii) affirm that two adults may marry regardless of sex, gender, or race; and (iii) require all legally valid marriages to be treated equally under the law?”

[For the wonky] Democrats play chess

The enabling legislation for the mid-decade redistricting is a creative one. First, because a special election to hold the referendum would come with costs, the legislation is an appropriations bill, which means, unlike ordinary legislation that would take effect July 1, too late for the referendum, this takes place immediately upon enaction.

The bill also contains several enactment clauses that address some of the court challenges that are already underway or expected:

• Repealing § 30-13 of Virginia Code–the part that required clerks of the court to post the language of proposed constitutional amendments on the courthouse doors three months before the vote, which they haven’t done for years anyway.
• Making that repeal retroactive to 1971, when Virginia wrote a new constitution to remove many Jim Crow laws and to modernize it’s constitution, including specifying how amendments would be done.
• It adds an enactment clause specifying that in any suit or action related to a constitutional amendment the only appropriate venue is the Circuit Court of the City of Richmond–including any already underway. (A case is underway at a court in Tazewell challenging the timing because of the above code section.)