Government | Politics 2023: BARRY KNIGHT

As one of the state’s budget leaders, Knight has been caught up in an election-year tug-of-war that, as of August, prevented an amended 2022-24 budget, despite a $5.1 billion state revenue surplus.

Knight is a Virginia Beach Republican who chairs the House of Delegates’ powerful Appropriations Committee, which is charged with finalizing the state’s budget with the Democratic-controlled Senate Finance and Appropriations Committee. However, negotiations this year dragged on past the July 1 deadline, much to the annoyance of Knight and Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin. “If this thing continues to drag on, we may as well just wait for the new budget to come out,” Knight said in late July. 

A hog farmer who was vice president of the Virginia Beach Farm Bureau, Knight was first elected to the House of Delegates in 2009. He’s garnered praise as a legislator from the Virginia Agribusiness Council and the Virginia Soil and Water Conservation Board, among others. In 2023, he patroned legislation for Eastern Virginia Medical Center’s merger with Old Dominion University.

FAVORITE SPORTS TEAM: My two grandsons’ T-ball team

SOMEWHERE I’D LIKE TO VISIT: Christmas Island, to go bonefishing