Back in the saddle again

The political version of musical chairs — aka the 2024 General Assembly session — begins again in Richmond this month, as legislative control shifts once again to Democrats, who won majorities in the House of Delegates and the state Senate in the November 2023 elections.

Nevertheless, a 6-foot-5-inch Republican roadblock stands in the way of overly liberal legislation: Gov. Glenn Youngkin.

His presence guarantees that the next two years will not be a repeat of 2020-21, when Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam and his party held full control over the executive and legislative branches and passed perhaps the most progressive slate of legislation in state history — abolishing the death penalty, legalizing marijuana possession, increasing the state’s minimum wage and expanding voting rights and reproductive freedom.

In last fall’s race, abortion access was a major motivating force for Democratic voters, especially women, after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022. But political observers don’t expect many — if any — new laws regarding abortion rights in Virginia, because the Democratic majorities in the House and Senate are focused on preserving the state’s status quo, which allows abortions up to 26 weeks into a pregnancy.

As of early December 2023, Democrats had filed legislation pursuing a constitutional amendment that, if passed two years in a row by both houses and then by voters, would enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution — but not before 2026.

Some lawmakers and politics watchers see the possibility for less controversial compromises under Youngkin, who raised a lot of money and spent a lot of time stumping for candidates last fall in an unsuccessful attempt at gaining Republican legislative control. Speaking the day after Election Day, the governor sounded a conciliatory note, saying he would work with Democrats, adding, “I’m optimistic that we can continue to find a path forward.”

The upcoming General Assembly session, which convenes Jan. 10, will look different from any previous legislative gathering in Richmond. A statewide redistricting, coupled with every legislative seat being up for election in November 2023, resulted in an exodus of senior legislators, including former state Sens. Dick Saslaw, Janet Howell and Tommy Norment. It also caused significant turnover within the General Assembly, resulting in the most diverse legislature in state history, with more people of color and women in office than ever before. The new Assembly will include 25 Black delegates and seven Black senators, and 48 out of the 140 legislators will be women. Overall, there are 34 new delegates and 17 new senators. (Additionally, special elections are set for January to fill the seats of Del. Les Adams, R-Pittsylvania County, and Sen. Frank Ruff, R-Mecklenburg County, both of whom resigned in December. Adams said he was leaving to be available for another service opportunity; Ruff, who has served in the General Assembly since 1994 and was slated to be the senior Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, is fighting cancer.)

Significantly, Portsmouth Del. Don Scott will serve as Virginia’s first Black speaker of the House in the legislature’s 404-year history.

“The No. 1 thing I think the speaker’s job is not to be the speaker of the Democrats, not to be the speaker of the Republicans, but the speaker of the House — the people’s House — to handle the body on the floor with civility and respect,” says Scott, who was elected to the House in 2019 and was picked by House Democrats to serve as minority leader in 2022. “Obviously, we’re going to have heated debate, vociferous arguments, but all within the view that we are all here to do the same thing — to carry out our duties that our communities elected us to do, and to do it with the respect and dignity that the office has always provided.”

Karen Hult, a Virginia Tech political science professor, says, “There may be some narrow areas in which they can compromise. The difference [now], maybe, is that the new General Assembly members are probably a little bit more partisan than we’ve seen in the past two years. And they’re more distinct from each other.

“The other thing that I think may be important, that gives Gov. Youngkin the upper hand at least at the outset, is how many of the delegates and senators are new to the chamber. That means you’ve lost the institutional memory … and information on how things get done. On the other hand, you’ve got lots of new information and lots of new energy. That can be a good thing.”

Balancing the books

Pre-session rhetoric aside, legislators are bound by law to enact a balanced 2024-26 state budget, which the governor must ultimately sign. In 2023, the divided legislature was deadlocked on budget amendments until September, months past its deadline. Democrats in both houses shouldn’t encounter much disagreement on this year’s budget, but the governor is a different matter entirely.

On Dec. 20, 2023, Youngkin was set to submit his proposed state budget, which will serve as the framework of the finalized budget following legislative adjustments. But the governor can veto Democrats’ changes to the budget, and the party doesn’t have the supermajorities necessary to override Youngkin’s veto.

Virginia Commonwealth University Associate Professor of Political Science Amanda Wintersieck predicts “absolute gridlock. I think in this highly polarized air, there isn’t really indication that there’s going to be a willingness to compromise to move legislation forward.”

One possible upside is that increased partisanship will result in fewer in-party disagreements, forecasts David Ramadan, a former GOP delegate and now a professor at George Mason University’s Schar School of Policy and Government.

“There used to always be a problem between the House and Senate, regardless of who’s in control, between the priorities in the House and the Senate. I doubt that’s going to happen here,” Ramadan says. “You will probably see the Democrats coalesce with no differences between them because they know their fight is with the governor.”

The Senate’s new majority leader, Fairfax County Sen. Scott Surovell, says the Democratic caucus’s budget priorities this session will include correcting “severe underfunding” of the state’s K-12 education system. A 2023 study by the Joint Legislative Audit & Review Commission (JLARC) showed that state funding of public schools is 14% below the national average, “which is completely unacceptable, given our state has the 10th highest median income in America,” Surovell says. Workforce training for high school graduates and increasing mental health funding are other priorities for Senate Democrats, he notes.

One area that could hit a roadblock from Youngkin would be Democratic proposals to raise the state’s minimum wage to $13.50 per hour by Jan. 1, 2025, and $15 an hour by 2026, up from the current minimum wage of $12.50.

Even though bipartisan cooperation may not be at the top of legislators’ agendas this session, the Senate Republicans’ minority leader, Sen. Ryan McDougle, says he has met frequently with Surovell and other Democratic leaders ahead of the 2024 session. “We do tend to work together to try to come up with solutions,” McDougle says. “I think we’re going to all work together to pass a budget. We’re all concerned and focused on education … and mental health.”

But with less surplus revenue anticipated this year, as well as the political shift in the House, Youngkin’s desired corporate tax cuts are likely not to be part of that budget. Scott says it’s a no-go for him, just like it was last year for some members of the GOP legislative budget leadership, who backed down on Youngkin’s proposed permanent corporate tax rebates during last year’s budget negotiations.

“Prior to any tax cuts, Virginia was doing very well,” Scott says. “We attracted Amazon HQ2 without corporate tax cuts,” as well as Lego Group and Boeing, he adds. “I think, in combination with the governor’s true business acumen, along with commonsense policies for everyday hardworking Virginians, we could make some change. I’ll be shocked if we don’t get a budget in on time.”

Areas for compromise

Scott also anticipates that the legislature will fill two vacant State Corporation Commission judgeships, appointments that have been held up by partisan bickering over the past two years.

Transportation infrastructure, economic development, opioid treatment, mental health access and higher living expenses are other areas where Scott says he sees room for bipartisan cooperation, as well as lowering prescription drug prices.

Another area that may see joint support is Youngkin’s budget proposal to allocate $90 million in one-time funds to create “Virginia’s Research Triangle,” a network between the University of Virginia, Virginia Commonwealth University and Virginia Tech to build collaboration in biotechnology, life sciences and pharmaceutical manufacturing and compete with other East Coast hubs such as North Carolina’s Research Triangle or Boston’s biotech industry.

Also under legislative consideration is a proposed state authority that would own a new $2 billion entertainment district in Alexandria, including an arena for the Washington Capitals and the Washington Wizards teams (see related story). 

Energy — including legislation regarding renewable sources and grid reliability — will also be a priority this session, Republicans and Democrats say.

Greg Habeeb, a former Republican delegate who is president of Gentry Locke Consulting and an energy and cannabis lobbyist now, says diversifying energy sources is important to both parties. Solar and offshore wind, as well as nuclear energy, which the governor has championed, are all going to be part of important discussions during the session, Habeeb predicts.

Ramadan says that legislators who accepted campaign financing from Dominion Energy or Clean Virginia — a PAC created by Charlottesville millionaire Michael Bills to dilute the utility’s political influence — could form interesting bipartisan alliances on energy legislation. “I have no idea how that’s going to play,” Ramadan says.

Also, two new delegates representing Prince William County — Democrat Josh Thomas and Republican Ian Lovejoy — join newly elected Democratic Sen. Danica Roem, who previously represented the county as a delegate, in pushing for stronger state oversight of the data center industry, which added more than $54 billion to Virginia’s gross domestic product from 2017 to 2021, according to a PricewaterhouseCoopers study released in 2023.

Prince William has been the epicenter of public opposition to data center growth in recent months; Roem, who spoke out last year against the controversial Digital Gateway data center complex that was approved in December (see related story), announced she will sponsor five pieces of legislation to add more state regulation over the fast-growing industry.

Another area for compromise, adds Habeeb, who represents the Virginia Cannabis Association as a lobbyist, may include legalizing retail sales of cannabis to adults without a medical prescription.

When Democrats legalized cannabis in 2021, they said they’d return to the matter in the 2022 session to create a retail structure for recreational purchases. But when Republicans won the governorship and the House in 2021, weed legislation was off the table. However, Habeeb says there’s an opening now.

“Everybody seems to agree that the status quo doesn’t work,” he says. “This idea that you can have homegrown [marijuana], legal consumption, legal possession [and] an exploding black market and gray market for intoxicating products and do nothing about it, everybody seems to agree that that doesn’t work in any kind of long-term sustainable way.”

As of early December, Youngkin had not taken a public position on establishing or opposing a legal cannabis retail market, although in July, Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services Commissioner Joseph Guthrie, a Youngkin appointee, said the governor is “not interested” in further cannabis legislation. That’s not true of everyone in the GOP, though.

In the state Senate, McDougle says that although he and other Republicans don’t support legal cannabis sales, he sees a problem with Virginia’s lack of a retail structure. “Our system right now doesn’t let anybody know what the rules are, and that’s not tenable. So … I do think we need to make it a system so Virginians know what the rules are. I think we’ll come together and work across party lines.”

Surovell agrees, saying, “We have to do something about starting a retail cannabis market … so we have safe products in the market … [that are] taxed and licensed like most other Virginia businesses.”

JM Pedini, executive director of Virginia NORML, the state chapter of the pro-cannabis organization, says that Virginia’s illicit marijuana market increased from $1.8 billion in 2020 to a projected $2.4 billion in 2023, according to New Frontier Data, a group that studies the cannabis industry.

“Democrats controlling the House and Senate does create a path for an adult-use retail sales bill to reach the governor’s desk. While members of the Youngkin administration have made statements regarding the governor’s opposition to legalization, Youngkin himself has largely been silent on cannabis policy, instead indicating it is the responsibility of the legislature to send him a bill,” Pedini adds.

“It’s important to recognize that without the supermajority required to overturn a Youngkin veto, any serious adult-use retail legislation must be both pragmatic and palatable in order to succeed. It should be easy to read, narrow in scope and have strong bipartisan support.”