What to expect from the 2025 Va. General Assembly

The General Assembly enters the fourth year in the gubernatorial cycle with even more gridlock than usual.

Democrats hold narrow majorities in both the House of Delegates and Senate, but are vulnerable to vetoes by Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin, who begins the final year of his constitutionally mandated single term.

Hopes for bipartisan compromise were dealt an additional blow by last year’s spat between Youngkin and Democrats in which the legislature killed the governor’s plan to build a $2 billion arena in Alexandria for the NBA’s Washington Wizards and the NHL’s Washington Capitals — mockingly dismissed by Democratic Sen. Louise Lucas as the “Glenn Dome.” Youngkin retaliated by vetoing legislation to establish a state- regulated marketplace for marijuana and to raise the commonwealth’s minimum wage.

Additionally, every seat in the House of Delegates is up for election this November. Those factors lessen the chance the General Assembly will pass significant legislation in a short, six-week session that’s considered the least productive of the four-year cycle.

“What can be put off will be put off,” says political scientist Stephen Farnsworth of the University of Mary Washington. “Expect a session where not much changes. Everybody’s looking ahead to the next election, so they’re not really interested in doing anything that’s going to make their path to another term more difficult.”

This year marks the final chance for Youngkin to notch a signature legislative win. He begins the session with some momentum coming off Virginia’s return to the top of CNBC’s Top States for Business rankings.

Then in November 2024, Youngkin announced that Tennessee-based Microporous would build a $1.35 billion factory to make battery separators at the Southern Virginia Megasite at Berry Hill in Pittsylvania County, creating 2,015 jobs.

“The momentum that Virginia has isn’t happening by chance,” Youngkin says. “It’s happening because we have systematically moved on the most important levers to drive job growth, to reduce regulations and create a business-friendly environment, to raise expectations of excellence in schools, to bring crime down and to make Virginia’s government run more efficiently. … My priorities heading into the General Assembly session [are] to do more.”

Those priorities, however, can be blocked when they clash with those of the Democratic majorities in the General Assembly.

“Virginia is the best state for business because we’ve made smart, long-term investments in education, infrastructure and workforce development,” says Lucas. “Now, we must build on that foundation by fully funding K-12 education, expanding access to affordable child care and strengthening workforce programs to prepare our people for a changing economy.”

Experts say to expect partisan gridlock to continue this year ahead of the 2025 elections.

“We’re looking at an environment where the session will be about scoring points for the gubernatorial election to come,” says Farnsworth. “Democrats will have very little interest in reaching agreement with the governor and vice versa. Both Democrats and Republicans benefit from demonstrating how horrible the other side is, so one can expect a session that includes a lot of heat but not a lot of legislating.”

Trump card

The General Assembly also might be faced with fallout from Donald Trump’s victory in the 2024 presidential race. Trump promised to shake up the federal government, shifting numerous agencies and departments away from Washington, D.C., and replacing longtime employees with administration loyalists. Such moves could have a disproportionate effect on Virginia and its more than 140,000 federal workers.

Youngkin says the state’s job growth should be sufficient to accommodate federal workers fired by the Trump administration.

“The federal government is bloated, and there’s tremendous opportunities to save taxpayers money by running the federal government much more efficiently,” Youngkin says. “For folks that live in Virginia, while there might be some impact in that, there’s tremendous opportunities in Virginia. We have nearly 300,000 jobs currently posted in Virginia that are unfilled.”

However, in a November 2024 interview, U.S. Sen. Mark Warner told Virginia Business that massive federal job cuts or relocations would be a “disaster for Virginia’s economy,” particularly in Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads. “We would get hit worse than any other state,” Virginia’s senior senator said.

Virginia Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Barry DuVal says while he’s optimistic about some of the new Trump administration’s potential economic policies, he is concerned about the possible workforce impact on the commonwealth. “If we had any concerns in terms of economic profile,” says DuVal, “it would be around some of the uncertainty with regard to the location and potential relocation of federal workers.”

Other major sectors of Virginia’s economy that could be impacted by Trump’s return to the presidency include the energy industry. Trump promised to kill offshore wind development on day one of his second term, but state leaders don’t seem too concerned about the implications for Dominion Energy’s ongoing construction of its 2.6-gigawatt, $9.8 billion wind farm
27 miles off Virginia Beach.

“What the president has consistently said is that industries need to stand on their own two feet,” Youngkin says. “That project, which I monitor very closely, is currently on time, on budget. It will remain that way, and if not, then Dominion will bear the substantial penalty of any overruns.”

Energy state

Beyond the offshore wind farm, state lawmakers likely will debate lots of legislation related to energy, driven by increasing power demands and the state’s Clean Economy Act of 2020, which requires Dominion Energy and Appalachian Power to produce 100% of its energy from carbon-free sources by 2050.

“It’s a short session, and energy issues are taking up a lot of the energy right now,” says Democratic Sen. Creigh Deeds of Charlottesville. “We’re trying to figure out how to build the system to get us where we need to go in the Clean Economy Act and do it in such a way to produce renewable energy without consuming large amounts of farmland. It’s a challenge the whole way through.”

Despite Virginia’s clean energy goals, Dominion — like other utilities throughout the Southeast — has proposed building new gas-fired power plants to meet growing demand that the utility projects to double by 2039 in Virginia.

Most of that demand comes from the voracious appetite of Virginia’s exploding data center sector. The rapid expansion of data centers has Dominion planning new transmission lines and revising grid infrastructure.

Meanwhile, Amazon and Google both announced deals in November 2024 to pursue development of small modular nuclear reactors, and Appalachian Power identified a potential site in Campbell County to also build a small reactor.

Expect legislation to address spikes in power demand and consumer electric bills. Legislatures in other states have debated whether to restrict or better regulate data center development, and Virginia lawmakers may follow suit, although many back data centers for their financial contribution to local and state tax revenues.

“We’ll see dozens of bills about data centers,” says Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell of Fairfax County, although in December 2024 many lawmakers were still holding off filing bills in anticipation of a state legislative study on the topic.

Likewise, the General Assembly likely will hear a slate of bills to support or restrict various ways of generating power. Last year, lawmakers debated a measure to restrict localities that have increasingly blocked solar development, especially on farmland. That legislation likely will return, along with bills aimed at nuclear, natural gas, wind and other energy sources.

“Local governments have land-use control on some energy projects but not all,” says Deeds, who chairs the Senate Commerce and Labor Committee. “We have to be thinking about this thing not just as one locality and another but as a commonwealth and really as a nation. Data centers are a huge challenge, but right now data centers are more than 70% of capital investment in Virginia. As long as we’re dependent on the internet, on smart phones, we’re creating demand for data centers.”

There’s also the open question of Virginia’s participation in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a multistate carbon market that aims to cap carbon emissions in return for millions of dollars to alleviate flooding and improve energy efficiency. Youngkin tried to withdraw the state from RGGI, but in November 2024 was rebuked by a state judge, who ruled that only the General Assembly has “the authority to repeal the RGGI regulation.”

Affordable housing

Even in gridlocked sessions, the General Assembly tends to pass a large volume of bills with little or no opposition. And lawmakers from both parties have an incentive to work together on measures that reinforce the state’s CNBC ranking as the top state to do business.

In her reelection announcement, House Labor and Commerce Chair Del. Jeion Ward said her priorities include “advancing fair wages, strengthening workplace protections and promoting economic policies that benefit all Virginians.”

The Virginia Chamber of Commerce wants lawmakers to budget at least $50 million annually to the state’s program to prepare business-ready sites (a measure Youngkin has proposed), and $12.5 million to promote out-of-state marketing to attract economic prospects, DuVal says. The chamber also backs more investment in education and workforce development, especially for technical credentialing programs at community colleges.

Another goal for Virginia economic development proponents is to ensure the state’s growing workforce has a place to live. A lack of inventory and reluctance by homeowners to walk away from low-interest mortgages has slowed the housing market. A state study found Virginia has a housing supply for about 3.6 million residential units, but housing demand for 4.1 million units. Meanwhile, there’s a workforce-priced housing shortage of about 41,000 homes.

“We’re supportive of the governor and General Assembly working together to increase the supply and affordability of available housing,” DuVal says. “I had a roundtable with the governor and about 14 business leaders, and their No. 1 issue to help solve the workforce shortage was the governor doing something about affordable housing.”

In November 2024, Youngkin announced a Virginia Housing initiative to invest $75 million over five years to incentivize the construction of more workforce-priced housing. Democrats also want measures to address rental housing. “With nearly half of Virginia’s renters cost-burdened, too many families are struggling to put down roots,” Lucas says.

And some Republicans want to target regulations that add to the cost of a home. “Some localities are far too restrictive with the way they do housing development to allow the free market to fix this problem,” says House Minority Leader Todd Gilbert. “If you make it harder for people to keep providing housing, they’ll stop doing it.”

The Virginia Chamber of Commerce also supports state action on child care. It endorses an employee child care assistance program based on Kentucky’s model, which includes both state funding and employer funding to cover the cost of child care for employees.

Similarly, medical leave will likely arise as a business-related issue. In 2024, Democrats passed a paid state family medical leave program, but Youngkin vetoed it. The chamber opposed that particular bill in favor of a private sector model.

Most of the budget work was conducted during the 2024 session, but lawmakers this session must figure out how to fill a roughly $632 million shortfall in Medicaid funding. Youngkin says that with the state’s budget surplus, it shouldn’t be a problem, but lawmakers will need to hammer out details.

Lucas says that’s one of the General Assembly’s most important jobs this session: “We can’t afford partisan games when health care for our most vulnerable is on the line.”

Surovell says much depends on how Youngkin approaches the budget: “To the extent we have a conflict, it’s going to occur if the governor continues to insist on cutting taxes that fund essential services. You cut taxes during a recession, not when the economy’s booming.”

Casino royale

Other issues scramble traditional partisan alliances.

Virginia lawmakers have regularly considered casino legislation in recent years, beginning in 2020 when the General Assembly voted to allow casinos in Bristol, Danville, Norfolk, Portsmouth and Richmond, pending approvals from local referendums. Richmond voters twice rejected the proposal, and the General Assembly approved an additional casino for Petersburg, where more than 80% of voters endorsed the proposal in November 2024.

Now, advocates are pushing for approval for a casino in Virginia’s most populous locality: Fairfax County. Last year, a Senate committee considered a proposal to allow a casino referendum in Fairfax, but decided to hold the legislation over for a year. Since then, a coalition of worker unions lobbied the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors to endorse the idea, while another organization formed to oppose it.

Surovell, who’s carrying a Fairfax County casino bill, says Virginia needs to reclaim some of the revenue it’s losing from state residents visiting the MGM National Harbor Casino & Hotel in Maryland, just across the Potomac River from Alexandria.

“Fairfax County is currently undergoing a commercial real estate value implosion, which has severely undermined its tax revenues,” says Surovell. “A casino would generate at least $500 per household in additional tax revenue to help provide some tax relief to existing county households and businesses.”

Youngkin says the casino is “a very contentious issue in Northern Virginia” that will be a “hotly discussed topic by the General Assembly,” but he declines to take a stance on the question or say whether he would veto a measure to allow another casino in Virginia.

Lawmakers also are likely to revisit the legality of so-called “skill games.” Virginia currently bans electronic betting machines, but the industry has pushed for changes to allow skill games, which are like slot machines but allow players more control. Youngkin and lawmakers continued to discuss the issue even after the 2024 session ended. Georgia skill gaming company Pace-O-Matic has plunged into state politics to advocate for its machines, including a new version that two former Virginia attorneys general argue doesn’t violate the state ban.

Lawmakers appear likely to again pass legislation to establish a recreational marijuana market in Virginia. The General Assembly legalized recreational marijuana in 2020, allowing residents to grow and possess marijuana but not to sell it. Republican victories in 2021 delayed the passage of a follow-up bill to establish a recreational market, but Democrats reassumed control of the legislature in 2023 and passed such a bill in 2024. However, Youngkin vetoed the 2024 bill and appears likely to do so again, and Democrats don’t have a veto-proof majority in either chamber.

“It’s time to finish the job,” says J.M. Pedini,  development director of the National Organ-ization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) and executive director of the state branch. “It’s time to take marijuana off the street corner and put it behind an age-verified counter.”

The bottom line? “We have no reason to believe there will be any significant change from 2024,” Pedini says.

That appears to be the case with other issues that break sharply along partisan lines. In many cases, politicos are looking instead to the November elections, which already are taking shape.

In November 2024, Youngkin endorsed Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears for governor and Attorney General Jason Miyares for reelection. On the Democratic side, former U.S. Rep. Abigail Spanberger seems to have consolidated party support around her bid for governor. If Sears and Spanberger do emerge as the two parties’ nominees, Virginia will be all but assured of electing its first woman governor.

Meanwhile, multiple Democratic candidates are lining up to run for lieutenant governor, including state Sen. Ghazala Hashmi and Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney. Conservative radio host John Reid has expressed interest on the Republican side.