On Wednesday, January 10, the 2024 Session of the Virginia General Assembly was gaveled to order by the Speaker of the House of Delegates and the Lieutenant Governor of Virginia. This year looks and feels a lot different than last. First, we are in our new General Assembly Building (GAB) on Capitol Square after about a 5-year hiatus. The "old" General Assembly was demolished, and a new building constructed from the ground up. During that time our legislative offices were in the Pocahontas Building down the hill from the Capitol. We now have a beautiful, welcoming legislative building of which we can all be proud.
New General Assembly Building
In addition to a new building, there are lots of new members in both chambers. With redistricting this year, it affected many legislators – some were drawn into districts with fellow legislators, some were drawn out of districts, and some were drawn into new districts. Because of all these shifts, we saw a number of retirements on the Senate side; many of whom had been serving and leading the Senate for decades. This year, we welcome 17 brand new legislators to the Senate.
Even though the Republicans gained one seat in the November election, the Senate is still controlled by a slim majority of Democrats – 21 to 19 and the House of Delegates is controlled by the Democrats with a majority of 51-49. With the legislature being in Democratic control and the Governor, Lt. Governor and Attorney General all being Republicans what does this mean? It means that there will be lots of noise but little substantive action on many high-profile bills. The Democrats are making a push for increased minimum wage, abortion on demand up to the moment of birth, and more restrictions on our Second Amendment rights. While many of these Democrat initiatives may GA, the Governor's Veto Pen is ready and is likely to get a workout this session.
Retirements and elections have left me the senior most Republican in the Senate. I'm proud to have been selected by my colleagues as Republican Caucus Chairman this year which means I'll be working closely with my friend the Senate Minority Leader, Senator Ryan McDougle on our strategy and planning for our Republican Caucus. I still remain a member of the Senate Committee for Courts of Justice, Commerce & Labor and Agriculture/Conservation & Natural Resources; and after a four-year absence, I am back on the Senate Finance Committee. I will serve on three Finance Subcommittees: Education, Health & Human Resources and Capital Outlay/Transportation. We will be very busy as we set the budget for the next two years.
Speaking of budget, this year is the first year Governor Youngkin gets to present his biennial budget. His priorities this year include personal income tax relief, repealing the Clean Car Act of 2021 which mandates all new cars sold in Virginia by 2035 to be electric, mental health investments, and his "Building Blocks'' childcare initiative to track supply and demand for childcare and to ensure that low-income families do not lose their financial support that the post-Covid ARPA funds provided. Since this is a 60-day session, there will be lots of budget discussion and debate between now and March 9- and I hope that our colleagues will complete our budget work over the course of the next 8 weeks.
Here's a quick preview of some of the legislation I introduced and will be working on during Session:
INTERSTATE 81
I have introduced a budget amendment that would allocate significant additional reserves over the next two years to jumpstart improvements to Interstate 81. I was the author of legislation in 2019 to create the I-81 Commission. Through the framework established in that legislation, VDOT developed a plan of improvements to improve and address choke points and dangerous sections of I-81. Last year, when we had a record budget surplus, the budget negotiators allocated $470 million of general fund dollars for construction on Interstate 64 between Williamsburg and Richmond. They included $0 of additional funding, however, for Interstate 81. This year, while I'm pleased the Governor included some new funding for I-81, it's not enough and it's not as much as has been allocated for Interstate 64. Everyone who lives in or travels the I-81 corridor knows how dangerous and unpredictable that vital highway has become. It is time for us to treat the need for I-81 improvements as a budget priority as opposed to an aspirational long-term goal.
LINE OF DUTY ACT
Over the past two years, we have had two tragic incidents (Bridgewater College and Wintergreen) where private college or private police force officers have given their lives to save others. These officers made the ultimate sacrifice yet because of the way the Code of Virginia is written, their families were not eligible for any Line of Duty Act death benefits. While I am pleased the Governor did budget amendments in the last two budgets to ensure these families receive the benefit, we need this codified, so these private college and university police departments and private police departments have the option of paying to participate in this benefit program. SB 466 does just that. Last year, my LODA bill passed the Senate unanimously, but died in the House. I am hopeful that this bill will make it to the Governor's desk this year.
I will be highlighting more of my legislation in the weeks to come. You can look here for a full list of my bills this year.
In addition to bills that I am sponsoring, I have also been responsible for voting on legislation both in committee and on the floor of the Senate. There have been a number of important bills that have been heard, which started with a vote in the Senate Agriculture Committee on Virginia's law to follow California's lead in mandating the sale of electric vehicles. A few years ago, the Democrat majority in the House and Senate passed a bill requiring Virginia to adopt electric vehicle mandates set by California bureaucrats and since then, we have been trying to roll back that law so that we have the autonomy to make our own decisions. Virginians should be free to drive the vehicles of their choice, not a vehicle mandated by an unelected bureaucrat in California. Despite our best attempts, the bill to repeal this law failed.
Another issue that came before a committee on which I sit, in this case the Senate Courts of Justice Committee, dealt with increased penalties for drug dealers found guilty of dealing deadly drugs. Senator McDougle introduced legislation to crack down on the epidemic of fentanyl that is causing overdoses and killing our children. Under this bill, a drug dealer causing the death of a customer with fentanyl laced drugs would be guilty of murder—period. Unfortunately, a majority of Democrats on the Courts of Justice committee voted to kill this bill.
A third issue that came up, not in a committee on which I sit but on an issue about which I've deeply cared, is the topic of election integrity. Senator Mark Peake from Lynchburg brought a number of bills which dealt with protecting our elections, including a bill requiring photo ID in order to vote. Unfortunately, all five of these election integrity bills died in committee.
Lastly, this past Monday, a number of pro and anti-Second Amendment bills were heard in the Courts of Justice Committee. A number of them would have severely limited our 2A rights and a Democrat majority on the committee voted to pass those onto the full Senate. And all of the bills that sought to protect our right to bear arms were killed.
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