January 11th marked the start of my 10th General Assembly Session. The day before the session, on January 10th, Holly Seibold and Aaron Rouse won in the 35th House District and the 7th Senate District seat, respectively. Aaron Rouse’s victory expands the Democratic majority in the Senate and assures a […]

Protecting rights to abortion care is the reason I am in the General Assembly today. That’s how I opened my May column, when we only had a leaked draft Supreme Court opinion indicating that, in spite of their assurances to the contrary, recently confirmed justices were prepared to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Last week, Governor Youngkin hit the six-month anniversary of his inauguration, completing 1/8 of his term. But who’s counting? Fortunately, he can’t be re-elected under Virginia’s constitution.

On July 1 each year most of the bills passed by the General Assembly during their winter legislative session become law. With the levers of power in Virginia divided between Democrats and Republicans in 2022, citizens won’t see many of the sweeping progressive changes like those we’ve experienced the last two years (things like elimination of the death penalty, local control over firearms restrictions and legalization of marijuana) nor will they see major backsliding on that progress. That said, there are some new laws that went into effect this week that folks may want to take note of.

I typically focus my June column on the bills that passed during the most recent General Assembly Session, since the laws we pass during our regular session are effective on July 1st and July 1st is the first day of the fiscal year, the date on which the new budget becomes effective. This year we are running a little bit behind. We finished the regular session in March without a budget, forcing the new Governor to call us back for a Special Session on April 4th.