While many Americans are focused on the various legal challenges facing the former President and regional wars around the world (when they’re not worrying about the Deep State plot involving Taylor Swift, Travis Kelce, and the rigging of the Superbowl), the Virginia General Assembly is quietly going about the business of governing.
Here’s a bit of background. Virginia holds statewide elections in odd-numbered years. The 100-member House of Delegates runs every odd-numbered year, the 40-member State Senate runs every four years in the year BEFORE a presidential election, and the state executives (Governor, Lt. Governor, and Attorney General) run every four years in the year AFTER a presidential election. Got it?
The General Assembly elections in November of 2023 produced slender majorities for the Democrats in both houses (House – 51D, 49R, Senate – 21D, 19R), while the state’s Executive Branch remained in the hands of the GOP (Glenn Youngkin was elected governor in 2021, and Virginia governors cannot run for a second consecutive term.) The last time the Democrats controlled both houses of the General Assembly the governor was also a Democrat (Terry McAuliffe), and they moved Virginia in a dramatically more progressive direction. In the next session, the Democrats held on only to the state Senate, which served as the “brick wall caucus” to keep the GOP from rolling back the accomplishments of their years in power. This session, the Democrats have been able to pass legislation through both houses, putting Youngkin in the position of publicly opposing legislative actions that are popular among voters.
The Virginia General Assembly is a part-time legislature; the current session began on January 10 and will end on March 9. So we’re halfway through the process; February 13 is “cross-over day,” the deadline for each chamber to complete work on legislation originating in that chamber (except for the budget bill). What this means in practice is that by that date we’ll have a pretty good idea about what pieces of legislation have a chance of passing this year.
With that background, this article takes a look at how the General Assembly is dealing with an issue that is of great importance across the country – affordable housing. A Virginia legislative report in 2021 found a declining number of Virginians can afford to buy a home, and that households in the part of Virginia where I lived are more likely to be cost-burdened by housing costs than any other region in the state. Locally, households spend more than 30% of their income on housing.
The bill that is the focus of this article is about rent-gouging; it would limit the amount landlords could increase rent in a year to no more than the percentage increase in the consumer price index, among other provisions. This bill was voted out of committee last Friday and is expected to be brought up for a vote on the floor of the House of Delegates before cross-over day so that it can go on to the Senate. The article didn’t include any assessment of the likelihood of Youngkin signing the piece of legislation after it passes the Senate.
A second bill would give localities the authority to sue negligent landlords to fix problems that endanger tenants’ health or safety. This bill had been considered in the 2022 legislative session but was unexpectedly vetoed by Governor Youngkin. We need to remember that this was at a time when Youngkin was the flavor of the month for who would rescue the GOP from its MAGA base. Youngkin, a multi-millionaire, campaigned in a fleece vest to illustrate that he was just a regular guy. The bill has bipartisan support again this year, and, since Youngkin’s star faded when the recent elections repudiated the right-wing sector of the state legislature, there is some hope that he will sign the bill this year.
A third bill was continued to 2025. It would have eliminated red tape to make it easier for religious institutions to build on-site affordable housing on land they already own. The bill was referred to the Virginia Housing Commission for further study.
The strategy of the Democrats in the General Assembly is much like the strategy of Democrats in the United States Congress: to focus on governing – doing the work of legislating – while the GOP dithers and obstructs. The article doesn’t talk about the 2025 gubernatorial elections, but the campaign is already shaping up. So far, two Democrats have announced their candidacies – Representative Abigail Spanberger and Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney. No Republicans have announced their candidacies yet, although it is expected that Amanda Chase (a MAGA Republican whose extremist ideas were repudiated by the Virginia GOP when she ran for her party’s nomination for governor in 2021) and current Attorney General Jason Miyares. It’s hard to summarize Miyares’ positions on a wide variety of issues. Still, you can see where he’s coming from in the following statement he issued last week in support of Texas Governor Abbott’s rejection of a Supreme Court ruling about enforcement at the southern border of the United States:
Since President Biden took office, more than six million undocumented migrants have crossed the southern border. This unchecked invasion poses a grave threat to national security and fuels the surge in drug and human trafficking. In the face of this unprecedented influx of migrants, the Biden Administration’s actions have worsened the crisis, rather than mitigate it. Border Patrol agents acting on the Biden Administration’s orders cut Texas’s border defense wires more than 20 times in just one month. In one shocking case, they even used a forklift to raise the wire and usher in more than 300 undocumented migrants.
With the Biden Administration failing to fulfill its responsibility and secure our border, states like Texas have taken decisive action, stepping up to protect their citizens. A federal district court found that Texas’s border defense wires reduced illegal border crossings by more than two-thirds. These barriers protect not just Texans from millions of illegal border crossings, but the rest of the nation as well.
“The time for action is now. The Biden Administration must either fulfill its duty to enforce the laws that secure our southern border, or states like Texas will use their constitutional authority to address this invasion themselves and protect their citizens.”
If you live in Virginia, you need to be paying attention to what’s going on in this session of the General Assembly. If you live in another state, find out when their legislature meets, identify your representatives, and make yourself known to them. Your efforts to influence how your representatives vote are much more effective at the state level than at the national level. The average member of Congress represents a constituency of about 750,000 people; the average member of the Virginia House of Delegates, for example, represents about 86,000 people. The ratio in other states varies, but a five-minute Google search can reveal the ratio in your state.
National politics tends to suck all of the oxygen from the room, but the issues controlled by state legislatures have a more immediate impact on your everyday life.
Important stuff. Thanks.
Darned right. I'm checking those bills.