Week Six: End of Session (and Back to a Special)!
Today was the final day of the 2025 legislative session; but before they adjourned THIS session, the House met as part of the (ongoing) 2024 Special Session I, to vote on a resolution to expand its scope to stay in special session to deal with the crisis in Virginia from federal workers being terminated and programs being slashed. More to come!
QUOTE OF THE WEEK: GOP Senator Tammy Mulchi takes an opportunity to scold federal workers for not planning ahead for a random decimation of the entire federal workforce and possibly needing to rely on unemployment benefits: “These people are living off these big, fat contracts. When you sign that contract, it says this is based on a budget that could go away…and it’s not guaranteed. So…have a backup plan. If you don’t, you’re not very smart…that’s piss-poor planning. I’m gonna vote for this, cause if I don’t, it’s gonna be political suicide for me, but it’s not because I agree with taking care of people that didn’t plan.”
Most Democratic Priorities Passed:
- The biggest priority for this session was to pass all three Constitutional amendment resolutions. They don’t require the Governor’s signature, but DO need to pass again next year after we re-elect a Democratic majority in the legislature.
- Additionally, Democrats will send an agenda of commonsense gun safety bills to the Governor’s desk.
- Democrats’ priorities for workers will go to the Governor for him to show whether he cares about Virginia workers.
- Completing the minimum wage increase to $15 that was set in action in 2020 but halted by this Administration: HB1928
- Repeal ban on public sector collective bargaining: HB2764 and SB917
- End exclusion of farm workers from minimum wage: HB1625
- Overtime pay for domestic workers: HB2469 and SB897
Hijack Hijinks
- A House bill to establish a uniform duration for unemployment benefits (currently ranging from 12 weeks to 26 depending on a complicated formula) was hijacked by the Senate and amended to provide unemployment benefits to federal contract workers laid off by the Trump Administration, who would typically not be covered (but were during the pandemic). The House seems to have killed the bill in the end. (The House ended up not passing the bill.)
- A Senate bill to prohibit the provision of addictive social media to minors was hijacked by the House to restrict provision of all social media of any type to minors to one hour a day per application.
- The Senate Courts tried to hijack a House bill to increase the damage dollar threshold for when law enforcement must send a written report to the DMV, by adding in language from a failed bill requiring law enforcement to ask about cell phone usage following an accident. While the move succeeded in the Courts committee, it was killed on the Senate floor, and the House bill passed.
Help for those affected by federal workforce reductions and grant cuts
- Since the 2024 Special Session I never adjourned sine die, it has been running concurrently throughout this 2025 General Assembly session.
- They met today briefly before the regular session to vote on a resolution that allows them to expand the scope of that Special Session to take up bills related to impacts on the Commonwealth of federal workforce and program cuts.
- Additionally, the House Emergency Committee on Impacts of Federal Workforce and Funding Reductions had its first meeting this morning, to discuss its priorities and hear from experts on the impacts.