Senator Creigh DeedsThe first full week of the 2025 Session of the Virginia General Assembly is now complete. The good news is that water is running in Richmond, so life has largely returned to normal. However, the water crisis last week brought a lot of things home for us.

This week has been consequential for a couple of reasons. We not only passed three Constitutional Amendments that we’ve been talking about for a number of years, but we began to address the critical school construction needs across Virginia. And, as with most weeks, constituents visited and raised a number of serious issues.

Constituent Contact

While my committee schedule keeps me away from my desk for chunks of every day, I was able to meet this week with so many constituents from the 11th Senate District, including sheriffs from Amherst County and Charlottesville. One of the largest groups of visitors this week came to discuss housing. There are a number of bills before both the House and the Senate to strengthen protections for tenants who are facing increasing rent payments and the threat of eviction. The fate of those bills is uncertain, but we know that a number of tenant related measures made it to the Governor last year only to be vetoed.

The rising cost of housing and the availability of housing are huge issues. Twenty years ago, I solely heard from constituents in Charlottesville about difficulty finding housing. Now the challenges are present in every community. We have to do a better job of expanding access to affordable housing throughout Virginia. The bills that are currently under consideration help focus the debate, and I am hopeful we can get some signed into law this year.

Constituents raised issues about drinking water, solar siting, foster care, gun violence prevention, the cost and availability of heath care, and a myriad of other issues. In the very short session we have before us, we are going to try to address as many of these issues as we can.

School Construction

Last year, the Governor vetoed legislation to grant localities the ability to raise sales tax one penny to pay for school construction. The localities can only raise the tax if voters in that locality approve the measure in a referendum. Needless to say, the communities that sought this authority were disappointed. In fact, this issue has bipartisan support in most communities.
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This year, a couple of bills were presented in the Senate of Virginia. Senator Travis Hackworth of Tazewell County introduced a bill to grant this authority to Pulaski County. A second bill from Senator Jeremy McPike of Prince William County sought to expand this authority statewide. The Senate Finance and Appropriations Committee incorporated the two bills and reported out SB 1307 this week. We put some guardrails on the process to (1) ensure the money raised is only used for new construction and (2) set an expiration date of 20 years after the project is undertaken and the debt is paid.

Constitutional Amendments

We also advanced to the full Senate three Constitutional Amendments that I co-patroned. The amendments seek to protect reproductive rights, to recognize marriages of consenting adults, and to restore automatically the voting rights of people convicted of felonies after they are released from incarceration.

Reproductive rights are protected under existing state law. However, laws can be changed every year. It is easier to protect those rights if they are enshrined in the Constitution of Virginia. Senator Jennifer Boysko of Fairfax County is the chief patron of SJR 247 on this issue.

You may recall that in 2006, voters in Virginia approved a Constitutional Amendment asserting that marriage was between a man and a woman. Efforts since that time to remove the language, even after the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges in 2015, have failed. This amendment, SJR 249, from Senator Adam Ebbin of Alexandria, repeals the existing language and replaces it with language recognizing marriage as a right of two consenting adults.

The final amendment, SJR 248 from Senator Mamie Locke of Hampton, essentially repeals a provision from the 1902 Constitution that denied felons the right to vote. Every one of us has grown up under that regime, but it is not mainstream in the United States. In fact, Virginia’s system for the restoration of rights is one of the most restrictive in the country. Automatic restoration puts Virginia among the majority of states. Sen. Locke has fought for these changes for almost twenty years. Before that, the late Senator Yvonne Miller from Norfolk championed the cause.

Work proceeds at a frantic pace. The loss of work days during what was supposed to be the first week of the legislative session is forcing more evening and weekend meetings. We are determined to complete our work, including the budget, by the scheduled adjournment on February 22.

It continues to be my high honor to serve you in the Senate of Virginia. I look forward to your visits, phone calls, letters and emails in the weeks ahead. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact us at 804-698-7511 or senatordeeds@senate.virginia.gov.

Best,

Creigh Deeds
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