Proudly Serving the People of Virginia's 25th District
The last time I wrote, I told you about the legislature passing a budget. With all its warts, the General Assembly finally agreed to a budget on June 1. The Governor had seven days after it reached him to offer amendments or veto the budget. The Governor of Virginia has an extraordinary power in that he can line-item veto articles of the budget. [Read more…]
The 2022 Special Session I of the Virginia General Assembly met on June 1 to pass a budget. Both the House of Delegates and the Senate met and adopted the conference report, which was negotiated by the chair and vice chair of the Senate Finance and Appropriations Committee and the chair of the House Appropriations Committee. The negotiations were not typical, but this is not a typical year. [Read more…]
The 2022 Special Session that convened on Monday is not so special.
At the end of the 2022 Regular Session of the General Assembly, we had not reached an agreement on a budget. For that reason, we knew a special session was coming. There is nothing magic about the start date.
The budget is currently in the hands of the conference committee, which is made up of senior legislators from the Senate and House, Democrats and Republicans. The main sticking point on the budget is on the revenue side. There is about a $2.8 billion difference between the money that the House and Senate spend on core services. The Senate budget uses the surplus in revenue to provide tax relief and give raises to teachers, state troopers and sheriff deputies, and invest in services like mental health and education. The House uses one-time money to make baseline investments and provides more tax relief. [Read more…]
The 2022 Session of the Virginia General Assembly adjourned on Saturday, March 12. This has been an exhausting eight and a half weeks. The days have been long, and the news has not always been pleasant. We saw several recurrent themes this year. [Read more…]
The passage of the federal American Rescue Plan (ARP) this past spring gave us an unprecedented opportunity here in Virginia. The Commonwealth was allotted $4.3 billion to address the lingering health and economic impacts of the pandemic.
The Governor called the General Assembly back to Richmond for a Special Session this past week for two purposes, the first of which was to consider the Governor’s 18-page plan to spend the ARP funding. [Read more…]
