This year’s legislation is moving quickly off the governor’s desk. For example, no one argues about needing our kids to be safe in schools. Several bills address this concern, some passing unanimously in the legislature, others receiving bipartisan support although not unanimous. For example, HB 1071 establishes the Virginia Center for School and Campus Safety. This center will help safeguard our schools, including a provision for meaningful safety audits conducted by designated school resource officers. All legislators voted for this bill. Another bill that passed unanimously was HB196, permitting teachers to wear panic alarms in the classroom. It’s great to have our legislators come together on issues that will protect our kids.
Other recently signed and noncontroversial bills focus on health care costs. For example, passing unanimously were Senate Bill 669 and House Bill 830, which should reduce the cost of prescription drugs by preventing pharmacy benefit managers from inflating costs. Also passing unanimously was a bill that gives the Virginia Health Workforce Development authority to administer scholarships related to nursing – and certainly we need to do everything we can in Virginia to increase the nursing workforce!
Providing more affordable housing was another area of successful legislation reflecting political party agreement, with Democrats and Republicans working together. For example, SB 628 looks to reduce evictions, and SB 346 and HB 655 reduce barriers to the use of manufactured homes (typically less expensive than homes built on site). HB 2117 increases potential state support for affordable housing. None of these bills are particularly exciting to write about for this article (or to read about, I’m sure), but the point is that legislators from both parties came together to do important things to help Virginians. Not everything has to be partisan! That’s worth writing about.
These new bills, and other legislation, should help make the commonwealth more affordable to Virginians. It is vital to remember that these changes at the state level are dwarfed by decisions made at the federal level. Just consider the price of gasoline for one enormous example. And think about the approximately $1 billion spent daily in the current war in Iran as a bill that we all are going to have to eventually pay. We can have partisan disagreement about the war, but at a local and individual level no one can deny that it is very expensive. Also undeniable is that funds that used to come from the federal government to Virginia have been greatly reduced. For just one example, federal Medicaid and SNAP support for Virginia are estimated to be cut about $2.6 billion in 2026. And health insurance costs for many of us have skyrocketed due to federal changes. We are now seeing some increases (or proposed increases) in local taxes as financial responsibilities shift from “big” government to local governments. Do we really need to blame the local governments in needing to respond to the loss of federal dollars? Teachers, firefighters, police officers and other local employees need raises too to meet the rising costs of almost everything.
