GENERAL ASSEMBLY 2022
Report on Virginia public education standards and policies overdue
Over a four-month period in 2022, Virginia leaders in education and workforce development held a series of meetings to provide recommendations to Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s administration on improving state K-12 education. However, a report on recommendations from those meetings, which were convened to fulfill the requirements of a 2022 law known as House Bill 938, […]
Report: Cutting prison fees could save incarcerated Virginians and their families $28.3M
If the Virginia prison system were to heed the recommendations of reformers who want to make life behind bars less expensive for inmates, it could save prisoners and their families up to $28.3 million per year by shifting those costs elsewhere, according to a new report. At the General Assembly’s request, a work group has […]
Virginia is sending out millions of $250 tax rebates. Here’s how to find out if you’ll get one.
Over the last few days, the Virginia Department of Taxation began the process of sending out roughly 3.2 million tax rebate payments of up to $250 per person. But not everybody is getting one. Eligibility for the one-time rebates, a result of huge revenue surpluses filling up state coffers, depends on how much a filer […]
After years of effort, Virginia is giving lower-income workers a major tax break
Mercedes Benson, a single mom who makes a little under $50,000 a year running a coffee shop in Richmond, doesn’t usually expect things to go her way during tax season. On her state income taxes, Benson said she usually owes money or gets a tiny refund that doesn’t go very far. But as she tries […]
Virginia lawmakers fail to reach deal on SCC pick
After taking no action Wednesday on the main piece of business that brought lawmakers back to Richmond, the Virginia General Assembly got into a new fight over how to leave town. The session ended — partially — without the legislature filling the third, final vacancy on the State Corporation Commission while limiting the powers of […]
Youngkin’s office says no plans for abortion bill at special session next week
Abortion rights supporters are on high alert, but Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s office says it’s not planning to introduce any abortion-related legislation when the General Assembly returns to Richmond next week. The special session set for Wednesday is technically a continuation of the same session that ended June 30. The main item of business is expected […]
Virginians are getting tax rebates of up to $250 per person. Here’s how it works
If you owed income taxes to the state of Virginia for 2021, some of that money might be coming back this fall. As part of a bipartisan tax rebate plan approved this year, the state government is preparing to send out payments of up to $250 per tax filer (or up to $500 for couples who […]
‘A slap in the face’: Prisoners, families have hopes dashed by governor’s amendment
Ashley Crocker had a message for Gov. Glenn Youngkin after he signed into law an amendment curtailing the expansion of an earned sentence credit program that would have released hundreds of people currently in state prisons beginning July 1. “You’re ruining families,” Crocker, of Woodbridge, called out to Youngkin at a political event in Prince […]
New website aims to help untangle Virginia’s unsolved mysteries
In 1982, Virginia Department of Corrections administrator Rodolfo Felix Guillen was shot to death one morning right after getting to his office in Suffolk. The shooting occurred just as other employees started to arrive at the building, but there were no signs anyone had broken in. In 1984, off-duty Virginia State Police trooper Johnny Rush […]
Virginia lawmakers punt on bills aimed at limiting partisan election oversight
Despite getting several extra months to negotiate, Virginia lawmakers went home for the summer without a deal on proposals to limit partisan influence in the state’s election bureaucracy. Legislation that would have removed the governor’s power to appoint the state elections commissioner and given the two major parties equal representation on the State Board of […]
2022 exposed the dysfunctions of Virginia’s agrarian, part-time legislative model. Again.
You hear it regularly on Capitol Square in Virginia: Ours is a “part-time” legislature. Not really. Not for years and years now, either in fact or by definition. But it sure evokes wistful nostalgia in presentations loaded with gauzy clichés about “the Virginia way.” Look no further than this year’s long-running session in which the […]
Youngkin ceremonially signs Virginia budget while calling for more tax relief
Throughout a ceremonial bill signing with the pomp of a campaign event, Gov. Glenn Youngkin touted Virginia’s latest budget as a win for his administration, even as he criticized Senate Democrats for blocking key priorities including a gas tax suspension. “We’ve taken the important steps to eliminate the state’s portion of the grocery tax, increase […]