Even a fraction of these controversial bills passing could help a demoralized Virginia GOP pad its state legislative margins.
Virginia Democrats had a banner 2025 cycle. A few days into the 2026 General Assembly session, there are early indicators that some members of the party may be getting a wee bit overconfident in their electoral victories.
On top of their push for mid-decade redistricting and constitutional amendments enshrining a “fundamental right” to abortion, same-sex marriage, and voting rights for felons who have completed their sentences, here is a smattering of progressive bills that Democratic state legislators have introduced that were compiled by a conservative social media account:
>Bans future attempts to clean up voter rolls (HB111)
>Makes it illegal for state agencies distributing federal dollars to NGOs to investigate whether they’re engaged in fraud (HB1369)
>Makes it illegal to hand-count ballots (HB968)
>Allows mail-in ballots to be counted one week after election day (HB773)
>Allows for absentee ballots to be received and counted for three days after election day (HB82)
>Gerrymanders the state with a 10-1 or 9-2 Democrat Congressional map (HJ4)
>Creates a state-level equivalent of the VRA (HB967)
>Eliminates the requirement that large last-minute campaign contributions have to be publicly reported at least 24 hours before election day (HB1348)
>Removes the State Board of Elections’ ability to dispatch law enforcement officers to collect vote tallies from a locality that refuses to publish them (HB1321)
>Joins the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact for allocating Virginia’s electoral college votes in presidential elections (HB965)
>Automatic restoration of voting rights for felons after they’re released from prison and the mentally handicapped (HB964, HB963, & HB1014)
>Allows for votes to be cast “electronically through the internet” (HB493)
>Public funding of political campaigns at the local level (HB162)
>Abolishes all mandatory minimum sentencing for rape, manslaughter, assaulting a law enforcement officer, possession and distribution of child pornography, and all repeat violent felonies (HB863)
>Makes it harder for judges to deny bail, even in the case of things like aggravated assault, armed robbery, and drug trafficking (HB357)
>Gives convicted murderers, rapists, and terrorists a chance to get out of prison early (HB853)
>Drastically reduces the criminal penalty for robbery (HB244)
>Bars prosecutors from mentioning a criminal’s prior convictions during the guilt phase of a trial, even if it’s for the same crime (HB1070)
>Transfers the Department of Juvenile Justice from the Secretary of Public Safety’s purview to the Secretary of Health and Human Services (SB21)
>Reduces the amount of time that the Commonwealth can compel a convicted criminal to pay court fees from 60 years to 10 (SB180)
>Taxpayer funding for transgender surgeries (HB1245)
>Bans most discretionary state contracting under $100K from going to businesses owned by White men and allows state agencies to award contracts to women or minority-owned firms that are 5% more expensive than a bid from a business owned by a White man (HB61)
>Punishes VMI for adopting an anti-DEI stance (HB1374 & HB22)
>Abolishes all Confederate-themed license plates (HB1344)
>Eliminates the tax-exempt status for all Confederate history groups (HB167)
>Renames Columbus Day to “Indigenous Peoples Day.” (HB858)
>Makes it illegal to approach within 8ft of somebody within 40 feet of an abortion clinic (SB137)
>Enshrines a Leftist narrative about January 6 and teaches it in public schools (HB333)
>Allows localities to adopt rent control measures (HB1177)
>Increases the sales tax in Northern Virginia, adds an additional sales tax for home deliveries, raises the car tax for electric vehicles, and imposes new sales taxes for streaming services, concerts, gym memberships, nail salons, barber shops, tanning beds, tatoo parlors, dry cleaners, shoe repairs, carpentry, painting, plumbing, electrical, HVAC, landscaping, and housekeeping work for homes, swimming pool maintenance, travel agencies, and shipping services (SB730, HB1179, HB900 & HB978)
>Creates a new tourism tax on event entrance fees (HB550)
>Raises the hotel tax in Arlington (HB524)
>Imposes a new 7.75% tax on incomes over $1 Million (HB1074)
>Creates two new tax brackets, one over $600K at 8% and another over $1 Million at 10% (HB979)
>Imposes a 3.8% investment tax on top of state income taxes (HB378)
>Allows every locality to raise the state sales tax by 1% (HB334 & SB66)
>Raises the sales tax for Stafford County (HB1000)
>Rounds up all state and local taxes by the nearest 5-cent increment (HB954)
>Allows localities to outlaw gas-powered leaf blowers (HB881)
>Imposes a new personal property tax on electric-powered lawn equipment (HB557)
>Limits the ability to use self-driving or autonomous vehicles (HB1124)
>Allows state and local government to implement traffic and speed cameras (HB1330 & HB994)
>Puts speed cameras on state highways (HB1220)
>Requiring a license to buy a firearm (HB1359)
>”Assault weapons” ban (HB217)
>Strips gun rights from anyone convicted of a misdemeanor “hate crime” (HB1015)
>Making it illegal to shoot a firearm on lot sizes less than 5 acres (HB926)
>Expands “gun-free zones” (HB626)
>Shrinks concealed-carry reciprocity with other states (HB24)
>Holds firearm manufacturers liable for gun deaths (HB21 & SB27)
>Imposes an 11% sales tax on all firearms and ammunition (HB1094)
Remember, just because a bill is introduced does not mean that it will get a vote. It’s possible that committee and subcommittee chairs in the General Assembly will block a lot of this legislation from coming to the floor.
Governor Spanberger also has the power to veto anything she wants, though it certainly didn’t go unnoticed that one of her first acts as governor was to rescind an executive order signed by her predecessor requiring state and local law enforcement in the commonwealth to cooperate with federal immigration enforcement. So much for the moderate political persona she sold on the campaign trail.
A smart Republican political operative reminded me that a lot of the left-wing legislation pushed by state legislative Democrats and signed by former Democratic Governor Ralph Northam helped the GOP convince suburban and independent voters to take a chance on Republicans in 2021 and flip the governor’s mansion for the first time in over a decade (then-president Joe Biden’s unpopularity, Glenn Youngkin’s deep pockets, and widespread pandemic strictures in schools certainly didn’t hurt their pitch either).
So, the Republican pessimist’s forward-looking case is that even a fraction of these controversial bills passing could help a demoralized Virginia GOP pad its state legislative margins while boosting the party’s chances of flipping the governor’s mansion again in 2029 (a prospect that would be much easier for the GOP if a Democrat wins the White House in 2028).