RICHMOND, Va. β The 2026 General Assembly session begins Wednesday with Democrats in full control of state government, laying out their legislative priorities while Republicans propose different approaches to the same issue: address rising costs for Virginians.
"We are making one thing clear, affordability is our top priority," said Sen. Mamie Locke (D-Hampton).
"Our focus this entire session is on making sure that Virginians can keep more money in their pockets," said Republican Minority Leader Sen. Ryan McDougle (R-Hanover).
Senate Democrats unveiled what they called their eight pillar affordability agenda to address the following topics: healthcare, education, transportation, childcare, housing, food access, energy, and job access.
"These rising costs are squeezing families across Virginia," Locke said.
Senate Democrats said those concerns are why voters elected Democrats to all three statewide offices and added more seats for the party in the House of Delegates.
"You're going to see bills increase our minimum wage to $15 an hour. You're going to see paid family medical leave. You're going to see us pass collective bargaining protections for the 700,000 Virginians that are either state or local government," said Sen. Scott Surovell (D-Fairfax), Majority Leader of the Senate of Virginia.
Surovell adds they'll also have bills to make it easier to build solar and affordable homes and addressing the energy consumption by data centers.
"Looking at requiring data centers to have demand response plans so they can modulate their electricity consumption when power goes up. You're going to see legislation to allow utilities to deny connection to a data center if they don't have sufficient generation," Surovell said.
But McDougle is critical of those proposals, saying they will add costs and there are better ways to make things more affordable.
"We should be focused on returning money to the people's pockets," McDougle said. "That could be done day one by eliminating the Virginia Clean Economy Act, it would put almost $1,000 per residential rate payer back into their pockets."
While Republicans are in the minority in both chambers and won't have outgoing Governor Glenn Youngkin's veto power to stop Democratic initiatives, McDougle says his party will focus on a number of areas.
"Policies like reducing regulation, their policies like reducing the cost of energy, their policies like increasing the amount of deductions you can have on your taxes," McDougle said.
The 2026 session will gavel in at noon Wednesday, and Youngkin will give his final State of the Commonwealth in the evening. Governor-elect Abigail Spanberger will be sworn in on Saturday and address lawmakers on Monday.
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