Gov. Youngkin pitched his own plan on the first day of session, including his push for more tax cuts and to bring a new sports arena to Virginia.
RICHMOND, Va. (WRIC) – Democrats say they will focus on K-12 education funding, ways to address gun violence, abortion and voting rights while in control of the Virginia General Assembly in 2024.
But what gets passed by the new Democratic majority in the state legislature may not get any further as Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin can play the role of legislative gatekeeper with his veto pen.
The legislature began its 60-day session Wednesday with a host of new lawmakers taking office, a new General Assembly building and Democrats taking slim majorities in the Virginia Senate and House of Delegates after last November’s elections.
Newly empowered Democrats laid out a legislative priority list for 2024 with K-12 education funding at the top.
“Education is something near and dear to the hearts of every single person standing up here today,” Senate Democratic Leader Scott Surovell (Fairfax) said alongside other state Democrats during a Wednesday morning press conference.
Pointing to a 2023 report that found Virginia underfunds its K-12 school districts compared to most states, Sen. Surovell said Democrats find it “completely outrageous” that the state has not put more towards K-12 despite having the tenth highest per capita income in the country.
Democrats said they will also prioritize efforts to ensure Virginians can afford basic living expenses such as housing and food, tighten gun rules, protect voting and abortion rights, and boost infrastructure and climate initiatives.
“We’re not working to take anybody’s guns away,” House Democratic Caucus Chair Kathy Tran (Fairfax) said. “Many of us up here are gun owners and just like Virginians across the Commonwealth we want to make sure that everyone who owns a gun is using and storing it, and their ammunition, responsibly.”
The razor-thin majorities for Democrats in the 2024 session won’t be enough to get around Gov. Youngkin’s veto powers, forcing both sides to work together on issues they want passed.
While Democrats and Youngkin have signaled a willingness to compromise on plans to help the state’s mental health system and address other issues, some priorities for each side won’t see the light of day.
This includes the tax cuts Youngkin proposed in his state budget and the governor’s hope of eliminating the property tax on cars Virginians pay, plans that Democrats said would cost lower-income residents more than those who make the most in the state and remove needed funding for education.
In his State of the Commonwealth Address after the start of the session, Gov. Youngkin pitched his tax cut proposals as a way to attract more people to Virginia.
“Virginia has a population migration problem. The data is irrefutable,” Youngkin told the joint General Assembly, saying that while the rate of people leaving Virginia declined in 2023, more people moved away for the past 10 years.
The governor’s proposed budget plan — the only one he will be involved in from beginning to end — calls for cutting 12% in income tax rates “across the board” for taxpayers, lowering the state’s top income tax rate from 5.75% to 5.1%.
But Youngkin’s two-year spending plan also proposes increasing the sales tax rate by 0.9% to 5.2%. These proposals, Democrats say, would mean lower-income Virginians paying more and higher earners paying less.
Sen. Surovell said discussions on these efforts were nonstarters, but acknowledged a willingness to talk further on some of Youngkin’s tax proposals.
This includes the governor’s push to expand the state’s sales and use tax to cover digital goods, such as data storage and streaming music, and increase the state’s earned income tax credit from 20% to 25% of the federal earned income tax credit.
On guns, Youngkin said in his address that Virginia already has some of the toughest laws in the country, asking lawmakers to pass bills for more severe and longer penalties for firearm-related crimes.
Democrats said they were open to the tentative deal to bring the NHL’s Washington Capitals and NBA’s Washington Wizards to Northern Virginia, but that they were waiting on specifics on the proposed deal.
Surovell called the plan an “interesting proposal” that Democrats are continuing to evaluate but that a lot of questions remain and lawmakers are still waiting on specifics of the deal.
He said approval of the arena deal would hinge on whether it poses risks for taxpayers and ensuring that transportation improvements are made to facilitate the plan.
