Partial List of proposed Democrat majority legislation:
Taxation and Economic Policies: These will punish businesses, consumers, and taxpayers, reversing economic gains under prior leadership.
- HB919 (Firearms and Ammunition Sales Tax): Sponsored by Del. Vivian Watts (D). Imposes an 11% sales tax on guns and ammo. Infringes on Second Amendment rights and added burdens on lawful owners.
- HB1094 (Expanded Retail Sales Tax): Sponsored by Del. Vivian Watts (D). Applies sales tax to various services, deliveries, and digital goods. Broadly hikes costs for everyday purchases, including online shopping, harming affordability and tourism.
- Local Sales Tax Hikes (Bills in Both Chambers, e.g., HB/SB variants): Allow localities to increase sales taxes for specific purposes. Dubbed the "anti-affordability party" move, directly contradicting Dem claims of lowering prices.
- Business Tax Increases (Multiple Bills): Target small and large businesses with rate hikes or new investment income taxes. Punishes job creators and chases out businesses attracted under previous policies.
- HB1 (Minimum Wage Increase): Sponsored by Del. Jeion Ward (D). Raises the state minimum wage.
Prices entry-level workers out of jobs, exacerbating affordability issues. - HB5 (Paid Sick Leave): Sponsored by Del. Kelly Convirs-Fowler (D). Mandates paid sick leave with civil penalties for non-compliance. Adds regulatory burdens on employers, seen as part of a broader "cultural revolution."
Redistricting and Voting Access: These are major flashpoints, with Republicans accusing Democrats of rigging elections for permanent power.
- HJ4 (Constitutional Amendment on Redistricting): Sponsored by Del. Rodney Willett (D). Allows mid-decade redistricting. Advanced quickly in both chambers. A "blatant power grab" to redraw maps favoring Democrats (potentially 10D-1R congressional seats), diminishing conservative voices.
- HJ2 (Constitutional Amendment on Right to Vote): Sponsored by Del. Elizabeth Bennett-Parker (D). Part of efforts to "expand voting rights" in ways that could facilitate fraud, like weaker verification.
- SB57 (ERIC Membership): Sponsored by Sen. Schuyler VanValkenburg (D). Requires staying in the multistate voter roll system. Maintains potentially inaccurate rolls, aiding fraud.
- SB58 (Absentee Ballot Deadlines): Sponsored by Sen. Barbara Favola (D). Extends receipt deadlines for absentees and provisionals. Makes fraud easier by loosening timelines; Dems blocked GOP bills to shorten early voting (e.g., SB46, SB298).
- HB44 (Campaign Finance Portal): Sponsored by Del. Paul Krizek (D). Creates a state-run transparency portal. While less controversial, fits into broader "election oversight" changes seen as optional or biased.
- Unnamed Bill on ICE Near Polls: Prohibits ICE enforcement within 40 feet of polling places.
Explicitly enables "illegal aliens voting," attacking election integrity.
Gun Control and Public Safety: Second Amendment violations and soft-on-crime measures.
- Assault Weapons Ban (Multiple Bills): Ban "assault" firearms and high-capacity magazines.
Penalizes lawful owners while ignoring crime roots; applies to all semi-automatic pistols and rifles, drew large protests at Lobby Day. - Sentence Reductions for Violent Crimes: Reduce penalties for certain offenses. Leads to more crime by releasing violent offenders early.
Social and Cultural Issues: These are criticized as ideological overreaches.
- HJ1 (Reproductive Freedom Amendment): Sponsored by Leader Charniele Herring (D). Protects abortion and contraception rights. Allows "abortion to birth," locking in extreme policies.
- HB6 (Right to Contraception): Sponsored by Del. Cia Price (D). Codifies access to contraception.
Tied to broader reproductive agenda seen as excessive. - HJ3 (Marriage Equality Amendment): Sponsored by Del. Mark Sickles (D). Affirms same-sex marriage. Part of LGBTQ+ mandates, viewed as cultural imposition.
- DEI Mandates and Board Purges: Reinstate Diversity, Equity, Inclusion programs; remove GOP appointees from boards like UVA's. Prioritizes "ideological conformity" over merit and is unconstitutional.
Immigration and Environment
- Limits on ICE/Local Police Cooperation: Cut off local law enforcement from working with ICE.
Shields "criminal aliens," enabling more crime and fraud. More public arrests to spur interference from anti-ICE protestors. - Housing Subsidies for Undocumented Immigrants: Provide aid for housing. "Vote-buying" to secure electoral advantages.
- Gas-Powered Equipment Ban: Ban gas mowers/leaf blowers, tax electric alternatives. Hypocritical "climate" policy infringing on freedoms.
Virginia Government updates:
Lobby Day draws larger pro-gun crowd as Virginia Democrats revive gun-safety agenda • Virginia Mercury By Markus Schmidt & Charlotte Rene Woods
Scott feels even more confident in redistricting now that Spanberger is “100% behind” it By Brandon Jarvis
Virginia Democrats’ Radical Left-Wing Vision | National Review By The Editors
Virginia Democrats want to limit immigration arrests in and around courthouses | WVTF By Michael Pope
Proposed Virginia bill could make it easier to take civil action against law enforcement officers | 13newsnow.com By Brianna Fallon
Spanberger Proposal Could Massively Increase Electric Bills By Virginia Grace McKinnon
Spanberger, Democratic lawmakers are pressing for Virginia to rejoin RGGI. Here’s how it would work. • Virginia Mercury By Shannon Heckt
'Moderate' Abigail Spanberger Appoints Two Qatari Lobbyists To Serve on George Mason University Board By Chuck Ross
Empowered Virginia Democrats Move Fast to Reshape Higher Ed By Ryan Quinn
Gov. Spanberger disappoints Va. Jewish leaders with appointment of Jim Moran to GMU board By Matthew Kassel
Dem Leader Goes On Bizarre Rant Against Her Own ‘Cuck’ Senators | The Daily Caller By Hailey Gomez
Virginia’s Attorney General lays out top priorities coming into office By Henry Graff
Pair of bills would look at stripping governance, funding from VMI - Cardinal News By Elizabeth Beyer & Lisa Rowan
Pawpaws proposed to be official state fruit - Cardinal News By Abby Steketee
Statewide Candidate Funding Sources: End of 2025 By VPAP.ORG
Articles, News & Quotes:
Va. lawmakers want voters to take a 180-degree turn on redistricting; some reform advocates are wary • Virginia Mercury By David M. Poole
Abigail Spanberger’s Virginia bait and switch By David Harsanyi
Virginia Democrats' Redistricting Power Grab, Explained By Jenna Lee
8 things to know about Spanberger's first address to the General Assembly - Cardinal News By Dwayne Yancey
ICE informs Hanover of its intent to build a processing facility off I-95 By Michael Phillips
Nonprofit helps immigrants settle when they arrive in Richmond By Tim Wenzell
Dems Warn ICE Crackdowns Will Make Illegal Immigrants Afraid To Vote | Babylon Bee
Trump-appointed prosecutor Lindsey Halligan is leaving post | AP News By Eric Tucker
Work resumes on Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project after court order ends federal pause • Virginia Mercury By Shannon Heckt
Planned James City County missile factory to be fully operational in 2028 By Nick McNamara
History, Tradition, & the 250th Anniversary of Independence
The Man Who Lit the Washington Monument Like a Candle By Philip Wegmann
"Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. The interest of the man, must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place. It may be a reflection on human nature, that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of government. But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature?" James Madison in Federalist 51 Human Nature and the Constitution - onlinecoursesblog.hillsdale.edu
Road to Liberty: Lafayette Comes To Help America | PragerU
America’s 250th: A Rare Opportunity for Unity By Ryan L. Cole "That’s what made the Montgomery County gathering noteworthy. Attendees didn’t pretend that disagreements didn’t exist, but they found agreement in the Declaration’s ideals and in honoring not only Revolutionary veterans who settled in their county but also other Americans who worked to carry on the Founders’ work, from abolitionists to suffragists to civil rights leaders."
Rocky Mount unveils monument to Black Civil War soldiers - Cardinal News By Lindsey Hull
Virginia now has two mobile museums devoted to the American Revolution. One is exclusively for Southwest Virginia. - Cardinal News By Carolyn Wilson
Why America’s Founding Principles Still Matter 250 Years Later By Matthew Spaulding
Oak Hill State Park Bill Clears Senate Committee | News | loudounnow.com By Norman K. Styer "Oak Hill is a mansion and plantation located in Aldie, Virginia that was for 22 years a home of Founding Father James Monroe, the fifth U.S. President."
The Constitution, Bill of Rights, and Liberty
Dismantling The Left’s Argument For Gun Control By Nick Freitas
John Peter Muhlenberg, A Member Of The American Revolution’s Black Robed Regiment - American Thinker By Craig Seibert 'In the Revolutionary era, brave and patriotic pastors took seriously the Bible’s emphasis on morality and individual liberty.'
Supreme Court to take up cellphone location tracking warrants | AP News By Mark Sherman
Here’s Why Ellingburg Is a Win for Originalism Justices Unanimously Hold That Restitution Under Victim Act Is Part of the Punishment By Cully Stimson
Federal judge allows Va. inmates rights’ lawsuits to move forward • Virginia Mercury By Charlotte Rene Woods
The Farbman-Turley Debate: The Video and Results – JONATHAN TURLEY The debate conducted at the Virginia Military Institute over the question of whether “the U.S. is experiencing a constitutional crisis” on October 1st, 2025.
Special guest editorial from Don Smith:
Don Smith was raised in Richmond and attended UVA. His mother was born in a cabin outside of Lexington, Virginia--a cabin her grandfather, a veteran of the 14th Virginia Calvary, built after the Civil War.
Thomas J., “Stonewall” Jackson, was unique in many ways.
He came from a disadvantaged background. He lost his parents in his childhood and was raised by an indifferent uncle. He was dirt-poor. He represents the vast majority of Virginians in the 1900s, who had to work hard just to stay alive. He was not a “First Family of Virginia” Cavalier.
He was a self-made man. Jackson was ranked at the very bottom of his class when he entered West Point. He was one of the worst-performing students in his plebe class. Yet, through sheer will and incredibly hard work, he eventually graduated near the top of his class, especially in mathematics. While teaching at VMI, he invested wisely and made himself into a relatively prosperous man. He did not inherit huge plantations or sums of wealth.
His battlefield exploits were extraordinary. Stonewall Jackson was, and still is, one of America’s most accomplished battlefield generals. This is from the cover of Rebel Yell, a biography of Jackson written by S.C. Gwynne. Gwynne was a bureau chief and senior editor for Time magazine, and a Pulitzer Prize finalist:
In April 1862 Jackson was merely another Confederate general fighting for what seemed to be an increasingly desperate cause. By June he had engineered perhaps the greatest military campaign in American history and was one of the most famous men in the Western world. Jackson’s strategic innovations shattered the conventional wisdom of how war was waged: he was so far ahead of his time that his techniques would be studied generations in the future.”
During World War II, George Patton told Eisenhower that he wanted to be Ike’s Stonewall Jackson. Marine hero Chesty Puller carried a biography of Stonewall with him. Garnet Wolsey, who later commanded the British Army in the late 19th century, interviewed Jackson in 1862, and later wrote this about him: ”With such a leader men would go anywhere, and face any amount of difficulties; and for myself, I believe that, inspired by the presence of such a man, I should be perfectly insensible to fatigue, and reckon upon success as a moral certainty.”
His support for African-Americans, given the times he lived in, was extraordinary. Jackson founded, funded and operated a Sunday School for slaves, at a time when (a) it was illegal to help slaves learn to read and write in Virginia and (b) many whites remembered the deadly Nat Turner raid in the 1830s. Prominent Lexington citizens threatened Jackson with legal action if he kept the school open---and Jackson refused! He put himself and his family at personal, financial and professional risk for African-Americans .Jackson’s Civil War service was, first and foremost, for Virginia. Personally, Jackson opposed secession. But he was loyal to his state---Virginia was, in his mind and heart, his country.
