General Assembly 2026

"We don’t under any circumstance plan to stop fighting to move this forward,” Sen. Lashrecse Aird said.

As the June 30th deadline for the budget approaches, leaders in the state House and Senate are battling each other and the governor for leverage.

Virginians will have the chance to remove the ban from the state’s founding document and replace it with an affirmative right for same-sex couples to marry.

“The executive order of the president that he had pretty much threatened all states with the use of their broadband funding in the Commonwealth of Virginia," Del. Cliff Hayes told Radio IQ Tuesday. "That's $1.48 billion at stake.”

The governor had allies in the veto, including the Virginia Association of Commonwealth’s Attorneys, whose members prosecute these cases.

“We in the state government can dictate where federal agents can come — that’s not a promise we can keep," Spanberger told the press Wednesday.

“We were all hoping that under a Democratic governor, it would not be a question of whether we would have a retail marketplace, but when we would have a retail marketplace,” Petersburg Senator Lashrecse Aird told Radio IQ Tuesday. “And today’s veto is evident that those expectations were false hope.”

“I’ve already lost a marriage, traveling, for 15 years, trying to feed my family,” said Richmond IBEW 666 member Dorian Hargrave. ‘I’d like to have this economy bolstered and stay like it is, right here in Virginia.”

“Virginia schools succeed when teachers are supported, when buildings are ready, when every student has access to opportunity, and families are part of the conversation," Gov. Abigail Spanberger said.

“Policy has often been used to prohibit Black and minority progression in the Commonwealth of Virginia,” VSU professor Wes Bellamy noted.