2/18/26 - Virginia General Assembly reaches midpoint of session
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Transcript
14 segmentsYou're listening to the VPM Daily Newscast, the recap of today's top stories in central Virginia. From the VPM Newsroom in Richmond, I'm Kim Strother. Tuesday was crossover at the General Assembly. It's a key legislative deadline in which bills that haven't passed can no longer be considered this session. VPM News's Jad Khalil reports on what's still in play. Lawmakers have passed a number of affordability measures, although they've hesitated to advance bills that have a big price tag. The House of Delegates and the Senate will have to resolve differences or make compromises on bills by the end of session. Some of the last bills to clear the House and Senate before crossover include legislation legalizing collective bargaining for public employees, a retail market for cannabis, gun control measures, and bills restricting where federal immigration officers can operate. passed the deadline, attempts to reform Virginia's tax system. Those bills would have closed loopholes for sales taxes and adjusted decades-old income tax brackets. There's one big exception to the crossover rule, the budget. East Chamber will present its spending bill on Sunday. Chad Khalil, VPM News. Every year, the city of Richmond outlines its goals and legislative asks for the Virginia General Assembly. As VPM News, Dean Mir Shahi reports, this year's session is at a halfway point, and the cities had mixed success with its priorities. Legislation that would let the city stop landlords from increasing rent by more than 3% in the year was pushed into 2027, but bills permitting the city to rezone to increase density and incentivize developers with lower land costs to build more affordable housing are moving forward. The city's biggest ask of state lawmakers is $280 million over the next two years to upgrade its water and sewer systems. Mayor Daniel Vula says Virginia is facing a challenging budget season, but he's hopeful to state funds. will come through. I think particularly because the General Assembly was impacted by the water outage last January, like everybody has a sense that this is something that requires some investment. Two Richmond area Democrats have proposed budget amendments to pay for the projects. Dean Mir Shahi, VPM News. Virginia's Attorney General Jay Jones says he's serious about guardrails on kids' screen time. Jay Jones announced Monday he plans to enforce a newly enacted Virginia law that limits young teens to one hour per app each day. Companies who fail to comply could be hit with a 7,500 civil penalty for each violation. Under the 2025... law, which took effect on January 1st, social media platforms are required to verify a user's age and automatically limit their use if they're younger than 16.
Proposals that would create a right to repair in Virginia failed in the General Assembly this year. Patrick Larson with VPM News explains. The right to repair is basically what it sounds like, the legal right for consumers to fix and maintain products like cars, video game consoles, and farm machinery. It's been a hot topic in recent years, as more products include proprietary software and digital components, and as manufacturers have limited how consumers can get repairs. The issue caught the attention of Norfolk delegate Jackie Glass. All of these different things where by manufacturers or companies were ensuring that you had to buy new things, that you couldn't fix your own things. She argues that contributes to waste when some things could be reused or recycled, and it puts strain on consumers' wallets. But after weeks of negotiating exemptions for trade secrets and safety concerns, Glass had to pull the bill. She couldn't come to agreements with enough manufacturers for it to work. Another bill sponsored by Montgomery Delegate Lily Franklin suffered the same fate. Patrick Larson, VPM News. Dominion Energy is planning the largest transmission line on its grid in partnership with two out-of-state utilities. It would move electricity from the Ohio River Valley to central and northern Virginia, where data centers and electrification of vehicles and appliances are expected to double electric demand within the decade. The line would stretch 115 miles from Campbell County to Culpepper County and could cost around $1 billion. Dominion has not yet filed specific plans for the project with state regulators, but will begin holding open houses in affected counties next month. The Richmond Police Department operates 101 Flock safety cameras within the city to, quote, solve crimes after they've occurred. According to Flock's online data portal, license plate and vehicle data is retained for three weeks and not sold to third parties. Immigration and traffic enforcement are among prohibited uses of RPD's cameras. In the last 30 days, over half a million vehicles have been detected by RPD's cameras and more than 700 searches have been conducted. This has been the VPM Daily Newscast. VPM.