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Virginia’s 2026 General Assembly will be different

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Richmond Capitol at sunrise

A lot has happened since the November 2025 state elections! Virginia’s General Assembly will be a bit different this year.

Here’s a quick lay of the land:
  • General Assembly kicks off on Wednesday, January 14 and wraps up on Saturday, March 14.
  • Outgoing Governor Glen Youngkin will be succeeded on January 17 by Governor-elect Abigail Spanberger, who will be Virginia’s first female governor.
  • The House of Delegates, where Democrats held a slim majority of 51-49, shifted further Democrat to 64-36.
  • The Senate retained a slim Democrat majority (21-19), with Lieutenant Governor-elect Ghazala Hashmi (currently a delegate) breaking any potential ties.
What else will be different?
  • There have been post-November elections, are more elections coming. For example…
    • Lt. Gov-elect Hashmi’s Senate seat was just filled in an election this week.
    • As Governor-elect Spanberger appoints cabinet members, we have also been seeing other elected offices opening up for elections.
    • Here in Northern Virginia, environmental advocate Delegate David Bulova has been appointed Secretary of Natural and Historic Resources, Delegate Mark Sickles has been appointed Secretary of Finance, and Senator Ebbin will be senior adviser at the Virginia Cannabis Control Authority.
      • Appointments such as these have kicked off special elections to be held later this January.

  • Committees chairs and members will be changing.
    • With Delegate David Bulova’s appointment, the House General Laws Committee will need a new chair.
    • We may see other shifts as appointments are made and with dozens of new legislators, members of committees will change as well.

  • The federal landscape will no doubt influence political decisions in Virginia.
    • A process is underway to potentially allow redistricting of Virginia prior to the Fall 2026 elections. This will be a topic during this General Assembly with the potential result being a statewide voter referendum in the spring of 2026, likely in April.
    • Affordability and economic initiatives are top-of-mind for elected officials as federal funding continues to be a significant concern for locales and their residents.
    • These topics could take center stage over important environmental issues we’ll be tracking.
Key topics we’ll be monitoring
  • Data center reform
    • We expect dozens of data center bills to be introduced this year and Nature Forward, along with many of our partners, will continue to support the call for the Piedmont Environmental Council’s Four Pillars of Data Center reform: (1) enhanced transparency, (2) state oversight, (3) protections for families and businesses, and (4) incentives for efficiency.
    • We’ll have specific bill numbers in our next update later in January.

  • Control of invasive plants
    • We will be supporting three invasive plant related bills to be introduced this year, including (1) expanding taxing authority for locales to enable funding options specifically to address invasive plant control (SB89, House bill TBD), (2) changing the definition of “noxious weed” to close the “commercial viability loophole” (HB109, Senate bill TBD), and (3) expanding VDOT’s role in roadside invasive plant control (HB88, Senate bill TBD).
    • You can start calling your legislators already about these bills – call scripts are available here: https://virginiainvasives.org/policy

  • Balcony solar / renewable energy
    • Clean, renewable energy continues to be a hot topic in Virginia, where we have more energy contracted through Dominion Power than Dominion can provide. We need every bit of clean energy we can find.
    • We’ll have specific bill numbers in our next update later in January.
Join us in Richmond for Lobby Days: February 4 & 9, 2026

Hop on a bus, join a carpool, or take a train down to Richmond, and experience the power of speaking directly to your elected officials. Join us for one of our lobby days! If you RSVP to attend on either of these days, email us so that we can say hello!

What can you do?

General Assembly will kick off on Wednesday, January 14, and legislators are submitting new bills every day. We at Nature Forward will pull together our final list of the top 10 to 15 bills we’ll be highlighting to our subscribers. We’ll post them on our blog in the coming weeks, along with a form designed to make it easy for you to email your elected official with your comments about key bills. 

We do already know some of the invasive plant bills (see above) and the Virginia Invasive Plant Coalition has call scripts for each of them: https://virginiainvasives.org/policy – call or email your legislators today and express support for them!

The Virginia Conservation Network bill tracker (https://vcnva.org/bill-tracker/) will begin to be populated later in January 2026. Through the tracker, you’ll be able to start looking over the growing number of bills that need your support or opposition.  

Don’t forget, you can always find information on your legislator online here: https://whosmy.virginiageneralassembly.gov/ so that you can email them or call their office with feedback about which bills you support or oppose.  

Look for our next blog post soon!

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