The 2025 General Assembly has gaveled to a close, at least until legislators return on April 2 for the so-called “veto session” — and the special session that some believe will be necessary to deal with the impact on Virginia of President Donald Trump’s federal government downsizing.

Any top 10 list is subjective, but here’s my take on the 10 most important things this year’s session did (or didn’t do). It reflects a mix of statewide impacts and measures that have particular impact in our coverage area in Southwest and Southside.

1. The car tax remains untouched

This was a given; there seemed zero chance that the legislature was going to accede to Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s proposal to create a tax credit to offset what he calls “the most hated tax” in Virginia. Whatever the philosophical issues at stake, here’s the practical problem: The so-called “car tax,” the tax on personal property, is a local tax, not a state tax. Any local government could do away with it right now. Why don’t they? They need the revenue and see few other ways to generate it. That’s why both Youngkin and former Gov. Jim Gilmore decades ago looked to state revenue as a way to fill that gap — but there’s reluctance, particularly among Democrats, to commit state funding to a never-ending subsidy of local governments to make up for any lost car tax revenues. Nor do even the most conservative localities in the state seem inclined to abolish the tax and forgo that revenue. Instead, the General Assembly opted for a one-time tax rebate out of the state’s surplus.

2. Surveillance is either expanded or regulated or both

One of the most fascinating debates this year was over whether and how to regulate automated license plate readers. This was an issue that split both sides. Some Republicans came down on the side of law enforcement; others were concerned about an intrusive government. Some Democrats likewise feared that same government intrusion while others felt there needed to be some kind of regulation — and warned their colleagues that without regulation such cameras would grow without any kind of restrictions. The opposition united small-government conservatives with liberals who worried that red states could use the data to track women who might come to Virginia for abortions — and then charge them with crimes when they returned home. Those supporting the measure noted that anyone who uses a cellphone can already be tracked and there’s not much regulation over who can access that. The word the supporters kept using to describe this bill was “guardrails.” The specific details at issue dealt with where cameras could be placed and how long the data can be kept. Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell, D-Fairfax County, who advocated for the bill, warned that there was also a chance the governor will veto it, so this is an issue that may come back in future sessions.

For more on surveillance issues, see our special report : “Everyone’s watching: State of Surveillance.”

3. Both parties prep their campaign messages

At one point during a debate, House Speaker Don Scott joked with a Republican legislator about whether he had enough material for a campaign ad yet. This is an election year for all 100 members of the House of Delegates, as well as governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general, and both parties used the session to get their talking points ready.

Democrats passed bills they know the governor will veto: legalizing retail cannabis, banning the sale of “assault firearms,” guaranteeing a right to contraception. Republicans likewise proposed bills they knew the Democrats would vote down: requiring photo identification to vote, reducing the period for early voting, putting the state’s “right-to-work” law into the state constitution. Republicans also spent a lot of time telegraphing that they intend to run against the state’s Clean Economy Act, which mandates a carbon-free electric grid by 2050. More specifically, they’re going to argue that the act is driving up energy costs. While some of this may seem like “playing politics,” it does serve to highlight the choices that voters face this fall. As Barack Obama once famously said, “Elections have consequences,” and it doesn’t seem a bad thing for voters on all sides to understand what those consequences may be.

4. $50 million for disaster relief related to Hurricane Helene

Southwest Virginia has had so many floods over the past few years it’s hard to keep up, but Helene is the one that stands out above all. Youngkin initially proposed $127 million. The General Assembly’s two budget-writing committees cut that to $25 million, but then the final conference report doubled it to $50 million. We’ll likely never find the fingerprints, but I suspect that state Sen. Todd Pillion, R-Washington County, had a lot to do with that final amount getting increased — he was one of the budget negotiators.

Some context: Historically the state wasn’t involved with storm relief; that was a federal role. That started to change in 2022 when the Federal Emergency Management Administration rejected aid for the Buchanan County community of Hurley, and state legislators obtained $16 million in relief. The recent sequence of storms hitting Southwest has now changed those expectations. This particular tranche of funding may be particularly important since it now appears that the federal funding for storm relief passed after Helene is in limbo; see the recent story by Cardinal’s Susan Cameron. For more on the state budget in general, see this story by Cardinal’s Elizabeth Beyer.

5. A big investment in the Roanoke and New River valley economies

The budget approved by the General Assembly includes at least $25 million for key economic development projects in the Roanoke and New River valleys: $15 million for site development that appears to be related to a data center, $6.5 million to enable the expansion of enrollment at the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine in Roanoke and $4 million toward the development of lab space in Roanoke for the region’s emerging biotech industry — the technological equivalent of building an industrial park. Taken together, these are three big investments to help grow the economy of those two interconnected valleys.

(Disclosure: Carilion Clinic is one of our donors but donors have no say in news decisions; see our policy .)

Cardinal technology reporter Tad Dickens has more on why this funding matters ; also check out his Tech Town series about the Roanoke Valley’s evolution from a railroad town into a tech town.

6. Local governments remain in charge of solar projects

Or, the legislature kicks down the road the question of whether the state can really meet its renewable energy targets under the Clean Economy Act. Amid objections from residents who see solar panels as nothing more than industrial blight on their rural landscape, local governments — by which we mean rural local governments — are rejecting solar projects at an increasing pace. There’s been talk about enabling the state to override some of those local decisions, but that never turned into a formal proposal. Instead, there were bills by state Sen. Creigh Deeds, D-Charlottesville, and Del. Rip Sullivan, D-Fairfax County, that would have had planning districts — which are composed of local government representatives — set regional goals. That was still too much for some, who feared that was just the first step toward a state mandate. The bill failed, with two Democrats — both of whom have a substantial number of rural voters in their districts — opposing it.

We’ll see whether this is only a temporary reprieve for rural areas. There’s growing concern among Clean Economy Act supporters that the state can never go carbon-free unless local governments get on board with solar. The basic problem: Here’s a state goal, but it depends on local governments to carry it out and those local governments often have very different views and concerns. Both sides are now on notice — rural localities have essentially been told that if they don’t become more receptive to solar, they may find a legislature that sees no choice but to tell them what to do; urban legislators now have a greater appreciation (maybe) of the rising fury in many rural areas about solar that they see imposed from the outside.

See also my column: “ Meet the senator from Data Center Alley who stood up for rural Virginia .” Another column, on rooftop solar , also looked at the debate over the solar siting bill.

7. Data centers avoid most proposed regulation

The solar issue is exacerbated by the growth of energy-guzzling data centers, primarily in Northern Virginia. This year there were lots of bills to regulate data centers in multiple ways. Most of those bills failed. As The Washington Post headlined: “ Va. lawmakers worry about data centers. But they’re leery of acting .” Del. Josh Thomas, D-Prince William County, told the Post that one reason for so little action is that the state report on how electricity demand will triple if data centers continue to grow without any restraints came too close to the beginning of the session. “I think a lot of legislators didn’t really have time to probably get everything suited up with all the facts aligned to the bill and the policy solution for it,” he said. While this is a local issue for legislators in Northern Virginia, it’s one that’s also a statewide issue: Who pays to produce this extra electricity? And where will that electricity be produced? Probably not in Northern Virginia. Meanwhile, many localities in Southwest and Southside want data centers — they see jobs and tax revenues. It’s notable that on one data center bill that went to a conference committee to work out differences between House and Senate versions, two of the negotiators were from Southwest Virginia: state Sen. Travis Hackworth and Del. Will Morefield, both R-Tazewell County and both keen to see some of those data centers in their part of the state.

8. Appalachian Power gets put on notice

Usually, it’s Dominion Energy that comes in for criticism in the legislature. This year it was Appalachian’s turn. (Disclosure: Dominion is also one of our donors; same policy as above applies.) Some legislators in Appalachian territory went to unusual lengths to show how unhappy they are with Appalachian’s rates. Hackworth and Pillion proposed letting customers buy power from other utilities. When that failed, those two legislators — joined by state Sen. Bill Stanley, R-Franklin County — wrote a letter to state regulators to ask the State Corporation Commission to strip the utility of its monopoly status. “The situation has become untenable, and we respectfully believe that Virginia and our area in particular are better off with anything but Appalachian Power Company,” the senators wrote.

That’s not very likely to happen, but this can’t be written off as an election-year ploy, either — the senators aren’t up for reelection until 2027. This may be one of those cases where, even though the key bill didn’t pass, notice has been served. It’s also politically fascinating: We’re accustomed these days to seeing some (but not all) Democrats criticize Dominion; it’s quite another to see Republicans from the western part of the state using even more heated language against Appalachian.

9. ‘Skill games’ remain in a gray area

Those electronic games you see in convenience stores — supporters call them “skill games,” opponents have tried to rebrand them as “neighborhood slot machines” — are technically illegal, although some operators have tried to figure out ways to rewire them in hopes of making them legal. Last year, the legislature passed a bill to legalize and regulate the games; that bill was sunk under a proposed amendment by the governor that was never going to pass. This year, supporters tried to get authorization for the games written into the state budget. That didn’t work, either. The games remain much like cannabis sales: against the law, but still happening openly in many places anyway.

10. Three constitutional amendments take their first step toward ratification

Virginia requires a multiyear process to amend the state’s constitution. A proposed amendment must pass the legislature twice, with an election in between, before it can go to voters. Democrats this year started that process with three amendments: One would write abortion rights into the state constitution, another would automatically restore the civil rights of convicted felons once they’ve served their time and the third would guarantee the right to a same-sex marriage — something being pushed in case the Supreme Court ever reverses itself on a national right to same-sex marriage.

All three amendments will come up again next year and have to pass again then before they can go to voters in November 2026. That’s yet another reason why this fall’s elections are important: If Republicans win the House, they could block any or all of these amendments. Whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing depends on your point of view, of course, but whether it happens depends entirely on who votes in November.

The legislature deals with more than a thousand bills each year, so this is hardly a comprehensive list of the action. We’ve compiled a list of bills and their ultimate status in a separate story. Is there an issue you think was important but wasn’t in this list? Probably so, right? On Tuesday, I’ll be back with the 25 most overlooked issues of this session, so maybe your favorite (or least favorite) bill will be on that.