The Virginia Miracle
Democrats are delivering
Republicans have spent the last few months telling Virginians that Democrats are turning the Commonwealth into a radical communist dystopia.
Exhibit A:
Exhibit B:
Exhibit C:
Notice something about all these tweets? They never actually cite anything specific that Democrats have actually done. Just vague statements or outright lies, like the 50+ taxes claim. Not a single tax hike has been signed into law.
Here is why. When you look at what Virginia Democrats have done in just a few months of unified government, the right-wing hysteria is shown to be ridiculous pretty quickly.
So let’s look at what actually happened.
Workers finally got a raise.
Virginia’s minimum wage has been stuck in a losing battle with inflation for years. Republicans blocked a $15 floor twice under Youngkin. This session, Democrats passed SB1, raising the wage from $12.77 to $15 an hour by 2028. It’s done.
But that’s only part of the worker story. HB5 guarantees paid sick leave for every Virginia worker, one hour earned for every 30 worked. Not just full-time employees. Everyone. The nurse’s aide, the restaurant worker, the warehouse employee. No more going to work sick because missing a shift means missing rent. No more losing your job because your kid had a fever.
And then there is SB2, which is the one that matters most to me personally. Paid family and medical leave. Up to 12 weeks at 80% of wages when a worker has a baby, loses a parent, or faces a serious illness. Youngkin vetoed this bill twice. Spanberger has committed to signing it. When she does, Virginia will become the 14th state in the country to guarantee this right. The other 13 states haven’t collapsed. Their workers have just had a little more security when life gets hard.
They went after the people skimming your prescriptions.
There are many reasons healthcare is so expensive in this country, and pharmacy benefit managers are one of them. PBMs sit between your insurer and your pharmacy, negotiating discounts and keeping a cut that never makes it to the patient. This is why you hand over a prescription, and the price is somehow higher than last month, with no explanation. SB669 ended that, requiring PBMs to pass their negotiated savings on to patients. It passed unanimously, which tells you something. Even Republicans couldn’t defend the status quo on this one.
SB405 addressed Virginia’s healthcare workforce shortage, which has been quietly driving up wait times and costs for years. More providers mean more access, which means lower prices.
HB60 protected access to preventive care. This matters because a $200 annual checkup that catches something early is dramatically cheaper than the emergency care that follows from catching it late.
Housing got a little less ridiculous.
SB628 expanded the Virginia Eviction Reduction Program, getting evidence-based crisis assistance to people teetering on the edge of losing their homes. The research on eviction prevention is consistent: keeping people housed is cheaper than the cascade of costs that follows an eviction, for individuals and for governments alike.
HB655 and SB346 legalized manufactured homes anywhere single-family homes are permitted statewide. Local zoning had been blocking this for years, keeping one of the most affordable paths to homeownership off the table for people who need it most. That changed.
Spanberger also signed EO-3 on her first day, directing the state government to cut red tape on housing supply. More YIMBY bills are coming before April 13 that advocates, including myself, are very optimistic she will sign.
They invested in the grid and the future.
America’s transmission infrastructure is decades behind where it needs to be, and building more of it is one of the most important things a state government can do right now. HB889 and SB497 streamlined permitting for new high-voltage transmission lines, cutting through the bureaucratic delays that have been slowing this build-out for years. That is a genuinely significant reform.
HB369 encouraged investment in cutting-edge energy technology, including nuclear fusion, passing with bipartisan support.
HB1191 and SB377 ensured that data centers, which consume staggering amounts of power, pay for the infrastructure upgrades their operations require rather than passing those costs to ordinary ratepayers.
HB1225 and SB407 expanded EV charging access across the Commonwealth.
Beyond this, Spanberger is expected to sign Virginia back into RGGI, the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, which caps carbon emissions from power plants and generates revenue for clean energy investment. Youngkin pulled Virginia out in 2023 for reasons that were never particularly coherent. With the federal government having abandoned any serious climate leadership, state coalitions like this one are more important than ever. Virginia is about to go back in.
They did the most common-sense thing imaginable.
HB1180 created a free tax filing program for all Virginians. You should not have to pay a private company to comply with a legal obligation. The fact that Americans have been doing this for decades, while most of the developed world offers it for free, is a policy failure. Virginia just fixed it for its residents. It is honestly baffling that this took so long.
They took school safety seriously.
Mass shootings have become a defining feature of American life in a way that would have been unthinkable a generation ago. Spanberger signed a package of bills that take the threat seriously without waiting for federal action that is never coming. Red flag law training means law enforcement actually knows how to use a tool that research consistently shows reduces gun deaths. Panic alarm systems mean a teacher can summon help in seconds rather than minutes, and in a shooting, those minutes are the difference between life and death. Mental health support for at-risk students and after-school programs address the upstream conditions that lead to violence in the first place. Prevention is cheaper than tragedy, and it works.
The ghost gun ban, SB323, is on her desk. Ghost guns are unserialized firearms specifically designed to pass through metal detectors and evade background checks. They have become the weapon of choice for people who cannot legally buy a gun. Making them a felony to manufacture or possess does not infringe on anyone’s right to own a legal firearm. It just closes a loophole that never should have existed. She is expected to sign it.
They ended a policy that made no sense.
Until now, Virginians could legally possess cannabis but not buy it legally, which mostly meant they bought it illegally, with no testing, no regulation, and no tax revenue. HB642 fixes this, creating a licensed retail market starting in 2027 with testing requirements, public standards, and safety rules. Youngkin vetoed this. Spanberger has pledged to sign it. The black market will have some competition, and the state will have a new revenue stream.
In just a few months, with hundreds of bills still awaiting her signature, Virginia Democrats have delivered more concrete wins for working people than the state has seen in years. Wages up. Paid leave guaranteed. Drug costs down. Housing supply increasing. The grid being built for the future. Tax filing becoming free. School safety strengthened. The government has become a little more functional.
Republicans told you we were getting radical chaos. What we are actually getting is bipartisan competence. As usual, they are wrong.
This is what governing looks like when it works.
This is the Virginia Miracle.
I live in California and we take so much for granted! Seeing all the positive changes that are taking place in Virginia just puts a smile on my face! Keep up the amazing work that you’re doing, Democrats of Virginia
It's great that you're having an enormously positive effect since you moved there. 👍🏼
I hope the vibes from Virginia radiate to neighbor North Carolina in coming months and years.