After a campaign season which dominated the airwaves, headlines, and the odd courtroom, the promises and proceedings of the 2026 legislative session loom large over the Commonwealth. Last month, Governor-elect Abigail Spanberger issued the “Affordable Virginia Agenda”, a series of bills set to pass her desk during the 2026 session following her swearing in on Inauguration Day. The bills are a blend of the old and the new; several are from the Youngkin administration, which the self-proclaimed “Veto Corleone” chose not to sign into effect after being passed by the legislature. All of the bills were released under the categories of housing, healthcare, and energy, totaling the till to 17 proposed measures.

Healthcare 

All but one of the bills proposed for healthcare affordability are new to the General Assembly.  HB1639, which was sponsored by Delegate Patrick Hope of HD-01 and passed the House and Senate unanimously on March 4th of 2025, would have ended the practice of raising health insurance premiums based on tobacco use on January 1st of this year– it was vetoed by Governor Youngkin 20 days later. It’s proposals like these, which do not incur significant costs to the Commonwealth’s budget but still satisfy an affordability agenda, that Spanberger has her eye on enacting into law early in her tenure. 

The other proposals, such as the measure which would limit prior authorizations for medications, provisions to keep ACA marketplace premiums from enduring rate hikes, and a bill which aims to channel Department of Health funds to VHWDA to promote a more robust healthcare workforce, approach obstacles to healthcare affordability by focusing on some of the more bureaucratic barriers between patients and receiving the care they need. One of the proposed bills, which would mandate drug rebates for overcharging for prescriptions from unaffiliated pharmacies, aims to reimburse patients and pharmacies which can’t compete with the rates negotiated by dedicated pharmacy benefits managers. 

The proposed bills aim to lower healthcare costs for Virginians by passing the cost of management back to insurers, rather than by capping the cost outright, allocating taxpayer funds to offset rate hikes, or expanding healthcare benefits for patients to match the increased cost. No money from the General Fund will be allocated, according to reporting from VPM. 

Energy

Only one of the proposed pieces of legislation pertaining to Virginia’s energy affordability plan was passed last session and vetoed by Governor Youngkin; HB2537, sponsored by Delegate Rip Sullivan of HD-02, would have placed increased demands on energy suppliers Appalachian Power and Dominion Energy to petition the State Corporation Commission for approval to greatly expand energy storage capabilities by 2045. After passing the General Assembly with broad bipartisan support on March 7th, Governor Youngkin submitted substitutions to the bill which would have repealed the section of the Code of Virginia which shifts coal and oil power plants towards renewable energy sources. After failing to confirm the changes to the bill in the House, by a vote of 47-49, Governor Youngkin issued an explanation to his veto: 

The Virginia Clean Economy Act (VCEA) is failing Virginians. Adding in requirements for the petitioning of additional storage technologies will not change the fact that the law is misguided and does not work. Long-duration energy storage is an expensive technology and if utilities believed it to be the best technology to meet demand, they would be actively seeking permission to build them.

When combined with the other measures, like the recommendation to permit portable residential solar use, a bill which would empower the State Corporation Commission to better predict surges in electricity demand, and a bill which was pre-filed in November by Mark Sickles (HD-17) that aims to deliver efficient, reliable energy to low-income households, these proposals signal a cautious outlook on Virginia’s energy futures. According to Dominion Energy’s own estimates, Virginia is expected to weather a 6.3% increase in energy demand annually over the next 10 years. This is partly due to the rise of electric vehicles in the Commonwealth, but also due to the ballooning presence and cost of data centers.

Housing

The proposals for housing affordability are a 50-50 split between the old and the new; three of the bills were proposed or prefiled in 2025, and three are proposals from Spanberger for the next session. The first bill, HB1719, sponsored by Delegate Cia Price (HD-85) (and identical in form to State Senator Rouse’s SB812), would have lengthened the time between the termination of a lease and formally evicting the tenant from five to 14 days. 

The other vetoed bill, SB1313, would have permitted any locality in the Commonwealth to approve a plan to change the zoning laws of a locality without the permission of other authorities. It was vetoed by Youngkin, the reason being that– “The bill is unnecessary. In general, local governments should take the price of housing into account when considering their zoning policies. Current law allows certain local governments with well-documented housing affordability issues the ability to enact such ordinances.”

Proposals that aim to reduce housing costs in Virginia include measures that provides competitive loan options for the construction of mixed use buildings, advocating for more money to be allocated from private activity bonds for building of affordable housing units, and the expansion of the pilot program (VERP) which provides financing options for tenants who are at high risk of eviction. 

Conclusions

At face value, the plan feels more proscriptive than expansive; Spanberger does not mandate that more affordable housing units must be built during her term, or that Virginia must meet immediate thresholds for clean energy under the VCEA (the soonest that green energy must completely phase out coal and carbon based fuel types in any legislation mentioned is 2045). While the plan has gained many vocal supporters in House and Senate Democrats, Republican House Leader Terry Kilgore (HD-45) struck a more cautious tone in comments made last month to VPM– “If you don’t build enough houses, housing gets expensive. If you don’t produce enough energy, energy gets expensive. If demand rises faster than supply, prices go up. No legislation can repeal the law of supply and demand.”

What the Spanberger plan lacks in potential for ribbon-cutting ceremonies and photo ops it tries to recoup in constructing guardrails in the General Assembly, in an effort to manage the monied interests in developing Virginia’s energy, healthcare, and housing infrastructure. While none of the plans have promised to put money directly into the pockets of Virginians, the intended purpose is to prevent it from being taken in the first place; whether this is an affordability agenda that Spanberger is capable of delivering, and whether it can ameliorate the anxieties of voters long term in a Democratic trifecta state like Virginia, remains to be seen.