It’s “halftime” at Virginia’s General Assembly! We have reached crossover – the day that bills introduced and passed in one chamber of the General Assembly “cross over” to be voted on by the other.

If you think this session is flying by, you have good reason to believe so – this year, legislators are in a “short session.” A typical short-session has 45 days.

No new bills will be introduced or considered now that we have reached crossover. Instead, the state House and Senate will consider only legislation that has successfully passed the opposite chamber. While we are heartened to see many of our priorities successfully making it through, this does mean that the list of bills that are still “alive” has whittled down slightly and we can refocus our advocacy efforts on those that remain to kill bad bills and uplift good conservation policy.

VCN has taken a position to support, oppose, or remain neutral on 118 bills this session and has internally monitored 330 bills.

After crossover, our list of bills narrows as bills get left in their chamber of origin. Of the bills on which we have taken a position, 48 have been defeated. This leaves 62 bills for us to advocate for throughout the remainder of session.

For a full list of bills that the Virginia Conservation Network has taken a position on, please visit our Bill Tracker.

Due to the short session, House of Delegates members are capped at seven bills a piece and State senators are capped at twelve bills each, which amounts to a maximum of 700 House bills and 480 Senate bills total in the General Assembly.

This year, VCN voted to support 73 bills and oppose 38 bills – far surpassing the number of positions we had taken in the last two previous short sessions in 2021 and 2019. Note: This chart does not include bills for which we have moved our position to “neutral.”

Now that we’ve reached crossover, our list of remaining conservation bills has been whittled down. Of the remaining 62 bills VCN took a position on, a majority deal with climate and energy legislation, especially in defense of existing energy policies like the Virginia Clean Economy Act.

Of VCN’s supported bills, the legislators above introduced the most pro-conservation policies to the General Assembly. This year, Delegate Suhas Subramanyam is our legislative champion in the House, patroning or co-patroning 9 VCN-supported bills. In the Senate, Senators Ghazala Hashmi and Jennifer McClellan both patroned or co-patroned 6 VCN-supported bills.

Now that we’ve reached crossover, your advocacy is crucial to get pro-conservation bills across the finish line, or defeat bills that would harm Virginia’s environment. See our General Assembly Advocacy 101 Guide to see actions you can to support/oppose bills or how to contact your legislator to discuss pro-conservation policy.