Greetings, friends! 

Happy Super 🏈 Bowl Sunday! 

It was another packed week here at the General Assembly! Many of my bills were heard, my committee meeting dockets were full, and my office hosted tons of meetings with stakeholder groups and constituents. Below you'll see highlights of the week and updates on my 2026 legislative portfolio.

For additional announcements and updates, please follow me on Facebook, Instagram, X/twitter, and Bluesky.

On Tuesday, February 4th, I started the morning at the "Virginia You Can Afford" press conference with Freedom Virginia and my House Dem colleagues. We talked about our affordability agenda: from housing to energy to prescription drug costs and child care. These are meaningful bills that will help working people and Virginia families!

On Wednesday, February 5th, I was honored to receive the Virginia Chamber Free Enterprise Award for 2025 for my work in housing. If we want to be the #1 state for business and a place where families and young professionals can thrive, we have to have housing that people can afford!

This session, I am newly serving on the Senate Rules Committee. Rules is a central committee with members in leadership roles, such as chairs and floor leaders. We oversee our chamber's internal operations--we amend Senate rules, manage joint rules with the House of Delegates, approve study commissions, and review non-procedural resolutions. We don't have a regular meeting time the way other committees do, but tend to meet later in the morning on Fridays. This past Friday, we met and I even presented two of my bills related to energy, SB 223 and SB 510!

Housing Bills:

- SB 346 (Manufactured Housing): Prohibits localities from discriminating against manufactured homes, allowing them to be built in areas that allow site-built housing, like regular single-family homes.

Status: Reported from the Senate Committee on Local Government (14-Y 1-N) and then passed the full Senate (38‑Y 2‑N 0‑A). Now, it's headed to the House!

- SB 77 (Zero Lot Lines): Makes it easier for individuals who own older homes to make repairs to the exterior of their house when it hits their neighbors' property lines.

Status: After passing the full Senate, this bill was referred to the House Committee on Courts of Justice 

- SB 454 (Housing Near Jobs): Requires localities to allow for the by-right development of multi-family housing on at least 75% of all commercial or business zones in their district.

Status: Reported from the Senate Committee on Local Government with a substitute (8-Y 4-N 3-A) and then passed the full Senate (21‑Y 19‑N 0‑A). Now, it's headed to the House!

For media coverage of this bill, go here.

- SB 349 (Pre-lease Rent Fees): Regulates and restricts the fees landlords can charge to tenants prior to and during lease signing, and upon lease renewal. It adds additional transparency measures so applicants know what fees they have to pay before applying.

Status: Presented in the Senate Committee on General Laws & Technology, but needed some amendments and will be heard again this coming week.

Energy Bills:

- SB 223 (VA-DER Task Force): Establishes the Distributed Energy Resources Task Force as an advisory commission within the Executive Branch to develop a comprehensive strategy to advance the Commonwealth's transition toward integrated distributed energy resource markets and to support the Commonwealth's compliance with certain regulations.

Status: Reported from the Senate Committee on Rules committee with amendments and re-referred to the Senate Committee on Finance and Appropriations (11‑Y 3‑N 1‑A)

- SB 347 (Solar Siting): Establishes clear, reasonable criteria for local solar ordinances while still leaving the ultimate decision-making authority on individual projects to local governments.

Status: Having passed the full Senate, this bill was referred to the House Committee on Counties, Cities, and Towns.

- SB 510 (University Energy Consortium): Supports a consortium of Virginia public universities to help implement the Virginia Energy Plan, and help delegate tasks such as electric utilities, program and project development, interconnection, infrastructure, and any other technical assistance for state agencies, planning district commissions, localities or other public bodies.

Status: Reported from the Senate Committee on Rules and re-referred to the Senate Committee on Finance and Appropriations (11‑Y 3‑N 1‑A).

Education Bills:

- SB 200 (K12 Assessment Updates): Modifies some of the provisions set forth in HB1957 from 2025 to overhaul K-12 end-of-course assessment practices.

Status: Recommended for reporting to the Senate Committee on Education & Health from the Public Education Subcommittee.

Other Bills:

- SB 128 (Ban Healthcare Non-competes): Adds healthcare professionals as a category of employee with or upon whom no employer shall enter into, enforce, or threaten to enforce a covenant not to compete. The bill defines "health care professional" as any person licensed, registered, or certified by the Board of Medicine, Nursing, Counseling, Optometry, Psychology, or Social Work.

Status: Reported unanimously (very exciting!) from the Senate Committee on Commerce & Labor with a substitute (13‑Y 0‑N) and then re-referred to the Senate Committee on Appropriations & Finance.

- SB 744 (Recreational Facilities Grant Authority): This bill will allow public recreation facilities to both accept and make grants to enhance efforts to promote sports tourism activities in the Commonwealth.

Status: Reported from the Senate Committee on Local Government and then passed by the full Senate, both unanimously!

- SB 85 (Digital Choice Act): Requires social media platforms and model operators to allow users to delete, download and/or share social graph data and contextual data associated with artificial intelligence models, as the user designates.

Status: Reported from the Senate Committee on General Laws & Technology with a substitute (15-Y 0-N) and headed to the Senate floor!

- SB 718 (Deployment of the National Guard: Oversight & Transparency): The Governor, within 48 hours of ordering the deployment of the Virginia National Guard, shall inform, in writing, the General Assembly of such deployment. The Governor shall summon the General Assembly if they wish for such a deployment to continue for longer than two weeks, and the General Assembly may pass a joint resolution by simple majority authorizing the continuation of such deployment. The bill requires the Adjutant General to submit an annual report to the General Assembly detailing federal and state deployments of the Virginia National Guard and other matters relating to retention, readiness, funding, and resources.

Status: I decided to strike this bill for this session. Hence, it was "stricken at request of the Patron" in the Senate Committee on General Laws & Technology.

 Voting & Elections Bills:

- SB 57 (ERIC): Virginia would rejoin the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC) to improve the accuracy of voter rolls, expand access to voter registration for all eligible Virginians, reduce election costs, and streamline the election process.

Status: Having passed the full Senate, this bill was referred to the House Committee on Privileges & Elections.

- SB 176 (Ranked Choice Voting): Expands the option to use ranked choice voting from only county board of supervisors and city council elections to any local governing body. The State Board of Elections will be required to provide standards and to approve vote tabulating software for use with existing voting systems in elections conducted by ranked choice voting.

Status: Having passed the full Senate, this bill was referred to the House Committee on Privileges & Elections.

Thanks for reading! I'll be back this time next week with another update. In the meantime, if you would like to discuss any of my legislative priorities, share an opinion, request a meeting, or if you’d like for me to come and share a legislative update at an event, please do not hesitate to contact my office at: [email protected].

Happy ❤️ Valentine's Day in advance! 

Yours in service, 

Schyuler VanValkenburg

Senator, 16th District 

Paid for by VanValkenburg for Virginia

VanValkenburg for Virginia
PO Box 28782
Richmond, VA 23228
United States

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