Governor Youngkin approves 180 bills in first wave of action

The 140 legislators elected to the Virginia General Assembly will return to Richmond on April 2 today to take action on whatever Governor Glenn Youngkin has done with the bills they sent him during the 2025 session.

On March 18, Youngkin signed 180 bills at a public event.

“I acted today on a package of bipartisan bills that will further bolster the Commonwealth’s status as America’s Top State for Business,” Youngkin said.

The entire event is on one of Meta’s platforms if you want to view it.

Many of these bills are technical such as one related to how the Virginia Economic Development Partnership Authority should include audit information in its annual report. Several communities had requested changes to their charter such as the City of Chesapeake, the Town of Broadnax, and the City of Martinsville. Same with the City of Danville and the City of Roanoke. In the Town of Urbanna, the Mayor will now be a member of the Town Council.

Here are some highlights:

• HB1706 amends the Virginia Residential Property Disclosure Act to include aircraft noise in a list of disclosures and requires the Virginia Department of Aviation to establish and provide a public portal with maps of noise zones. This was a recommendation from the Virginia Housing Commission.
• HB1799 prohibits the disclosure of names of lottery winners who have won $1 million or more in prizes. The current threshold is $10 million.
• HB1860 allows for nursing programs to ask for a waiver from the requirement that there be a 10 to 1 ratio from students to faculty and to go as high as 15 to 1.
• If you’re running a charitable bingo game, you can’t pay the people running it more than $100 a session. HB1920 increases that to $200 and establishes that amount will automatically increased according to inflation after 2029.
• The fee to register an aircraft will be increased thanks to HB2022. This actually came up during the Albemarle Board of Supervisors’ first work session on March 10.
• With the approval of HB2128, localities can now pursue civil penalties on commercial buildings that are derelict. Currently they can only do that with residential property. Might this mean more power for Charlottesville over the Landmark?
• HB2151 makes a change to the definition of “community land trust” under Virginia code.
• In an era where President Trump has asked for the CHIPS Act to be overturned, HB2358 creates the Current and Mature Semiconductor Technology Grant Fund.

The following were not included in the original publication of this story.

• Funeral directors no longer have to report certain statistics to the State Registrar such as how many caskets were furnished, how many bodies were prepared for disposition, and funerals where no casket was furnished.
• Fusion energy is now on the list of fuel generation sources that qualify as clean energy.
• The director of the State Council on Higher Education will now be known as its executive director.
• Graduates of foreign dental schools will continue to be allowed to teach dentistry as a sunset clause has been repealed.
• School systems can now advertise that they are hiring for school bus drivers on transport vehicles.

This is not the complete list. That can be seen here.

Bills that have been approved by Virginia’s governor without any suggested amendments do not require further action by the General Assembly. For the most part, these will now become law on July 1, 2025.

“Unless the bill has a re-enactment clause, which means the bill would have to be approved again next year in order to take effect,” said David Blount, the legislative liaison of the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission.

Any bills that Youngkin vetoes can be overridden but it will require a two-thirds majority in both chambers. Blount points out that requires 67 Delegates and 27 Senators. That could be difficult with Democrats holding narrow majorities in both.

Close to press time, Governor Youngkin sent out an information release that stated he’d signed 180 bills, but the Legislative Information System has not yet caught up. So, more information in the future.