Henrico Democratic lawmakers gather with residents for session sendoff

Four Democratic members of the Virginia General Assembly from Henrico County met with residents Jan. 12 at WayGone Brewery in the Far West End ahead of the General Assembly’s eight-week session.

The private event began with conversation among Sen. Schuyler VanValkenburg, Del. May Nivar, Del. Rodney Willett and Del. Destiny LaVere-Bolling and attendees. The legislators later provided remarks about the upcoming session before taking questions from the audience.

“A top priority for the legislature, particularly on the Dem. side, is to pass the four constitutional amendments,” Nivar said. “Redistricting, removing the ban on marriage equality, protecting reproductive freedom and restoring voting rights for those who have completed their sentences.”

Nivar said she hopes to pass about a dozen bills focusing on strengthening community trust and public safety, long-term care, promoting transparency with non-emergency medical transport and mental health support in schools.

Henrico resident Mo Riley said she hopes public schools and education will be addressed this year. After COVID-19, there has been a struggle to catch up, she said.

“One way people can make education fail is raising expectations of schools and students and cutting the funding,” Riley said.

Willett said he is excited for Democratic Gov.-elect Abigail Spanberger to begin her position, but added that multi-billion dollar gaps created by the federal government are unprecedented and unbelievable.

“A million you can deal with,” Willett said. “When you get to the billions, in a state that can only spend what we take in, that’s tough.”

Willett, chair of the Health and Human Services Committee, said he will primarily focus on healthcare and the budget. 

VanValkenburg echoed Willett’s concern about matters in Washington and said there would be an opportunity to respond in a couple ways. Protecting people’s rights and focusing on affordability in Virginia will be important, he said, adding that he's optimistic because it has been done before and can be done again.

“I think Virginia’s going to be alright, I think America’s going to be alright, but we gotta make it so,” VanValkenburg said.

LaVere-Bolling proposed almost 20 bills and said that a priority for the caucus is affordability. One of her proposed bills – extending the sunset of The Virginia Alzheimer's Disease and Related Disorders Commission, currently set to end this year – is especially important to her because Alzheimer’s and dementia run in her family, she said.

“Henrico is similar to a story we all may know, The Little Engine That Could,” said LaVere-Bolling. “We’ve come a long, long way, and we are the beacon of hope in the Commonwealth of Virginia.”

Henrico resident Kay Schlembach said education, the budget, healthcare and data centers are issues she hopes to see raised by the legislature.

“I am a grandmother,” said Schlembach. “That’s one of the reasons I’m in this fight every single day – to try to make things better for their parents and for them too.”

Henrico is represented by five members of the House of Delegates and four members of the Virginia Senate, and seven of those nine are Democrats. The districts represented by the two Republicans (the 57th House District and 10th Senate District) include a total of fewer than 18,000 of the county's registered 249,899 voters.