Throughout her successful 2025 campaign, Virginia Democratic Gov.-elect Abigail Spanberger pledged to implement an Affordable Virginia Plan to combat rising costs for consumers. Now, as she prepares to take her oath of office on Jan. 17, Spanberger and leaders in the General Assembly have announced several specific policies they plan to enact to keep that promise.
At a Dec. 18 press conference with leaders of the Democratic majorities in the House of Delegates and Senate, Spanberger and the lawmakers laid out a joint Affordable Virginia Agenda, including several pieces of legislation aimed at making health care, energy, and housing more affordable. Spanberger called the package the “the beginning, the first step, of these efforts,” according to a post on her transition team’s website.
Several of the proposals were bills approved by the Legislature in 2025 but vetoed by Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin.
When the Legislature convenes on Jan. 14, members will begin work on health care legislation, including bills to limit health insurers’ requirements for prior authorization for the dispensing of medications and to create a pilot program to provide premium assistance to help individuals at risk of losing their insurance due to the Dec. 31, 2025, expiration of federal Affordable Care Act Marketplace subsidies. The transition team’s post said another bill would “stop predatory middlemen from hiking up the cost of prescription drugs.”
To lower utility bills, lawmakers plan to pass laws to make electrical utilities expand their energy storage, allow families to install small solar systems without the usual utility approvals, create a task force to propose ways to expand home weatherization, and to require electric utilities to expand programs to help low-income families make their homes more energy-efficient.
The legislators plan to make housing more affordable by increasing protections for renters, authorizing local governments to develop affordable housing programs, providing loans for developers who construct mixed-income housing, and expanding a pilot program that offers short-term financial aid to tenants facing evictions.
“Lowering costs for families will be front and center of Senate Democrats’ work come January,” said Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell, according to the transition team press release. “Our caucus is ready to hit the ground running together with Governor-elect Spanberger to pass this agenda that provides relief for Virginians who are feeling squeezed at the pharmacy counter, by their utility bills, and on the housing market.”
“High costs aren’t just a quality-of-life concern, but a matter of economic competitiveness,” Spanberger wrote in a Dec. 26 Fox News op-ed. “If we fail to act, we risk slower economic growth, lower tax revenue, and declining productivity — consequences that would disadvantage Virginia for decades to come.”
Spanberger and the legislators will face significant economic challenges stemming from President Donald Trump’s economic policies. According to an October 2025 economic forecast by the Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service at the University of Virginia, the commonwealth is likely to see stagnant employment after massive cuts to the federal workforce. With Trump’s tariffs on goods imported into the United States, consumer prices are expected to continue to rise in 2026.
“Having a federal government that continues to attack, in many ways, Virginia’s economy is detrimental to Virginia. Chaotic policies, such as the trade and retaliatory tariffs that have been impacting so much of Virginia’s economy, [are] difficult,” Spanberger told Virginia Business Magazine on Jan. 5. “What I believe is my mandate is to stand up for the people of Virginia and ensure … that those policies are focused on the core tenets of my campaign, whether it’s lowering costs or strengthening public education, or really ensuring that our communities feel the support and the vibrancy of a governor who is deeply focused on the long-term success of our commonwealth.”