Here in Richmond, after the month of January seemed to go on forever (Thanks, water crisis!), the Virginia General Assembly has reached ‘Crossover’, the midway point of the Legislative Session. At this point, a bill that started in the House must be passed by the House to then ‘crossover’ to the Senate, and legislation that started in the Senate must have been passed by the Senate to ‘crossover’ to the House. Legislation then begins the process over again in the opposite body.

So far this year, the Virginia REALTORS^® Legislative Agenda has sailed through the General Assembly and the respective bodies in near-unanimous fashion. With five bills in each chamber, running ten pieces of legislation can be challenging, but thanks in large part to your contributions to RPAC, our relationships within the General Assembly remain strong.

The Virginia REALTORS^® Legislative Agenda looks to be on a solid path for the remaining three weeks of session. Your lobbying team, Senior Vice President for Government Relations Mary Lawson, Legislative Counsel Erin Kormann, and Vice President for Association Advocacy D.J. Spiker has been an impactful voice for REALTORS^® across the commonwealth.

The Virginia REALTORS^® Public Policy Committee has been doing valuable work, evaluating nearly 100 bills on the PPC Action List to determine whether bills should be supported, opposed, amended, or monitored. It’s also a testament to our incredible Legislative Counsel, Erin Kormann, who spends a tremendous amount of time meeting with lawmakers and working to amend their bills to negate any impact on our members.

We’d also like to give a special thanks to those elected officials who are carrying our Legislative Agenda this session: Delegates David Bulova, Terry Kilgore, Marcus Simon, Briana Sewell, and Josh Thomas; and Senators Christie New Craig, Travis Hackworth, Jeremy McPike, Bryce Reeves, and David Suetterlein.

Also, a big thank you to those of you who have taken time out of your busy schedules to visit us here in Richmond for our local association Days on the Hill! We enjoyed having you here to visit the Capitol and advocate on behalf of our industry. This year’s program has been bigger than ever, with 20 of our 28 associations participating, and many of those bringing record numbers of REALTORS^®! We look forward to seeing many more of you in the coming weeks.

Stay tuned for more General Assembly updates on our social media platforms. Onto the second half of Session!

Learn more about Virginia REALTORS®’ advocacy efforts on behalf of YOUR business.