Governor Glenn Youngkin now has a long list of bills to review again after Wednesday’s 2025 General Assembly veto session officially wrapped up.
The governor released a statement Wednesday night, thanking lawmakers for their hard work.
The General Assembly has now concluded its legislative work for 2025. I am grateful to all our legislators, who dedicate their time and energy to serving the people of Virginia. Over the next 30 days I will review and take final action on the bills and budget amendments that have been sent back to my desk. Thank you again to the General Assembly members for their work throughout this legislative session.
Governor Glenn Youngkin
We’re working for you on what made it through, what got rejected and what’s likely headed right back to the governor.
Lawmakers tackled hundreds of amendments, vetoes, and changes to the state budget.
“I think we’ll get to hopefully a good place where we have a budget that, while isn’t perfect, most people can agree with,” said State Senator Glen Sturtevant for the 12th District.
The House of Delegates—controlled by democrats—dismissed dozens of the governor’s recommendations, forcing the original bill back on his desk, including an amended bill that allowed up to 10 doula visits to be covered by state health insurance.
The governor changed the wording in the bill from “birthing people” to “birthing women.”
“These amendments go in a different direction,” said Del. Rodney Willet for the 58th District. “It’s almost like a new budget being introduced. We’re not going to adopt that.”
The Senate quickly rejected a religious exemption amendment to a bill requiring insurance carriers to cover the costs of contraceptives.
“There are going to be plenty of things where you know democrats and republicans, we just disagree, and we’ll fight that out on the floor,” said Sturtevant.
But lawmakers accepted changes the Governor made to a bill limiting social media use for kids and teenagers under the age of 16.
The House also passed by an amended bill regulating the use of automatic license plate recognition technology. The bill originally limited data retention to 21 days; his amendment extends that to 30.
And an amended bill that would require a convicted reckless driver to install a speed limiter in their car.
The governor wants to leave discretion up to a judge instead of the original 100-mile-per-hour requirement.
“It’s gonna be hard to override those vetoes, amendments we can do something about, so you’ll see a lot of those amendments sent back,” Willet explained.
The Virginia Education Association lauded state lawmakers for largely rejecting Youngkin’s budget amendments, stating that some of the changes he proposed could be harmful to education in the Commonwealth.
According to the association, Virginia could lose more than 7,000 teaching jobs and $1.5 billion in education funding if the U.S. Department of Education is dismantled.
In the face of that federal uncertainty, state lawmakers and the VEA said it’s more important than ever to protect public schools and the progress made in classrooms across the Commonwealth.
The Governor has 30 days to act on what came out of the session. He can also line-item veto the budget.