Serving in Virginia’s state legislature is a part-time job.

Unlike their counterparts in Congress, who draw six-figure taxpayer-funded salaries and can sometimes take over a year to pass a bill, state lawmakers are paid less than $20,000 annually and have two to three months to vet more than 2,000 pieces of proposed legislation. Once that window ends, they return to their home localities to resume their lives among the people who elected them.

“When we go into session, we know a few months later whether it passed or didn’t pass,” said Del. Otto Wachsmann, R-Sussex, who fielded questions from Isle of Wight County constituents at the Chamber of Commerce’s post-legislative breakfast on March 28.

It marked the first time in several years that the event returned to The Smithfield Center.

Wachsmann represents Virginia’s 83rd House District, which spans seven largely rural cities and counties, including northern and western Isle of Wight. State Sen. Emily Jordan, R-Isle of Wight, joined him for the event, but Del. Nadarius Clark, D-Suffolk, was unable to attend. Event organizers said he’s recovering from surgery. 

Jordan represents Senate District 17, which spans nine localities. Clark represents the southeastern part of Isle of Wight County and part of Suffolk that form the 84th House District.

Among the questions posed to both lawmakers was whether they would support lengthening the annual General Assembly session. Both said they supported maintaining the part-time term.

“We’re not gone two-thirds of the year; we have to live in our districts,” Jordan said. “Whenever we’re at home, we’re better informed about what your needs are.”

This year’s session, already only 45 days because it’s an odd-numbered year, was shortened further by a weeklong water outage in Richmond caused by an early January blizzard. When the legislature convened Jan. 8, a Wednesday, “we were there for 30 minutes to an hour,” said Wachsmann. “We were sent home to come back on Monday.”

WIth Democrats holding narrow majorities in both chambers and Gov. Glenn Youngkin, a Republican, holding the power to veto a bill, bipartisan support is essential to getting anything passed. Jordan highlighted as an example a bill she sponsored to ban seven color additives in foods served at public schools by July 1, 2027. The bill passed both chambers unanimously and Youngkin signed it into law on March 21.

“A divided government isn’t always a bad thing,” Jordan said.

But to the dismay of some in Isle of Wight, Youngkin vetoed a bill that would have allowed all cities and counties to raise their sales tax rate by 1% by voter referendum to fund school construction. Jordan, who voted in favor of the bill cosponsored by Sens. Jeremy McPike, D-Prince William, and Travis Hackworth, R-Tazewell, said she’d voted last year in favor of overriding Youngkin’s veto of similar legislation and would do so again when the legislature reconvenes April 2. Wachsmann, who’d voted in favor of the bill when it crossed over to the House in February, didn’t say how he’d vote come April 2.

“We just have a difference of opinion,” Jordan said. “Sometimes that happens, even on the same side of the aisle.”

A Youngkin-backed bill by state Sen. Tara Durant, R-Fredericksburg, proposing a car tax credit of up to $150 for Virginians earning less than $50,000, or up to $300 for married households earning less than $100,000 died in a Senate committee this year. Jordan, however, noted the House version of the state budget includes an income tax refund of up to $200 for individuals or $400 for married couples filing jointly. Jordan said the car tax bill died in part because many localities, Isle of Wight among them, would be adversely impacted by the loss of car tax revenue.

Wachsmann highlighted a bill he sponsored to allow the state health commissioner to impose a civil penalty on a licensed nursing home for lower-level violations such as bathrooms in disrepair. The federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which oversees nursing homes, only imposes sanctions at the federal level when there are major issues that can harm patients. Youngkin signed the bill on March 19.

Isle of Wight County Administrator Randy Keaton, among several appointed and elected local officials in the audience, asked Jordan and Wachsmann what solutions they’d propose for what he called an “unfunded mandate” requiring localities to eat the cost of tax exemptions for disabled veterans and surviving spouses of soldiers killed in action. A bill by McPike that would have reimbursed 50% of the budgetary impact for localities where at least 1% of the local real estate base is exempt from taxation stalled in the Senate Finance and Appropriations Committee this year.

“We welcome the veterans here, but it is a cost to localities,” Keaton said. “We’re the fifth-highest in the state as far as the percentage of our tax base that we lose every year from that tax exemption.”

“That was the concern for the car tax,” Wachsmann said.

“We’ll have to find a creative way to look at that,” Jordan said.

Another question concerned statewide and local impacts from the executive order President Donald Trump issued on March 20 directing U.S. Department of Education Secretary Linda McMahon to “take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Department of Education and return authority over education to the states and local communities.” Among the Department of Education’s current responsibilities is enforcing state and local administration of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, which mandates a “free and appropriate public education.”

“Special education services have not stopped,” Jordan said.

Trump said on March 21 in a televised broadcast from the Oval Office that the Department of Health and Human Services, headed by Robert Kennedy Jr., would be “handling special needs and all of the nutrition programs and everything else” while the Small Business Administration, headed by Kelly Loeffler, “will handle all of the student loan portfolio.”