Democrats Gain in General Assembly Elections

VHCA (11/09/2007)

Democrats narrowly took the majority in the Virginia State Senate and made gains in the House of Delegates on Election Day, November 6th.   If the vote count does not change with the official vote canvas later this month, the Democrats will take over as the majority party in the Senate with 21 Democrats and 19 Republicans.  In the House, Republicans remain in control but by a slightly smaller margin than before – 54 Republicans, 44 Democrats, and two independents.

The shift to Democratic majority in the Senate will mean changes in committee chairmanships.  Northern Virginia will have considerably more power, taking the chairmanship of the powerful Senate Finance and Commerce and Labor committees and possibly taking chairmanship of two or three additional committees out of the ten Senate standing committees.

Because of retirements and election defeats, 18 current legislators will no longer serve next year.  This will create a much different committee makeup in each House. In addition, many legislators will use this election driven reorganization of the House and Senate as an opportunity to change committees if they have a desire to serve on different committees than they have in the past. 

The leadership of each party caucus in each House will meet soon to begin to formulate the organizational changes they will seek, and the decisions will most likely be announced in the first full week of the 2008 General Assembly Session which convenes on January 8th.  Of course, because of their majorities, the Republicans in the House and the Democrats in the Senate will have more power to accomplish the changes they desire.