Blue Virginia stock photo from Paul Stringer/Shutterstock.

Virginia is now a wholly-blue state, as Democrats won majorities in both the state House and Senate in Tuesday’s election. They will have the opportunity to pass many previously-stalled legislative proposals, including on transportation and housing as well as hot-button national issues.

In locally contested General Assembly races we followed, John Bell (D) beat Geary Higgins (R) in the Loudoun and Prince William 13th Senate district, 55%-45% to replace retiring GOP Senator Dick Black. Dan Helmer (D) knocked off Republican caucus chairman Rep. Tim Hugo, 53%-47%, in the Fairfax and Price William 40th House district. And Alfonso Lopez won re-election handily to the 49th House district in Arlington and Fairfax with 83% of the vote.

Danica Roem, the Democratic House member who made history as the first out transgender state legislator in the nation, fended off a Republican challenge 57%-43% in her Prince William County district. Speaking of firsts, Virginia also now has its first Muslim American in the state Senate, Ghazala Hashmi, who beat incumbent Glen Sturtevant (R) in the Richmond-area 10th district, 54%-46%.

All Democratic nominees we endorsed won their races in Fairfax County, Arlington County, and for Arlington/Falls Church Commonwealth’s Attorney, with one exception. Incumbent Pat Herrity, the Fairfax board’s only Republican, barely held onto his seat with 50.7% to Linda Sperling’s 49.1%.

Juli Briskman, the cyclist who gave a middle finger to Trump in 2017, then was pushed to resign from her job, won a seat on the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors. She beat a Republican incumbent for one of the districts — which, as it happens, contains the Trump golf course. She was one of three Democrats to flip seats on the nine-member board en route to taking a majority, and incumbent chair Phyllis Randall (D) won re-election.

What will the Democrats do in the State House?

Come January, Democrats will control the legislature and governorship for the first time since 1994 (not to mention the Attorney General and both US Senators). There has been plenty of discussion online about what legislation the new state legislative majorities will likely pass, including gun control, LGBTQ protections, a higher minimum wage, ratifying the Equal Rights Amendment, and more. What will the likely effect be on local transportation and housing?

We asked our contributors, some of whom could talk publicly and some, who are involved with state government, had to speak anonymously.

One said, “Over the past decade, outside the Beltway suburban Republicans have put forth bills pretty much every year to try and narrow Virginia transportation spending to be only about adding highway capacity. Things like sidewalks, bikeways, and local transit have gotten harder and harder to fund, while expensive road projects (and admittedly longer distance highway-oriented transit) have gotten easier to fund. I don’t expect VA to stop making highways bigger any time soon, but I hope and expect that at least the annual systematic attack on funding other modes will be so much weakened as to be powerless, and might even reverse with some good bills to make other modes easier.”

Emily Badger recently wrote in the New York Times about how in many suburban Virginia districts including Roem’s, traffic was the main issue, She alluded to a “bargain” voters feel about having moved to a certain area and expecting to be able to drive quickly around, but as population increases, that isn’t possible.

Joanne Tang says, “People think traffic should be improved via road improvement rather than done away with via investing in public transit. And then people start using transit when it’s available, convenient, and safe and that turns riders into converts and advocates. GGWash writers have tackled that underlying bargain before and I’d really like to see something new on this now that we have a far more optimistic political environment.”

“As the housing shortage pushes people further out, we get folks in exurban-suburban areas who came from areas with transit and are more interested in transit and far more likely to adopt it when its an option. We’ve seen some evidence of that in Southern Maryland and I’m wondering if that’s also a factor in Virgina,” said another contributor.

In the same vein, Canaan Merchant wrote, “There’s a tendency in media to think that when people are stuck in traffic they want more roads-based solutions and that consistently gets proven wrong. In recent surveys about area roadways (Fairfax County Parkway, I-95, Route 50 are all recent examples) people asking for transit options is a huge proportion (or sometimes just a majority) of what people ask for. Even in surveys not designed to ask a lot about transit.”

On energy, Virginia is now more likely to join the in-formation Transportation and Climate Initiative, a multi-state agreement to reduce transportation-related emissions, and the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. Both are cap and trade-related systems that apply to transportation fuels and power plants, respectively, one contributor said.

Canaan Merchant wrote, “Back in the summer Vox had a cheeky article saying these certain states found ways to pass climate laws based on one weird trick (spoiler: it was Democratic Party control of government).”

For the 2018 Metro funding deal between DC, Maryland, and Virginia, the General Assembly took funding away from the Northern Virginia Transportation Authority, meaning other Northern Virginia priorities lost out. In our questionnaires, all of the victorious Democratic state legislative candidates said they would look to restore the money to NVTA, paying for Metro with other revenues.

It’ll also be important to follow whether the new General Assembly gives localities more power, including to tax themsleves or regulate business locally. The Republican majority had long opposed any tax increases, even local ones outside their own districts. The “Dillon Rule,” which Virginia uses, says that counties and cities can only take actions the state explicitly authorizes, and that has often frustrated local leaders in Northern Virginia jurisdictions who couldn’t employ policies that commanded public support.

Tim Hugo, who lost Tuesday, even led an effort to punish Arlington for opposing a highway by taking away a taxing power it already had, but now his party will be in the minority. The Arlington Chamber of Commerce plans to push to retain the Dillon Rule, fearful of jurisdictions like Arlington and Fairfax enacting business regulations similar to ones already in place in DC and Maryland counties, but the counties and cities may find a more receptive audience in Richmond this January.