By Delegate David Englin, 45th District The General Assembly remains in special session, and now a handful of House and Senate budget conferees are negotiating the final details of the state’s two-year budget, which I’m confident will be resolved in the near future. In the meantime, I wanted to share some final thoughts on the rest of the General Assembly’s business this session. For the past several years, I have been working with a small group of legislators to change the culture in Richmond when it comes to billions of dollars of tax giveaways that neither legislators nor the public have …

In the midst of the ongoing debate about Republican attempts to play doctor and interfere with women’s private medical decisions, the House of Delegates last week debated and voted on the budget. When Governor McDonnell introduced his budget in December, Democrats identified three major problems with it. First, a larger portion of the sales tax was diverted from the General Fund—which pays for K-12 education, higher ed, public safety, and community assistance needs for the disabled—to transportation. Over the course of several years, the percentage would rise from its current rate of 0.5 …

By Delegate David Englin, 45th District On Sunday, the House and Senate budget committees unveiled competing versions of Virginia's $85-billion two-year budget. An initial review suggests that both proposals restore some of the cuts to education and the safety net proposed by Governor McDonnell. However, the House version of the budget still cuts $65 million that schools in Northern Virginia need to account for our region's high cost of living, and it includes Governor McDonnell's plan to divert about $100 million per year from education, health care, and public safety to pave roads. The …

By Delegate David Englin, 45th District During marathon floor sessions earlier this week, the House of Delegates debated and voted on dozens of bills before "crossover," the Tuesday deadline by which bills must pass the House before being considered by the Senate. In terms of sheer volume, most of the bills we passed enjoyed strong bipartisan support and drew little controversy. These included bills I cosponsored to expand medical assistance to pregnant women who are legal immigrants, to give our community the power to decide our school calendar for ourselves, and to give Northern Virginia a …

By Delegate David Englin, 45th District As the halfway point of this year’s General Assembly session quickly approaches, our attention has turned to the state’s two-year budget. I believe strongly that budgets are moral documents that determine whom we lift up and whom we leave out. Governor McDonnell’s proposed budget includes some laudable new spending on higher education, economic development, and shoring up the state employee pension trust fund. However, Governor McDonnell puts Grover Nordquist’s No Tax Pledge ahead of the needs of the most vulnerable Virginians, so he is making these …

By Delegate David Englin, 45th District While the overwhelming majority of legislation we work on in Richmond draws no controversy, we are entering the phase of the General Assembly session where some of the most difficult and divisive issues come up for debate. As a long-standing member of the committee that hears health care and social services issues, I had the opportunity this week to weigh in on three such issues: HPV vaccinations, abortion funding for pregnancies with severe fetal deformities, and "conscience clause" legislation for state-funded adoption and foster care agencies. …

By Delegate David Englin, 45th District With the General Assembly session moving at its typical breakneck pace, several of my initiatives are moving forward, while others are creating a stir. My top priorities this session include working to expand access to quality early childhood education, and my two bills on that subject won unanimous support from the Students and Early Education Subcommittee last week. House Bill 143 would allow school divisions to enter into public-private partnerships that leverage private investments in pre-k to lower special education costs, reinvesting those savings…