Multiple laws passed by Democrats in Richmond this year have either been struck down or paused by the legal system. The bans on assault weapons and ICE agents wearing masks have injunctions blocking their implementation, and the redistricting amendment approved by Virginia voters was overturned by the Virginia Supreme Court.
Democrats, who control all branches of state government, are grappling with the reality that some of the legislation they are crafting and passing is struggling to withstand legal scrutiny.
Gov. Abigail Spanberger addressed this reality during a meeting with reporters on Thursday.
“If you’re signing a bill into law, you should pay attention to the constitutionality of it. And in fact, there were some bills that I didn’t sign based on the constitutionality,” she said.
A federal judge blocked implementation of legislation on June 30 that would have prohibited ICE officers from wearing masks in Virginia.
The judge wrote that the federal government “is likely to suffer irreparable injury, absent preliminary injunctive relief, because its valid laws and practices in a domain of federal authority are undermined by impermissible state regulation that is required by the mask/indentity statute.”
“What we did with the mask bill was try to learn from what other states had done, which is go specifically targeted at federal law enforcement,” Spanberger said. “Certainly, there’s a jurisdictional issue there, one that ultimately is constitutional, and so what was really important about the bill that I ultimately signed and went through, is that it included language about all law enforcement within Virginia.”
Spanberger, a former government law enforcement officer, said it is normal for federal agencies to take local laws into account when operating in the field.
“It is extraordinarily common for federal agencies to be aware of what are some of the local standards and to ensure that federal agencies, whether they’re working in partnership, on task forces, etc, are kind of aligned with local standards and local laws,” she said. “And it’s just unfortunate that the federal government is refusing to recognize that. Apart from the exceptions, choosing to just be masked on the street for no reason is something that actually undermines their ability to do a job with any level of community buy-in or any level of clear authority within a community.”
Multiple state-level judges have placed injunctions against the assault weapons ban that Democrats passed this year. Spanberger, who vowed to remove assault-style weapons from the streets on the campaign, followed through with that promise by signing the legislation that state Sen. Sadam Salim, D-Fairfax, and Del. Dan Helmer, D-Fairfax, advanced out of the General Assembly.
Attorney General Jay Jones fought these lawsuits in court, ultimately losing in Washington County and Lancaster County, with the Washington County judge entering a statewide injunction against the law that will take effect on June 21.
Jones asked the judges in the multiple lawsuits against the assault weapons ban for a delay until after the United States Supreme Court takes up two related cases.
The federal government is also suing Virginia over the ban.
Spanberger said the data shows that bans on these weapons would save lives and that she is not surprised a Republican-led federal government would take issue with the legislation.
“I expected that a federal administration that doesn’t share the priority of reducing gun violence, or doesn’t necessarily share the priority of looking at data-driven policymaking, would take issue from a partisan lens,” Spanberger said.
“I always anticipated that some Virginian would challenge that law, but it’s one that I stand by, and it’s the right of an individual who might disagree with the law to challenge it,” she continued. “We’ll continue to defend it because ultimately the law is about saving lives, and so we’ll defend that premise.”
Perhaps the biggest public setback that Democrats in Virginia faced this year was the redistricting amendment. Democrats attempted to redraw congressional boundaries to make it easier for Democrats to win in Republican areas. This was done in response to President Donald Trump calling on conservative states to do the same for Republicans.
Democrats completed the multiple steps to amend the constitution and put the question to a vote of all of Virginia’s voters – who approved the change.
But the Virginia Supreme Court struck it down, saying that early voting for the 2025 House of Delegates elections had already started when Democrats began the process. To amend the constitution, the General Assembly must pass the legislation twice, with an election for the House in between.
The Virginia Supreme Court ruled 4-3 that the early voting process, which began long before the General Assembly first passed redistricting legislation at the end of October in 2025, made the amendment unconstitutional.
Spanberger was never the face of the redistricting movement, and seemed to almost begrudgingly go along with it by the end. She often stated that she won two of the five Republican-held congressional districts in 2025, implying that she did not believe Virginia needed to redraw the lines to gain more seats.
She echoed that sentiment again on Thursday.
“Throughout the entire process of the redistricting conversation, some of the things that I mentioned were that redistricting wasn’t necessary to win seats,” she said.
“From a political standpoint, the biggest point of consternation that I have is I think that along the way people, whether it’s people in Virginia or people watching Virginia, incorrectly took the message that we couldn’t win without redistricting,” Spanberger continued. “We can win. I believe we will win, but there’s been new challenges created for the candidates who have been working hard, who now have a primary coming up in August, later than our normal in June.”
Democrats in the General Assembly passed legislation earlier this year to move the primary date from mid-June to early August to ensure there was enough time under the new maps for campaigning and early voting. The courts overturned the amendment, but the later primary date remained in place.
“I think the biggest challenge that we’re facing is that we need voters to refocus on where we are at this exact moment as we head towards August 4, and then ultimately towards November,” Spanberger said.