Virginia Christian Alliance | February 25, 2026
While the governor told the nation she stands for families and affordability, she had already signed two amendments that would permanently alter the Virginia Constitution George Mason wrote — and strip protections from the very families she claims to defend.
Last night, Governor Abigail Spanberger stood in the chamber of the House of Burgesses in Colonial Williamsburg and spoke to the nation. She invoked George Mason’s Virginia. She invoked ordinary citizens demanding more of their government. She invoked service, duty, and the founders’ vision of a nation unlike anything the world had ever seen.
It was a powerful setting. It was a well-delivered speech. And for Virginians who have been watching what their governor has actually been doing in Richmond, it was difficult to reconcile.
Governor Spanberger asked the American people three questions about President Trump. We have three questions for her.
But first — watch the speech for yourself. Judge her words. Then read what follows.
Question One: Is Your Legislature Working to Make Life More Affordable for Virginia Families?
Governor Spanberger made affordability the centerpiece of her speech, just as she made it the centerpiece of her campaign. She told the nation that costs are too high in housing, health care, energy, and child care — and that Democrats are “laser focused on affordability.”
Here is what is happening in Richmond at this very moment.
While the governor was speaking in Williamsburg last night, her Democratic majority in the General Assembly has introduced more than 50 new taxes and tax increases this session. These are not taxes on corporations or abstractions. These are taxes on the everyday lives of ordinary Virginians — the same people she says she is fighting for.
The National Federation of Independent Business — the nation’s leading small business advocacy organization — reviewed the proposals and listed what would be newly taxed under Democratic legislation: gym memberships, hair care and nail care, dry cleaning, pet grooming and dog walking, residential lawn services, house cleaning, appliance repairs, streaming services, ride-share trips like Uber, delivery and shipping services, travel planning, and interior design. Their state director put it plainly: “These are not luxury services. They are everyday services people rely on.”
HB 978 was introduced to expand Virginia’s sales tax base to cover many of these currently untaxed personal services. It was continued in committee this year — meaning it did not advance — but Democrats have already signaled they plan to bring it back in 2027. HB 188, which would add a new 10% top income tax bracket on income over $1 million, has been folded into the broader Democratic tax package moving through Richmond. The Senate budget anticipates new revenue from proposed taxes on firearms and ammunition sales. The House budget banks on legalizing and taxing skill games.
THE NFIB SAID IT DIRECTLY: “These tax proposals would increase the cost of living, working and doing business in Virginia, even as Governor Spanberger and lawmakers say they’re looking for ways to improve affordability.” Virginia is reporting a significant budget surplus. The governor’s party chose new taxes anyway.
And what relief did Virginians receive in return? The Senate budget offers a one-time rebate of $100 for single filers and $200 for joint filers. One hundred dollars. Once. While new permanent taxes are layered onto the everyday expenses of every Virginia family.
There is more. The Democratic budget committees discarded former Governor Youngkin’s proposals to eliminate taxes on tips for service workers and pursue other tax reductions. According to the Senate Finance Committee, setting aside those tax cuts will cost Virginians over $600 million in relief they will never receive.
Governor Spanberger calls her agenda “Affordable Virginia.” The record calls it something else.
“Woe to those who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decrees, to deprive the poor of their rights and withhold justice from the oppressed.” — Isaiah 10:1–2
Question Two: Is Your Budget Working for Virginians, or Growing Government at Their Expense?
The governor’s party has proposed two budget bills this session — one from the House at $71.5 billion, one from the Senate at $74 billion — for the two-year budget cycle. Both represent significant spending increases over prior baselines. Both lock in permanent expansions of Medicaid, educator salaries, and state employee compensation that will require ongoing revenue to sustain.
To fund this expanded spending, the Senate has proposed ending Virginia’s data center sales and use tax exemption four years early — a move that could generate nearly $1 billion in additional revenue over the biennium. Data center industry representatives warned this could halt investment by an industry that has put $100 billion into Virginia over the last three years and put thousands of union construction workers out of work. The Senate chose the revenue.
The structural picture is clear. Under Governor Spanberger’s Democratic trifecta, Virginia is moving toward higher permanent spending funded by a broader and heavier tax base, with small one-time rebates marketed to voters as “affordability.” A $100 check is not affordability. It is a talking point.
Senator Mark Peake, speaking directly to the contrast, said it simply: “We need tax cuts, not tax increases. We could have tons of natural gas pumped into the commonwealth to supply our energy needs, which would help keep our electric costs down, which applies to everything that we purchase.”
That is the road not taken. The road taken runs through 50 new taxes and a budget that grows government while handing families a one-time check and calling it relief.
Question Three: What Have You Done to the Document You Invoked Last Night?
This is the question that matters most to Virginia’s Christian community.
Governor Spanberger stood in George Mason’s Virginia last night and quoted George Washington’s farewell address. She spoke of the founders’ vision. She spoke of ordinary citizens demanding more of their government. She closed by saying, “This is not what our founders envisioned. Not by a long shot.”
She was talking about President Trump. But those words belong to a mirror.
Nineteen days before she delivered that speech — on February 6, 2026 — Governor Spanberger signed HJ1 and HJ3, sending two proposed constitutional amendments to Virginia voters on the November 2026 ballot. She signed them with her own pen. Her legislative majority passed them. They did not ask voters first.
HJ1 would embed abortion as a fundamental right in the Virginia Constitution — the same document George Mason wrote in 1776, the same document that declares all men have inherent rights given by God, not government. It would protect that right using strict scrutiny, the most demanding legal standard courts apply. As we documented in our Constitutional Education Series, that same legal standard has already been used to strike down parental consent laws for minors in Alaska, California, Florida, Massachusetts, and New Jersey. It struck down 24-hour waiting periods in Michigan in 2025. It struck down informed consent requirements — the basic legal protection requiring a doctor to tell a patient what they are agreeing to — in Michigan in 2025.
Virginia currently has a parental consent law for minors seeking abortions. If HJ1 passes in November, that law would almost certainly face an immediate legal challenge — the same kind of challenge that has already succeeded in five other states.
HJ3 would erase the definition of marriage as the union of one man and one woman — a definition Virginia voters themselves approved in 2006 through the same constitutional process the founders designed. That voter decision would be replaced with the opposite principle, written permanently into Mason’s document.
THE FOUNDERS’ PROCESS, TURNED AGAINST THE FOUNDERS’ PRINCIPLES: George Mason designed Virginia’s Constitution to be durable and difficult to change. That process requires two consecutive legislative sessions plus a statewide voter referendum. Governor Spanberger’s trifecta used that very process — designed to protect the people’s rights — to permanently alter the document that established those rights in the first place. If voters ratify HJ1 and HJ3 this November, no future governor and no future legislature can undo it. Only another full constitutional process — years away at minimum — could reverse it.
She said last night, “We, the people, have the power to make change, the power to stand up for what is right, the power to demand more of our nation.”
We agree. And that is exactly why November matters.
What Virginia Christians Need to Understand Right Now
Governor Spanberger is not simply Virginia’s governor anymore. Last night, the national Democratic Party gave her their most prominent platform — the State of the Union response — to introduce herself to the country as the face of a different kind of Democrat. Moderate. Service-oriented. Grounded in history and community. A mother of three. A former CIA officer. A former federal agent.
The biography is real. The framing is carefully constructed. And millions of Americans who watched last night have no idea what she signed on February 6th.
That is where Virginia’s Christian community comes in. You live here. You vote here. You know what is on the November ballot. And you have neighbors, fellow church members, and family who do not yet understand what a “yes” vote on HJ1 means — or what strict scrutiny has already done to parental consent laws in five other states.
The governor asked the nation three questions last night. Every Virginia Christian voter should be asking three of their own before November.
Do I know what HJ1 actually says and what legal standard it embeds in our Constitution?
Do I know that the woman on that national stage last night is the same woman who signed it nineteen days ago?
And do I know five people in my church who need to know both of those things before they walk into a voting booth?
“When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice; but when the wicked beareth rule, the people mourn.” — Proverbs 29:2
To read the Virginia Constitution yourself, visit law.lis.virginia.gov/constitution — it’s shorter than you think and belongs in every Christian household in Virginia.
Virginia Christian Alliance | vachristian.org | February 2026
