Jay Leftwich had been practicing law for more than 30 years, and he wanted the committee to understand exactly what they were about to do.
"It flips Roe on its head whether you agree with Roe or not," he said, his voice measured but urgent. "In Roe, the state had a legitimate interest in the fetus. This amendment does not do that. It gives the woman the right to do what she wants to do."
Then he posed a question that stopped the room: "Who decides in the third trimester? I am mentally stressed out. I'm not prepared for this and I need an abortion."
He added quickly: "I'm not saying this to be flippant."
Four Amendments, One Afternoon
On January 14, 2026, the Virginia House Committee on Privileges and Elections did something remarkable even by the standards of a chamber that takes pride in being the longest continuously running legislative committee in the nation. In a single afternoon, it advanced four proposed constitutional amendments — on reproductive freedom, automatic restoration of voting rights, marriage equality, and congressional redistricting — sending all of them to the full House floor over significant Republican opposition.
The hearing was a referendum on where Virginia stands in the post-Dobbs, post-2025-election political moment. Every major fault line in American politics ran directly through this committee room: bodily autonomy, racial justice, religious liberty, and the raw mechanics of partisan power.
Chair Marcia S. "Cia" Price, who represents Newport News, set the tone at the outset. She welcomed the room warmly, reminded witnesses that the clock is not a suggestion, and asked everyone for professionalism. What followed was anything but calm.
'OB GYN Deserts' and the Ghost of Dobbs
HJ1, the Reproductive Freedom Constitutional Amendment, went first — and it arrived with testimony that was, at moments, almost unbearable to hear.
Celeste Garrett, a volunteer with Planned Parenthood Advocates of Virginia who lives in King William County, described a wanted pregnancy that ended in miscarriage at 12 weeks. She chose to let nature take its course. Days later, she was bleeding out, unable to stand, passing clots. She was rushed to the hospital.
"There was no question, there were no debates, there were no, we have to go get permission," she told the committee. "The doctor said, you need a DNC in order to live."
Her youngest son, she said, had been in the room earlier that day. He would not exist if she had not received that abortion.
Dr. Taylor Gilmour, testifying on behalf of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists of Virginia, said she feels "fortunate" to work in a state where she can focus on her patients without fearing prosecution. She described caring for patients whose water broke prematurely before viability — and then caring for those same patients in healthy future pregnancies.
Patron Charniele L. Herring, the House Democratic leader, argued the amendment is a direct response to the Supreme Court's 2022 Dobbs decision. She pointed to Texas and Georgia, where she stated women died due to delayed care under abortion bans, and described what she called "OB GYN deserts" emerging in Virginia because of relentless legislative pressure on providers.
The amendment itself proposes to add to Section 1 of the Virginia Bill of Rights a fundamental right to reproductive freedom — covering prenatal care, contraception, abortion care, miscarriage management, and fertility care. This is the second time the General Assembly has passed the measure; under Virginia's constitutional amendment process, a proposed amendment must pass two consecutive General Assemblies before going to voters in a referendum.
A Lawyer's Warning and a Delegate's Hard Question
Delegate Leftwich wasn't done. His concern wasn't philosophical — it was lawyerly and specific. The amendment, he argued, would inevitably trigger court challenges to parental consent requirements for minors. It prohibits the Commonwealth from taking "adverse action" against anyone assisting in an abortion — language he said could shield a neighbor who helps a friend obtain an abortion outside any medical setting.
Delegate Phillip A. Scott pressed Herring directly: could a temporary physical health concern — not a lasting impairment — justify a third-trimester abortion under the amendment's language, given that it doesn't define a standard?
Herring responded that the amendment does not touch existing code, which remains in effect. The legislature retains the authority to set standards of care. Ultimately, she argued, this is a question for voters to decide — not this committee.
Opponents from the Virginia Assembly of Independent Baptists and the Virginia Society for Human Life raised concerns about the absence of parental notification requirements, the lack of a conscience clause for religious medical providers, and what they characterized as insufficient oversight.
The committee voted 15-7 to advance HJ1 to the full House floor.
The Last State Standing
HJ2, the Automatic Restoration of Voting Rights amendment, opened with a fact that Delegate Elizabeth B. Bennett-Parker has been citing for years — and that still lands like a gut punch.
Virginia is the only state in the nation that permanently disenfranchises every person with a felony conviction, unless they individually petition the governor for restoration. The process, Bennett-Parker argued, "has no transparency and changes every four years."
The racial disparity is stark. Bennett-Parker cited data showing more than 1 in 7 Black Virginians is disenfranchised — twice the national average. She called felony disenfranchisement "a relic of Virginia's Jim Crow past," deliberately inserted into the 1902 Virginia Constitution to strip Black voters of political power.
The room filled with directly impacted witnesses. Irvin Purval, a returning citizen who worked to help others restore their rights while his own had not yet been restored, told the committee he once stood in a courthouse as a defendant. Now he stood in the House of Delegates. "One day I might be sitting in one of those chairs," he said.
Jeff Caruso of the Virginia Catholic Conference — the same organization that would oppose the marriage equality amendment — supported HJ2. "We've all been afforded second chances in our lives," he said. Chris Kaiser of the ACLU of Virginia framed it as a question of basic democratic consistency: one standard, applied equally, regardless of who sits in the governor's mansion.
A 'Modern Day Poll Tax'
The amendment's opponents zeroed in on one omission: restitution. Delegate Eric Phillips asked Bennett-Parker directly why someone who had been ordered to pay restitution to a crime victim could have their voting rights restored before fulfilling that obligation. He also pressed on why the amendment doesn't exclude violent offenders — rapists, murderers.
Dr. Michael Huffman of the Virginia Assembly of Independent Baptists put it bluntly: the omission of restitution "sends a wrong message to the victim."
Bennett-Parker's response was crisp: "Denying the right to vote based on ability to pay creates a modern day poll tax." She was equally clear that the amendment doesn't erase restitution obligations — it simply doesn't make them a precondition for civic participation. And, she argued, having the right to vote actually makes it more likely someone will reintegrate, find employment, and ultimately pay what they owe.
HJ2 passed the committee 15-6 and now heads to the full House.
'The Happiness Amendment' — and a Pointed Rebuke
Mark D. Sickles noted he had served on the Privileges and Elections Committee for 22 years. On January 14, he sat on the other side of the dais for what may be his last appearance before it, and he called HJ3 — the Marriage Equality Constitutional Amendment — "the Happiness Amendment."
"We've had it realistically, legally for 11 years and nobody's straight marriage has been harmed by it," he said. "More people are happier now than they were before."
His argument was narrow and legalistic: this is about equal legal rights, not about what any religion chooses to recognize. Clergy, he said, are protected by First Amendment jurisprudence and by existing Virginia code from being compelled to perform same-sex ceremonies. "There's no clergy that will ever be required to officiate at a same sex marriage."
Narissa Rahaman, executive director of Equality Virginia, delivered some of the most affecting testimony of the day. She noted that 2026 marks 20 years since Virginia enacted the Marshall Newman Amendment, which wrote exclusion of LGBTQ marriages into the state constitution. "20 years ago, Virginians sent a message about who was considered worthy of recognition and protection," she said. "And 20 years later, we have the opportunity to write a new chapter."
Opponents — including Dr. Todd Gacky of the Family Foundation and Caruso of the Virginia Catholic Conference, who had just supported HJ2 — argued that statutory religious liberty protections cannot override a constitutional provision. Dr. Sheila Furey was more blunt, saying Sickles "is disingenuous when he says that this does not interfere with the religious liberties of individuals in this state."
Delegate H. Otto Wachsmann, Jr. asked whether clergy would retain the ability to refuse to perform same-sex ceremonies under the new constitutional language. Sickles pointed to the First Amendment and recent Supreme Court activity protecting religious liberty. The committee advanced HJ3 on a 16-6 vote.
'Our Hand Was Forced'
Before a single witness testified on HJ4, Delegate Israel D. O'Quinn raised a question that hung over the entire proceeding: was this amendment even properly before the committee?
His argument was procedural but pointed. HJ1, HJ2, and HJ3 had all received their first committee hearing in February 2025, well before Virginia's election season began. HJ4 was different — heard after the 2025 elections had already started, voted on just weeks before polls closed. "It is my contention," O'Quinn said, "that this particular amendment is improperly before the General Assembly."
The substance of the amendment drew equally sharp criticism. In 2021, two-thirds of Virginia voters had approved a bipartisan redistricting commission to end partisan gerrymandering. O'Quinn invoked that vote directly: "You know how difficult it is to get 2/3 of Virginians to agree to anything these days. They had a voice in 2021. That's not that long ago."
Delegate Leftwich was blunter: "Two wrongs don't make a right. Virginia's better than that."
Steve Rossi of the Family Foundation went after the amendment's foundational premise. The trigger — modeled on Texas's mid-decade redistricting — was misleading, he argued, because Texas had been compelled to redraw its maps by a federal appellate court ruling on unconstitutional coalition districts. "Virginia has no such problem," he said.
The most clarifying moment came from Delegate Hubert S. Bloxom, Jr., who asked patron Rodney T. Willett a simple question: had the trigger already been pulled, given that California and North Carolina had redrawn their maps? Yes, Willett confirmed. Could the General Assembly then redistrict Virginia's congressional lines every single year until 2030?
"That's certainly in the realm of possibilities," Willett acknowledged. In his closing, Willett reached past the procedural arguments. He invoked the constitutional oath every member had taken that morning. "We're not here really by choice," he said. "We're here because our hand was forced."
The committee passed HJ4 8-5.
'We're Here Because Our Hand Was Forced'
In his closing, Willett reached for something larger than partisan tactics. He invoked the constitutional oath every member of the committee had taken that day — to both the U.S. and Virginia constitutions.
"We all just literally moments ago, took a constitutional oath, including to the US Constitution as well as the Virginia Constitution," he said. "So I think all of us, I do respect, I think we all take that oath very seriously, and we take protecting the Constitution very seriously. But what we're facing are just the most extraordinary circumstances. And again, we're not here really by choice. We're here because our hand was forced."
HJ4 passed the committee 15-7.
What Happens Next — and Why It Matters
All four joint resolutions — HJ1, HJ2, HJ3, and HJ4 — now move to the full Virginia House for a floor vote. No specific dates have been set. Chair Price noted that the committee's composition itself may change in coming days, with subcommittee assignments to be announced at the next regular meeting.
If all four pass both the House and the Senate this session, they will go before Virginia voters in a referendum — the final step in the state's constitutional amendment process. If any one of them fails either chamber, it dies and must restart the two-session process from scratch.
The stakes are concrete and immediate. If HJ1 passes and voters ratify it, reproductive freedom becomes a fundamental right in the Virginia Constitution — potentially insulating access to abortion, contraception, IVF, and miscarriage care from future legislative restriction, regardless of how the U.S. Supreme Court continues to reshape federal precedent. If it fails, Virginia's protections remain statutory, vulnerable to repeal by any future majority.
If HJ2 passes, tens of thousands of Virginians currently shut out of the democratic process would have their voting rights restored automatically upon release from incarceration — ending a system that, by Bennett-Parker's account, disenfranchises more than one in seven Black Virginians. If it fails, the governor's desk remains the only path back to the ballot.
If HJ3 passes and voters ratify it, the anti-same-sex-marriage language voters added to the Virginia Constitution in 2006 would be removed — replaced with an affirmative right to marry — exactly 20 years after it was put in. If it dies, same-sex marriages in Virginia would remain protected by federal precedent alone, with no state constitutional backstop if that precedent shifts.
And if HJ4 passes, Virginia voters will decide whether to give the General Assembly a temporary window to redraw congressional maps mid-decade — with, as Willett himself acknowledged, the theoretical possibility of redistricting every year until 2030. If it fails, Virginia's congressional lines stay put, and the redistricting commission created by those 2021 voters continues its work undisturbed.