Courts Of Justice

Monday, January 19, 2026·41m·▶ Watch / Listen

The Virginia House Courts of Justice Committee opened its session by conducting judicial interviews and certifying slates of candidates for circuit court, general district court, and juvenile and domestic relations district court vacancies via voice vote, then conducted member and staff introductions and announced procedural rules including subcommittee assignments and the 'Albo icebox rule' governing bills with fiscal impact.

Key Actions

·Judicial Interviews and CertificationNo Vote

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Notable Quotes

“Bills that come to us that have a fiscal impact, we are not going to hear them until we know that we can pay for their fiscal impact. And so we'll have conversations between majority and minority about what funding that we have available and we will decide which bills are going to get heard. I'm sure I will hear speeches on the House floor that their bill didn't get heard. But this is a long standing thing that we've been doing for at least two decades here. Republicans and Democrats have done it this way primarily because we can't have someone on the Appropriations Committee advocating for us.”
Delegate Patrick Hope, committee chair — Delegate Hope was explaining the 'Albo icebox rule,' the committee's longstanding procedural practice of holding bills with fiscal impact until funding availability is confirmed.

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Votes

Motion to certify all listed circuit court judges and candidates as qualified to be elected to the respective circuitsNo Vote

Motion to certify the listed general district court judges and candidates as qualified to be elected to the respective districtsNo Vote

Motion to certify the listed juvenile and domestic relations district court judges and candidates as qualified to be elected to their respective districts — moved by Delegate Michelle Lopes Maldonado, seconded by Delegate Marcus B. SimonNo Vote

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TranscriptPreview

We will now come to order. The first item up for business is some judicial interviews. Before we get to that, I just wanted to let everyone know the process of how we conduct judicial interviews. Generally, they come in two waves. The first wave is usually in December. These are for the reelections for the judicial candidates, and we do that in December. What we're going to do today in that first wave is we're going to certify them today. Occasionally, sometimes between December and those interviews and where we are today, there becomes some extraordinary circumstances that we weren't aware of at the time, that we need to have some urgency to get some other judges out and into their seats. So that's what you're going to see today. It's unusual that we are interviewing candidates at this time, but we're making an exception in a few cases. And so that's what's going to be before us. At the conclusion of all this, we will certify the entire slate of candidates, those that were here today and those that we interviewed back in December. The second wave of candidates will come after crossover. Sometimes by the end of…

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