The Virginia General Assembly is the legislative body of the Commonwealth of Virginia, and the oldest continuous law-making body in the New World, established on July 30, 1619.

The General Assembly is a bicameral body consisting of a lower house, the Virginia House of Delegates, with 100 members, and an upper house, the Senate of Virginia, with 40 members. Combined together, the General Assembly consists of 140 elected representatives from an equal number of constituent districts across the commonwealth. The House of Delegates is presided over by the Speaker of the House, while the Senate is presided over by the Lieutenant Governor of Virginia. The House and Senate each elect a clerk and sergeant-at-arms. The Senate of Virginia’s clerk is known as the “Clerk of the Senate” (instead of as the “Secretary of the Senate”, the title used by the U.S. Senate).

Following the 2019 election, the Democratic Party held a majority of seats in both the House and the Senate for the first time since 1996. They were sworn into office on January 8, 2020.

Here is an excellent concise summary  by Wyatt Gordon of how the Virginia General Assembly works.

In his optimistic midcourse revisions to Virginia’s two-year, $135 billion spending blueprint, Gov. Ralph Northam proposed hundreds of millions in new spending for vaccine deployment and pandemic response, including half a billion dollars for public schools upended by COVID-19.

It includes millions more to help hold off an oncoming wave of evictions resulting from job losses from the virus, bonuses for state employees and state-supported local personnel and to push broadband internet farther into underserved rural areas.

Bob Lewis, Virginia Mercury

Virginia top state elected officials include:

Ralph Northam, Governor Commonwealth of Virginia
Justin Fairfax, Lt. Governor
Mark Herring, Attorney General

Dick Saslaw, Senate Majority Leader
Louise Lucas, Senate Pro Tempore
Tom Norment, Senate Minority Leader

Eileen Fillen-Corn, Speaker of the House
Charniele Herring, House Majority Leader
Todd Gilbert, House Minority Leader

Executive Order 75

EO-75 Declaration of a State of Emergency Due to Civil Unrest in Washington, D.C. and Potential Civil Unrest in the Commonwealth
January 6, 2021

Executive Order 74

EO-74 Protecting Businesses From Increasing Cost of Unemployment Insurance
December 22, 2020