Governor Abigail Spanberger signed a $205 billion state budget written by the Democrats who control every lever in Richmond — the Governor’s office, the Senate, and the House of Delegates, with no one across the aisle able to stop them.
Nobody across the aisle had the votes to change a line of it. That is the whole story, and a conservative writer just gave it the right name.
In Bacon’s Rebellion, Victoria Manning called it what it is: “No Queens.” Her piece is worth your time, and her warning is worth repeating — Sic Semper Tyrannis was never meant to be optional.
Democrats hold the Governorship, the Senate, and the House of Delegates. A $205 billion budget moved through all three with no opposition able to strike a comma.
Manning’s bill of particulars is blunt. She writes that the majority used the budget to “pass sweeping marijuana laws, give themselves a hefty raise, and waste hard-earned taxpayer dollars on DEI … pork.”
🗞️ Virginia Lawmakers Give Final Approval To Marijuana Sales Legalization As Part Of Budget
— TDR (@TheDalesReport) June 29, 2026
🔥-take: It's official. Virginia's adult use cannabis industry launches 7/1/27
🌿 Cannabis ETFs: 🌎 $YOLO 🇺🇸 $MSOShttps://t.co/QbR0l6divD
You did not get a vote on any of it. Neither did anyone you sent to Richmond to say no.
One number shows who the budget answers to. Lawmakers added a new energy tax on data centers — $0.011 per kilowatt-hour, about $1.2 billion over two years into the general fund.
Then look at the break they didn’t touch. The sales-tax exemption those same data centers enjoy saves them roughly $1.9 billion a year — and the budget sent it to a study group instead of ending it.
Read the number twice: $1.2 billion taxed, $1.9 billion a year protected.
That is not fiscal discipline. A party with total control taxed the industry with one hand and shielded its bigger break with the other.
Give the budget its due where it earned it. It added real rules — water-use studies and first-ever noise limits carrying $32,500-a-day fines by 2030. Good. It also proved a party that could have ended a $1.9 billion giveaway simply chose not to.
In Fairfax County, you pay into that $205 billion whether you agreed with a line of it or not. The one-party math is simple: your money, their priorities, and no vote of yours that could change it.
They wrote it. They passed it. They shielded the break. No one on your side of the aisle could stop them.
Spanberger can’t run again. The Democrat majority that wrote this budget is on the ballot in November 2027 — the only editor Virginia has left.