Fairfax County elected officials and staff are trying a new approach as the 2027 General Assembly session nears.
Among their goals: Get information and local positions to legislators sooner, don’t overburden them with too much information, and build strategic relationships with downstate lawmakers.
The desire is to be “proactive rather than reactive,” said Mason District Supervisor Andres Jimenez, who chairs the Board of Supervisors’ Legislative Committee.
The committee met yesterday (Tuesday) to consider a staff draft of state and federal legislative priorities for 2027. The 19-page documents represented the work of nearly 100 county staffers across various departments.
“We wanted to make sure we were on the same page,” County Executive Bryan Hill said at the committee meeting where the new approach was outlined.
The result represents “a broader approach” than in past years, said Jennifer Van Ee, the county’s legislative director.
“We have streamlined it,” she said of the document and the thought process leading to its creation.
The changes drew largely supportive comments from supervisors.
Board Chair Jeff McKay said staff had done an “excellent job” of stripping away extraneous verbiage and creating an issue-focused priorities package.
“This has been a challenge we’ve had for a long time,” he said.
Springfield District’s Pat Herrity, the board’s lone Republican, had issues with some of the proposals in the document, but not with the effort to cut down its overall length.
“This is a vast improvement,” he said.
The county government has five staff members registered as General Assembly lobbyists, according to the Virginia Public Access Project. At the Sept. 1 meeting, Van Ee said staff are considering hiring someone with connections to non-Fairfax legislators.
Supervisors seemed to agree there’s a need to connect with lawmakers from outside the local area.
“That makes sense,” said Braddock District Supervisor Rachna Sizemore Heizer.
The shift follows a 2026 General Assembly session that brought a mix of wins and conflicts for the mostly Democratic Board of Supervisors. The board supported measures like a state paid family and medical leave program and a vehicle noise-monitoring pilot, while struggling to be heard on others, such as a proposed Fairfax County casino and dedicated transit funding.
At the committee meeting, supervisors and staff worked through issues including housing, criminal justice, transportation, local tax authority, data center regulation and collective bargaining.
Those same issues likely will be front and center on Oct. 6, when supervisors hold their annual work session with members of Fairfax County’s General Assembly delegation. The delegation — seven senators and 15 delegates — is composed entirely of Democrats.
Two days later, a final draft legislative package will be released to the public, followed on Oct. 13 by a public hearing.
The legislative committee will next convene on Dec. 1, by which point pre-session activity will be moving quickly as legislators prepare bills for consideration.
The 2027 General Assembly session is set to open Jan. 13 and run for 45 days. Democrats control both chambers, holding a narrow 21-19 margin in the Senate and a much wider 64-36 majority in the House of Delegates.
On the federal government front, Van Ee said the goal for 2027 is to focus on funding opportunities, deferring to the National Association of Counties and other advocacy organizations on policy positions.
