Virginia leaders are remembering the life and legacy of Rev. Jesse Jackson, who died today. And The New York Times has a profile of Gov. Abigail Spanberger, where she serves up some spice to her Republican critics. 

Below, I report on passage of bills that would expand collective bargaining to state employees, but potentially leave out campus workers and home care workers. 

And I have an update on other bills aimed at helping out working people. 

House speaker Don Scott, D-Portsmouth acknowledges the House after being re-elected speaker during the opening of the 2026 session of the Virginia General Assembly at the Capitol Wednesday Jan. 14, 2026, in Richmond, Va. (AP Photo/Steve Helber)

Today offered up some mixed results for the labor movement in Virginia. 

On the one hand, different bills to lift the ban on collective bargaining for state employees and lift the partial ban on it for local employees passed in the Virginia Senate and the House of Delegates. 

This makes it increasingly likely that thousands of workers around the state will get to clock into more democratic workplaces. But on the other hand, it’s unclear now if home care workers and higher education workers are destined for a similar fate. 

Both groups of workers were included in the bills as they were originally filed. 

But the House version of the bill that passed on Tuesday excludes campus workers. And the Senate version of the bill excludes home care workers. 

It’s not clear to me why campus workers got removed from the House bill. On the Senate bill, Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell (D-Mount Vernon) said there are financial concerns about expanding collective bargaining rights to home care workers and that a study on the issue was in the works. He suggested to me that he wants to see campus workers get collective bargaining rights. 

“I used to work in the JMU campus cafeteria and I support the ability of our campus workers to organize,” he said in a text to me. 

• Ryan O’Toole, co-executive director of Freedom Virginia, makes the case for an update to Virginia’s tax code as a way of funding policies to address the affordability crisis in a column published by the Richmond Times-Dispatch. 

• US Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia shared a graphic showing tepid job growth on President Donald Trump’s watch. 

• Former Attorney General Jason Miyares faces two wrongful firing lawsuits after employees allegedly flagged questionable payments, Katelyn Harlow at WRIC reports. 

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Both the Senate and House passed a number of Democratic priorities so far this session. 

Bills to raise the minimum wage, establish a paid family and medical leave program, and let workers earn paid sick leave all made it out of their respective chambers. 

Other bills have not been so lucky: the bill to repeal Virginia’s “right to work” law died in committee and as far as I can tell never even came up for debate. 

Unsplash/Glenn Carstens-Peters

I’ve enjoyed two movies recently. 

One was Bugonia, which I can’t in good faith recommend because it’s kind of disturbing. But if you like dark humor with a dash of dystopian bleakness then you should check it out. 

And the other was The Smashing Machine, which stars an unrecognizable Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson as an early pioneer of UFC. This one was a bit melodramatic at times, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. 

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