Del. Wren Williams, R-Stuart, spoke about his experiences in the 2024 General Assembly session at a recent meeting in Stuart.
With more than 30 new members of the House of Delegates, Williams said he was promoted in rank.
“We only had six or seven, but we lost a lot of people that were above. So, I went from 85 to 54. Then divide that basically in two, and now I’m sitting in the high 20s,” he said.
With this, Williams said he was able to get a better position on the Transportation Committee, which will help with roads and air travel.
“There’s a lot of stuff happening in” the aviation “field with Boeing coming to Virginia and also Dulles and Reagan (airports). There’s a lot going on in transportation,” he said.
Williams was also put on the Commerce and Labor Committee, specifically the Energy Committee, where Williams said he poked holes in bills sponsored by legislators on the other side.
“One of the things was $15 an hour for farm labor, and so you can’t imagine what $15 an hour would do to our food prices. I explained that, and they still don’t care. Truly, they don’t care,” he said.
Williams said there was once a conversation about Jiff Peanut Butter and the price increase.
“The Democrats came in and said, ‘well, you can buy Food Lion peanut butter and it’s cheaper.’ As if they were going to say the generic is cheaper. So, I told them, ‘we used to have a Food Lion, and now we don’t. We have a food dessert,’” he said.
Williams said he worked on public safety issues as a member of the Criminal sub-committee, and added that he’s the only lawyer to ever practice criminal law that sits on the criminal sub-committee, “which is insane, but it is what it is. So, I was very regularly showing them the error in their ways,” he said.
Williams said one bill he remembers is when some sub-committee members wanted to make trace evidence of drug use anything under an ounce.
“That’s not trace, that’s felony distribution. I pointed that out, I said, ‘look you’re telling me under an ounce you can do cocaine, heroin, and fentanyl.’ And they were just like, ‘well, yeah,’” he said.
Williams said the Northern Virginia (NOVA) Democrats also had a lot of control this year, and believed they were vengeful in intentionally trying to kill every single Republican’s bills.
“They said no wins for Republicans,” he said.
One bill he brought up and was happy with involved Appalachian Power. In this bill, instead of an increase on December 1, it would change the date to March 1, which meant it would avoid Christmas, winter, “and a number of things,” he said.
That bill did not pass, Williams said, and added that one Democrat from Herndon, “which is about as far north as you can get from here, has not a single Appalachian Power rate payer in the district. She killed it along with like four or five other Democrats.”
Williams said he approached them to ask what he should tell his constituents when he returned home after session, and “she said, ‘well, you know, maybe next year,’” he said.
One bill that did pass was brought to him by Clint Weidhaas, the chief of Patrick Springs Volunteer Fire Department. Williams said Weidhaas notified him that volunteer fire departments could not bill insurance companies for the Emergency Medical Services (EMS) they provided.
“Which is striking. I didn’t even realize” it, he said, and added that he believes the bill will be signed by the governor soon.
In total, seven of Williams’ 22 proposed bills passed the Senate and the House of Delegates. He also proposed eight commending resolutions including those commending the Patrick County High School Baseball Team, Howell’s Grocery Store and Restaurant, commending the Galax High School football team, and others.
Solar farms and solar energy have been a battle at the state level, Williams said.
“Some of the bills they brought this year, for instance, take all the local authority over approval of these and send it back to Richmond, which is crazy. There’s been some controversy about how much solar could be brought into a county, there were some bills about that,” he said.
However, Williams said many so-called solar bills died.
“There were just too far, a lot of them very expensive, just sort of ramming it down your throat legislation. That’s where it ended up, still at the local level,” he said.
