Establishing the Rules of the House of Delegates for the 2026-2027 Sessions of the General Assembly of Virginia.
House Resolution 6 adopts the Rules of the Virginia House of Delegates for the 2026-2027 General Assembly sessions. It sets out the internal procedures governing how the House organizes itself, elects its Speaker and Clerk, appoints committees, conducts floor debate and voting, manages attendance and adjournment, and processes bills, resolutions, and conference reports. The resolution also establishes the standing committee structure, committee membership rules, and the order of business for the House calendar and morning hour.
A major feature of the resolution is the modernization and emergency-operation framework for House proceedings. It authorizes members to participate in sessions and committee meetings by electronic communication means under specified emergency circumstances, treats such participation as attendance for quorum and voting purposes, and requires digital public access to those sessions. It also addresses chamber security, media access, member conduct, standards of conduct, harassment policy, and the handling of legislative continuity between sessions. The resolution further governs bill introduction limits, amendment procedures, and the rules for reconsideration, engrossment, and passage of legislation.
HR6 does not change substantive policy law; instead, it governs the internal operations of the House of Delegates for the 2026-2027 sessions. Its legal effect is to replace or update the chamber’s procedural rules, including rules on elections, committee appointments, bill processing, voting, quorum, and discipline. It also authorizes electronic participation in House and committee proceedings during disasters or other emergencies, which affects how legislative business may be conducted and how quorum and voting are counted under those circumstances.
The bill appears to have been noncontroversial and broadly supported. It was agreed to by the House on January 14, 2026 with no recorded opposition in the vote summary provided, indicating unanimous or near-unanimous approval. The absence of committee transcripts suggests there was little or no public debate captured in the available record, and the resolution functioned as a routine adoption of chamber rules at the start of the session.
No specific points of contention are reflected in the available vote or transcript record, but the rule package includes several areas that could be politically sensitive in general. These include the Speaker’s broad authority over committee appointments and referrals, the party-based committee apportionment rules, the ability to conduct sessions and committee meetings electronically during emergencies, and the standards-of-conduct and harassment-policy provisions. Any disagreement would likely center on procedural power, minority-party representation, and the scope of remote participation rather than on substantive policy issues.