For Virginia nonprofits and their supporters, the General Assembly’s 2025 session served up a fairly severe case of déjà vu. There was plenty of recycled legislation aimed at hampering nonprofit advocacy and doxing organizations’ donors that was ultimately defeated. Most notably, however, 2025 saw several novel proposals for regulating nonprofit issue speech in the Old Dominion.

While the First Amendment rights of nonprofits and their supporters survived, these new threats in Virginia may join the familiar pests as annual reintroductions. Worse, these disquieting schemes for expanding the reach of campaign finance laws to nonprofit issue speech may spread elsewhere, potentially marking yet another disturbing state legislative trend that will need to be monitored.

The most significant threat this year came from a Republican’s introduction of nonprofit donor disclosure legislation typically pushed by Virginia Democrats. S.B. 906, introduced by Senator William M. Stanley, Jr. (R) early in the 2025 session, was a slightly modified version of failed legislation introduced by Democrats of late.

Like its predecessors, the primary goal of Stanley’s bill was to impose donor disclosure requirements on nonprofits engaging in “electioneering communications” – a misnomer invented by politicians and activists who seek to expand campaign finance laws to regulate discussion of policy issues. Under federal law, and in many states, nonprofits must report spending on so-called “electioneering communications,” essentially issue speech that refers to a candidate in the lead-up to an election, but any donor disclosure triggered by such speech is typically narrowly applied to donations earmarked for such messages.

Under S.B. 906, nonprofits would have been forced to name their top-three supporters on the face of regulated issue ads, regardless of whether those donors actually funded (or even knew of) those ads. If there’s any doubt that deterrence (as opposed to a supposed informational interest) is the motivating factor for sponsors of this recurring proposal, the bill text is instructive: “If the three largest contributors cannot be determined because multiple contributors have given the same amount, then the names of any three of such contributors shall be disclosed.” When collecting targets for name-and-shame campaigns and making groups think twice before engaging are the goals, meaningful information isn’t important. One or two bogeymen will do just fine.

Fortunately, S.B. 906 was “passed by indefinitely” in a bipartisan committee vote. However, some lawmakers from both parties are clearly interested in imposing top-funder disclaimer requirements on nonprofit issue speech, so a similar proposal could gain momentum in 2026.

Beyond forcing nonprofit donor disclosure via disclaimer requirements, Virginia lawmakers also considered legislation that would have established nonprofit filing requirements and scheduled donor reporting in similar fashion to political committees. Under H.B. 2670, sponsored by Delegate Mark D. Sickles (D), nonprofits would’ve been required to file regular donor disclosure reports as a consequence of making “independent expenditures” advocating the election or defeat of a candidate. In addition to reporting donors who earmark their donations for such express advocacy expenditures, the bill also would have forced nonprofits to determine whether they “should have understood that [a donation] was provided for the purpose of influencing the outcome of nonfederal elections in Virginia” when deciding which donors may have “impliedly” forfeited their right to privacy.

Such a vague standard would have been impossible to comply with or enforce in an objective and predictable manner. As a result, avoiding regulated speech altogether would’ve been the only safe option for nonprofits to avoid jeopardizing their members’ privacy. For now, nonprofits can continue speaking freely in Virginia since H.B. 2670 was left lingering in the House Appropriations Committee upon adjournment.

Three other Democratic bills that failed this session would’ve added to the uncertainty for nonprofits attempting to comply with speech regulations while protecting the privacy of their supporters. H.B. 2173, H.B. 2484, and S.B. 1185 all sought to replace current law’s definition of “coordination” – used to determine whether an express advocacy expenditure is “independent” or coordinated – with an overbroad and convoluted multi-factor test. The proposed definition occupied over 50 lines in the legislation while the current definition covers five lines.

These bills also would’ve established an independent expenditure donor disclosure regime based on spending thresholds, with no regard for the group’s primary purpose or whether donations were earmarked for express advocacy. And like S.B. 906, this legislation would have added an “electioneering communication” definition to Virginia law. While no donor disclosure requirements were applied directly to the newly defined category of speech, it was referenced in the speech chilling “coordination” definition, thereby creating new compliance risks for nonprofits engaged in issue advocacy.

Of note, S.B. 906 and its previous iterations sneakily inserted the definition of “electioneering communication” within the definition of “independent expenditure,” triggering a scenario whereby new disclosure requirements applied to “independent expenditures” would also apply to issue advocacy. This particular trick follows a phenomenon we also documented in New Mexico.

Like their counterparts in the southwest, Democratic lawmakers in Virginia seem to have adopted a strategy of introducing “electioneering communication” regulation and new donor disclosure requirements separately, with the likely goal of applying the new mandates to the would-be-regulated issue speech via future legislation or an inconspicuous amendment.

Look no further than H.B. 2479 from Delegate Sickles (the sponsor of H.B. 2670) and S.B. 775. These identical bills inserted an “electioneering communication” definition within existing campaign finance disclosure and disclaimer requirements under the guise of regulating the use of “synthetic media” in “political campaign advertisements.” Curiously, the new requirements for ads that use “synthetic media” would only apply to “electioneering communications,” not any of the actual “political campaign advertisements” paid for by candidates.

While the bills avoided donor disclosure, they would nonetheless have added disclosure and disclaimer mandates for issue speech to Virginia’s campaign finance statue. If enacted, lawmakers would only need to add “or electioneering communication” to any existing donor disclosure requirement to expand the reach of the law to nonprofits engaged in issue advocacy. After some debate between the chambers over this provision, the final version of both bills sent to Governor Glenn Youngkin (R) included the offending “electioneering communication” language.

Thankfully, Governor Youngkin recognized the obvious threat to free speech and vetoed the bills. As the Governor’s Veto Explanation cautioned, “this legislation imposes an impractical enforcement structure that lacks clear, workable mechanisms and raises significant constitutional and logistical concerns.” The Governor also highlighted the potential for “politically motivated legal actions and inconsistent enforcement.”

The same could be said of all the bills threatening nonprofit donor privacy and advocacy considered in the General Assembly in 2025. And that’s precisely the point. Each of these measures were aimed squarely at making civic engagement costlier and riskier in hopes that advocacy organizations and their supporters would choose not to participate in Virginia’s civic debates. Targeting personal privacy is a uniquely powerful means to that end.

Fortunately, a bipartisan majority of lawmakers – and the governor – rejected these attacks on fundamental rights. That Democratic proposals were defeated in a Democratic-controlled legislature is a heartening indication that members of both parties in Virginia understand the importance of protecting privacy in association and nonprofit advocacy, something the General Assembly and Governor Youngkin demonstrated in 2022 by passing and enacting the Personal Privacy Protection Act.

While we’re confident threats will emerge yet again next year, we’re optimistic lawmakers’ belief in upholding Virginians’ privacy rights will endure in the 2026 session and (hopefully) beyond.