Dick Saslaw

He represented the 35th district, made up of the city of Falls Church and portions of Fairfax County and the city of Alexandria.

Richard Lawrence Saslaw (born February 5, 1940) is an American politician who served as Majority Leader of the Senate of Virginia between 2020 – 2024, when he declined to run for reelection.

He served in the United States Army (1958–60), before receiving a B.S. degree in economics from the University of Maryland.

After that, he went into the gasoline service station business.

Saslaw and his wife, Eleanor, a retired guidance director and member of the Virginia State Board of Education, settled in northern Virginia in 1968.

Their daughter, Jennifer, received her undergraduate degree from the University of Virginia.

and her Juris Doctor degree from Stanford Law School.

They live in Springfield, Virginia.

Saslaw is Jewish and has been active in Virginia's Jewish community for decades.

He joined several other Jewish Democrats who live in Virginia in defending Israel against criticism from the Virginia State Bar.

A member of the Democratic Party, he served in the Virginia House of Delegates from 1976–80, then was elected to the Senate of Virginia.

He ran for Congress in Virginia's 8th congressional district in 1984.

He was defeated by then-Congressman Stanford Parris.

Saslaw was born and raised in Washington, D.C. He attended Woodrow Wilson High School.

Senator Saslaw was first elected as Virginia State Senate Floor Leader by his peers in 1996, under a power-sharing agreement that took place when the Senate was evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans.

Saslaw was the leader of the Virginia Senate Democrats from 1998 to 2024.

He served as Senate Minority Leader from 1998 to 2008, 2012 to January 2014, and June 2014 to 2020.

In 1998, he was elected to Senate Minority Leader, and was continuously re-elected until becoming Senate Majority Leader when the Democrats assumed control of the chamber in 2008.

In February 2011, Saslaw was one of eight senators on the Senate Courts of Justice Committee who "passed by indefinitely" House Bill 1573, suppressing the bill by an 8 to 4 margin.

The bill, also known as Castle Doctrine, would have allowed "a lawful occupant use of physical force, including deadly force, against an intruder in his dwelling who has committed an overt act against him, without civil liability."

Senator Saslaw is rated F by the NRA and has been a strong supporter of confiscating civilian arms.

He continued as Majority Leader until 2012, when the Democrats lost control.

He served as Minority Leader from 2012 through 2019, except for the first half of 2014, when he served as Majority Leader.

He was later again elected Majority Leader.

He was Chair of the Senate's Commerce and Labor Committee, and a ranking member of the Senate Judiciary (formerly Courts of Justice), Education and Health, Finance and Appropriations, and Rules Committees.

Saslaw caught the move and thwarted it, thus allowing the bill to proceed and eventually become law in Virginia in 2018.

Medicaid expansion brought health insurance coverage to over 400,000 Virginians.

Saslaw has been described as a reliable ally of Dominion Energy, Virginia's largest electrical utility which is also notable for its influence on Virginia politics.

In 2018, the Associated Press reported that Dominion had been Saslaw's largest source of campaign funds, contributing approximately $350,000 over a 15-year period.

Saslaw helped push Dominion-backed legislation that would allow the firm to charge customers rates that regulators considered to be excessive.

In the 2019 legislative session, he proposed legislation to raise the age for which a person is allowed to buy a gun in Virginia from 18 to 21, and he proposed a ban on so called "bump stocks."

Republicans did not allow either of those bills to pass out of committee.

In 2019, Senator Saslaw received out of state funding for re-election from the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence and the Brady Campaign.

Senator Saslaw has voted against attempts to restrict women's ability to obtain an abortion in Virginia.

He has been endorsed by NARAL Virginia and by Planned Parenthood of the Greater Metropolitan Washington Area.

Senator Saslaw is credited with saving the Democratic push for Medicaid expansion in Virginia by thwarting an attempted procedural move by Republican Senator Tommy Norment to kill the bill in committee.

Norment attempted to have the bill to expand Medicaid in Virginia killed in committee a second time, which would have made the bill ineligible for presentation to the full senate.

He served as Senate Majority Leader from 2020 to 2024, having previously served from 2008 to 2012 and January to June 2014.

In 2020, Saslaw introduced SB 6, a confiscatory ban on commonly held handguns and rifles with standard capacity magazines.

In response, 91 out of 95 counties, 16 out of 38 independent cities, and 42 towns adopted Second Amendment Sanctuary Resolutions.