Today's Sponsor: Harris Miller and Deborah Kahn

VaNews Oct. 31, 2019
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Today's Sponsor:


** Harris Miller and Deborah Kahn
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For our children and grandchildren to whom we must leave a better world.

Read Online ([link removed]) 10 Most Clicked ([link removed])


** FROM VPAP
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** VISUALIZATION: LAST-MINUTE DONATIONS ([link removed])
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The Virginia Public Access Project

Before the public and media could absorb the final full campaign finance disclosures that arrived Tuesday, hundreds of thousands of additional dollars were pouring into Virginia's legislative elections. Now, VPAP has a new tool to follow the late money, providing insights into races might suddenly come into play in the final days before next Tuesday's election.


** TARGETED RACE: HD51 IN PRINCE WILLIAM COUNTY ([link removed])
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The Virginia Public Access Project

House District 51 is a rematch. First-term Del. Hala Ayala (D-Woodbridge) faces a challenge from Republican Rich Anderson, who was unseated by Ayala two years ago. VPAP provides maps and charts that provide insights into the district's geography, demographics and partisan trends in recent statewide elections.


** EXECUTIVE BRANCH
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** NORTHAM CAMPAIGNS FOR DEMS MONTHS AFTER BLACKFACE SCANDAL ([link removed])
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By ALAN SUDERMAN AND BEN FINLEY, Associated Press

When a racist photo was discovered on Gov. Ralph Northam’s yearbook page in February, he became an instant pariah among fellow Democrats. A political death watch took shape as the governor used underground tunnels at the Capitol to stay out of sight. Now, nine months later, Northam is standing front and center on the campaign trail as he stumps for Democrats who once called for him to resign.


** STATE ELECTIONS
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** IN VIRGINIA SUBURBS, REPUBLICANS SOUND A LOT LIKE DEMOCRATS ([link removed])
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By REID J. EPSTEIN, New York Times (Metered Paywall - 5 articles a month)

As Glenn Davis seeks a fourth term in Virginia’s House of Delegates, he is going door to door with campaign literature touting his role in expanding Medicaid, his efforts to address gun violence and his support for L.G.B.T.Q. anti-discrimination legislation. There’s a photo of him with the state’s Democratic governor, Ralph Northam. Yet Mr. Davis is a Republican. He voted with his party to adjourn a special legislative session on gun control that Mr. Northam called this summer — 90 minutes after it began. When he campaigned for lieutenant governor in 2017, he said he was “running to do exactly what Donald Trump did in Washington.”


** DAYS BEFORE NOV. 5 ELECTION, VIRGINIA REPUBLICANS TAKE HARD RIGHT TURN ([link removed])
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By GREGORY S. SCHNEIDER AND LAURA VOZZELLA, Washington Post (Metered Paywall - 3 articles a month)

GayDonna Vandergriff has spent much of the year running for the House of Delegates with Hillary-blue campaign signs and a website that touts public schools and the environment but makes no mention that she’s a Republican. But days before Tuesday’s state election, Vandergriff is executing a hard right turn toward her GOP base. She is blasting her opponent, Democratic incumbent Del. Schuyler T. VanValkenburg, as a “socialist”


** DEMOCRATS WANT VOTERS TO GIVE THEM CONTROL OF THE STATEHOUSE. WHAT WILL THEY DO IF THEY GET IT? ([link removed])
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By GRAHAM MOOMAW, Virginia Mercury

Virginia House Minority Leader Eileen Filler-Corn is careful not to sound presumptive, but she’s already thinking about what Democrats could do in year one, year two and beyond if they win control of the General Assembly. If her party takes power in the elections Tuesday, she said, handling it wisely could mean the difference between one cycle of Democratic control and majorities that stand for “generations.”


** GOP EX-DELEGATE HOLCOMB WANTS HIS SEAT BACK IN VIRGINIA BEACH ([link removed])
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By MARIE ALBIGES, Virginian-Pilot (Metered Paywall - 3 articles a month)

A Virginia Beach sheriff’s deputy who spent 10 months legislating in Richmond before losing his seat by a few hundred votes is back on the ballot, facing a different Democratic challenger than the first two times he ran. Republican Norman Dewey “Rocky” Holcomb III faced Democrat Cheryl Turpin twice: he defeated her once in a January 2017 special election for the 85th House District and lost to her in November 2017.


** HEALTH CARE AND EDUCATION VOTES ARE KEY IN VIRGINIA BEACH DELEGATE RACE ([link removed])
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By MARIE ALBIGES, Virginian-Pilot (Metered Paywall - 3 articles a month)

The lead-up to the election in Virginia Beach’s 84th House District has been riddled with attack ads and political theater as the GOP incumbent fights off a challenge from a Chesapeake school teacher. Glenn Davis, 46, has represented the 84th District since 2013. He’s running against Karen Mallard, a reading specialist at Greenbrier Primary School


** CANDIDATES MAKE THEIR CASE AT CHAMBER FORUM ([link removed])
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By LARRY BARNHART, Bedford Bulletin (Paywall for all articles)

Candidates for state and local offices spoke before a large gathering at a candidate forum, Wednesday night, sponsored by the Bedford Area Chamber of Commerce, the Smith Mountain Lake Regional Chamber of Commerce and Smith Mountain Lake Association.


** HEADING INTO ELECTION DAY, CHESTERFIELD REMAINS A WILD CARD ([link removed])
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By RICH GRISET, Chesterfield Observer

For those who needed a reminder of just how much Chesterfield’s political identity has morphed in recent years, one came last week in the form of film and television actor Alec Baldwin. On Oct. 22, the man who currently satirizes President Donald Trump on “Saturday Night Live” campaigned with Amanda Pohl, the Democratic candidate running for office in Virginia’s 11th state Senate District. Their choice of location was no accident: The two knocked on doors in Bayhill Pointe, the Midlothian neighborhood of Pohl’s opponent, state Sen. Amanda Chase.


** REGISTRAR PREDICTS HIGH VOTER TURNOUT ON NOV. 5 ([link removed])
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By RICH GRISET, Chesterfield Observer

The county registrar is anticipating high voter turnout on Tuesday, compared to the last similar election in 2015. In a typical off-off-year election – meaning there aren’t any statewide or federal candidates on the ballot – voter turnout is usually very low, but Constance Hargrove, Chesterfield’s general registrar, says that she’s anticipating turnout closer to a gubernatorial election year.


** OFFICIALS FOCUSING ON ELECTION DAY SECURITY AHEAD OF NOV. 5 ([link removed])
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By SARA MCCLOSKEY, WRIC

Security on Election Day is a top priority for the staff at the Virginia Dept. of Elections. There is extra funding on hand and more positions in place to make sure your vote is safe.


** CNU’S CAMPUS IS SPLIT BETWEEN 2 DELEGATE DISTRICTS ([link removed])
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By DAVE RESS, Daily Press (Metered Paywall - 5 articles a month)

Trying to get the right ballot before the right Christopher Newport University students has been a major project for Newport News Voter Registrar Vicki Lewis this year. Court-ordered redistricting to undo racial gerrymandering reshaped many House of Delegates districts. One new line split CNU’s campus between the new 94th and 95th districts.


** U.VA. TO CONTINUE HOLDING CLASSES, EXAMS ON ELECTION DAY ([link removed])
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By LILLY WHITNER, Cavalier Daily

As this year’s election day approaches, the issue of University faculty holding exams Nov. 5 has resurfaced. Last year, Student Council urged University faculty to refrain from holding exams on Election Day


** THE CAMPAIGN MONEY FLOODGATES OPEN ([link removed])
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By DAVE RESS, Daily Press (Metered Paywall - 5 articles a month)

October’s when the money markers for Virginia elections are really laid down and, boy, have they been this year. In the first 24 days of the month, candidates for the state Senate’s 40 districts raised a grand total of more than $11.9 million. They spent nearly $15.6 million, Shad Plank’s look at campaign finance reports compiled by the Virginia Public Access Project shows. Balanced budgets don’t apply, evidently, when you’re seeking one of those $18,000-a-year seats.


** REPUBLICANS HAVE EDGE IN LOCAL FUNDRAISING, BUT SOME DEMOCRATS OUTPACE OPPONENTS ([link removed])
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By CLAIRE MITZEL, News Leader (Metered Paywall - 5 articles a month)

In a final push ahead of the Nov. 5 election, two local Democratic candidates for the General Assembly have outraised their Republican opponents in the last cycle reported before the election. One of those candidates has outraised her opponent for the entire year. In two other races, Republican candidates have maintained the lead in money raised.


** FEDERAL ELECTIONS
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** VULNERABLE HOUSE DEMOCRATS WARY OF CAMPAIGNING FOR MEDICARE FOR ALL IN 2020 ([link removed])
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By NATALIE ANDREWS AND ELIZA COLLINS, Wall Street Journal (Subscription Required)

Some Democratic lawmakers key to holding the House majority worry that the health-care pledges made by Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders could hurt their re-election chances....Democratic Rep. Elaine Luria, who beat a GOP incumbent last year, said she recently voiced her opposition for Medicare for All in a town hall meeting in her coastal Virginia district. She received a standing ovation.


** STATE GOVERNMENT
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** WILL VIRGINIA TAKE A GAMBLE ON GAMBLING MACHINES? ([link removed])
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By DAVE RESS, Daily Press (Metered Paywall - 5 articles a month)

Here’s some unsettling news for the many Virginians hoping to get school funding back towards pre-recession levels: A major source of state funds for K-12 education, the Lottery, is seeing its sales slump. Since its profits after paying out prizes is, by law, supposed to go to schools, that’s a problem.


** JUDGE STRESSES HEALTH CARE OVERSIGHT, COMPLIANCE AFTER PRISONER DEATH AT WOMEN'S PRISON IN FLUVANNA ([link removed])
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By RACHEL MAHONEY, News & Advance (Metered Paywall - 10 articles a month)

With prisoners at the Fluvanna Correctional Center for Women facing medical emergencies, a federal judge is moving his court’s focus away from directly enforcing individual cases and toward systemic change to ensure the prisoner population as a whole is receiving timely and adequate care.


** ECONOMY/BUSINESS
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** DAILY PROGRESS NEWSROOM STAFF VOTES TO FORM UNION ([link removed])
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By STAFF REPORT, Daily Progress (Metered Paywall - 5 articles a month)

The Daily Progress newsroom staff voted on Wednesday to form a union as The Blue Ridge NewsGuild. The unit will represent reporters, photographers and page designers at The Progress. It will not include the editorial department, which produces the opinion page, or managers in the newsroom.


** OFFSHORE WIND GETS A WARNING FROM ITS BIGGEST DEVELOPER ([link removed])
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By WILL MATHIS AND CHRISTIAN WIENBERG, Bloomberg News

The world’s biggest developer of offshore wind farms issued a reality check to the industry, saying it has overestimated the amount of time its turbines are generating electricity. Copenhagen-based Orsted A/S announced that offshore wind farms wouldn’t produce quite as much power as previously forecast. The adjustment could shave millions of dollars of revenue a year off each project. It’s also a warning to other developers who may have used similar analysis to estimate the economics of their projects.


** TRANSPORTATION
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** LOCAL I-81 IMPROVEMENTS COULD START IN SPRING ([link removed])
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By JOSH JANNEY, Winchester Star (Metered Paywall - 5 articles a month)

Local improvements to Interstate 81 could begin as soon as this spring, according to Dave Covington, the state’s I-81 Program Delivery Director. Covington made the announcement at a transportation forum held Monday night at the Frederick County Administration Building


** HIGHER EDUCATION
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** HOLLINS UNIVERSITY ENACTS NEW POLICY ALLOWING TRANSGENDER STUDENTS TO GRADUATE ([link removed])
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By ALISON GRAHAM, Roanoke Times (Metered Paywall - 10 articles a month)

Hollins University announced Wednesday a new policy that will allow transgender students to graduate. The new policy also loosens the restrictions for applicants. The private university in Roanoke County will consider for admission any undergraduate applicants who “consistently live and identify as women, regardless of the gender assigned to them at birth.”


** VIRGINIA TECH, RADFORD UNIVERSITY AMONG SCHOOLS TO BOLSTER PEER RECOVERY EFFORTS ([link removed])
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By HENRI GENDREAU, Roanoke Times (Metered Paywall - 10 articles a month)

Virginia Tech and Radford University are among eight state schools that will expand their substance abuse programs with help from Virginia Commonwealth University. VCU secured $675,000 in federal funds to buttress the schools’ peer addiction recovery efforts, Gov. Ralph Northam said Wednesday.


** NORTHAM ANNOUNCES GRANT AWARDS FOR ADDICTION RECOVERY PROGRAMS AT EIGHT VIRGINIA COLLEGES ([link removed])
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By C. SUAREZ ROJAS, Richmond Times-Dispatch (Metered Paywall - 5 articles a month)

Gov. Ralph Northam on Wednesday announced a $675,000 award for Virginia Commonwealth University to help eight other universities develop and expand addiction recovery programs modeled on VCU’s over the next two years.


** VIRGINIA OTHER
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** FISHERIES OFFICIALS TAKE STEPS TO TURN DOWN THE BASS ([link removed])
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By KEN PERROTTE, Free Lance-Star (Metered Paywall - 10 articles a month)

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Striped Bass Board decided Wednesday to address the sharply declining numbers of striped bass along the Atlantic seaboard, including the Chesapeake Bay, by requiring an 18 percent harvest reduction relative to 2017 levels.


** LOCAL
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** IN NORTHERN VIRGINIA, AN ‘UNPRECEDENTED’ CHANCE TO SHAPE CRIMINAL JUSTICE ([link removed])
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By JUSTIN JOUVENAL, Washington Post (Metered Paywall - 3 articles a month)

Northern Virginia voters will have a once in a generation opportunity to reshape the criminal justice system next week, as they head to the polls to select successors to longtime prosecutors in some of the state’s most populous jurisdictions. The races in Arlington, Fairfax, Prince William and Loudoun counties have become referendums on criminal justice reform on a variety of issues, including the death penalty, marijuana prosecutions and cooperation with immigration authorities.


** SUPERVISORS RACES COULD PIVOT ON A RECURRING THEME: HOW, AND WHERE, TO GROW THE TAX BASE ([link removed])
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By JIM MCCONNELL, Chesterfield Observer

“No Carvana!” “No Carvana!” “No Carvana!” A group of about 25 Chesterfield residents lined the sidewalk leading to the county’s Public Meeting Room last Wednesday evening, holding homemade signs and chanting at members of the Board of Supervisors as they walked by on their way to their monthly business meeting. The board was preparing to vote on a hotly contested proposal by online used car retailer Carvana to build a vehicle reconditioning facility and storage lot on a 183-acre Woods Edge Road property.


** BEACH COUNCIL HAS TWO OPENINGS, FIVE CANDIDATES ([link removed])
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By ALISSA SKELTON AND STACY PARKER, Virginian-Pilot (Metered Paywall - 3 articles a month)

Virginia Beach voters were not supposed to elect City Council members this year. But an unusual set of circumstances has left two openings. Residents across the city will have to choose between five candidates for the Rose Hall and Beach districts after two council members left abruptly because they didn’t meet the residency requirements to serve.


** CHESAPEAKE’S TRICK-OR-TREAT LAW CONTINUES TO HAUNT THE CITY ([link removed])
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By BRIANA ADHIKUSUMA, Virginian-Pilot (Metered Paywall - 3 articles a month)

Chesapeake’s trick-or-treat law won’t stop haunting the city. The community is in the national spotlight again for its decades-old law that threatened teenage trick-or-treaters with a fine and/or jail time for up to six months. But even after changing the 1970 ordinance last March, city staff continues to receive calls and emails berating them for being a “Communist city and dictatorship,” said Mayor Rick West.


** FOR ROSIE'S IN VINTON AND HAMPTON, CITY OFFICIALS GAVE HELPING HAND TO FIND A LOCATION ([link removed])
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By JOHN R. CRANE, Danville Register & Bee

There’s still speculation of where in Danville an off-track betting parlor would go if the referendum for it passes next week. But there doesn’t appear to have been much drama in the way of finding a spot for the ones now open in Vinton and Hampton — it seems that city officials helped out.

Today's Sponsor:


** Harris Miller and Deborah Kahn
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For our children and grandchildren to whom we must leave a better world.


** EDITORIALS
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** ‘DEATH OF CARS’ PREDICTION WAS PREMATURE ([link removed])
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Free Lance-Star Editorial (Metered Paywall - 10 articles a month)

Traffic congestion, concern for the environment, population shifts from rural and suburban areas to urban centers, the rise of car-sharing apps like Uber and Lyft, and the prospect of self-driving vehicles would, many people predicted, send sales of personal automobiles into a downward death spiral. But that hasn’t happened. In fact, “personal car ownership in the U.S. has actually increased in the past 10 years, even in the frenzied urban places where Uber and car-share have become verbs,” Wired reported.


** A DIFFERENT MINDSET ([link removed])
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Richmond Times-Dispatch Editorial (Metered Paywall - 5 articles a month)

Earlier this month, the Commonwealth Transportation Board (CTB) discussed the “Sustainability of Transportation Revenues.” Embedded in a 35-page presentation from the Office of the Secretary of Transportation was a historic observation about fuel taxes. Fiscal year 2016 to 2018 marked the first time that vehicle miles traveled (VMT) in Virginia increased (+3.2%) but fuel tax collections decreased (-0.4%) — with no rate change.


** COLUMNISTS
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** SCHAPIRO: JUST IN TIME FOR HALLOWEEN — AN OCTOBER SURPRISE ([link removed])
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By JEFF E. SCHAPIRO, Richmond Times-Dispatch (Metered Paywall - 5 articles a month)

In politics, what’s October without a surprise? But two? On Tuesday, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported that the Northam administration — in building the two-year budget that it will introduce in December — wants to know how and where state agencies can do more with less. That this got out a week before the legislative elections created the impression — intentionally or not — that the administration is anticipating an economic downturn


** POLITIFACT: VANDERGRIFF ABORTION CLAIM RATED "FALSE" ([link removed])
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By WARREN FISKE, WCVE

Republican GayDonna Vandergriff has turned to abortion in her effort to portray Democrat Del. Schuyler VanValkenburg as “too extreme” for the 72nd House District in western Henrico County. Vandergriff recently sent voters a mailer with a colored picture of a mother nuzzling a newborn, and a black and white shot of VanValkenburg in the background. “Did her life have value 10 minutes before she was born?” the capitalized print asks. “Socialist Democrat Schuyler VanValkenburg says no.”
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