Today's Sponsor: Clean Virginia

VaNews Jan. 22, 2020
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Today's Sponsor:


** Clean Virginia
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Fighting to empower Virginians by promoting cleaner politics. Visit www.cleanvirginia.org ([link removed]) to learn more.

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


** FROM VPAP
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** VISUALIZATION: COST OF WINNING LOCAL OFFICE RANGES FROM $16 TO $1 MILLION ([link removed])
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The Virginia Public Access Project

Under a new law that requires more candidates to e-file campaign finance reports, the public has with a fuller picture of what it costs to win an election for local office in different parts of Virginia. Last November, four uncontested school board candidates in Augusta County spent an average of $16 each. In Northern Virginia, the winner in the race for top prosecutor in Prince William County reported spending $1,118,983.


** VISUALIZATION: LEGISLATOR TO LOBBYIST ([link removed])
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The Virginia Public Access Project

Since 2005, some 35 former state legislators have registered to lobby their former colleagues. The law was changed in recent years to require legislators to wait 12 months before they return to the General Assembly as a paid lobbyist. The lobbying corps this session includes 16 former legislators.


** EXECUTIVE BRANCH
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** ‘WE CAN AGREE TO DISAGREE’: GOV. NORTHAM REACTS TO GUN RALLY, SECOND AMENDMENT SANCTUARIES ([link removed])
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WSLS

A day after 22,000 people voiced their opposition to gun control in Richmond, we're now hearing from Gov. Ralph Northam. Northam made his first public appearance since the rally in Franklin County on Tuesday morning, announcing Traditional Medicinals, a wellness tea company, is investing nearly $30 million in the Summit View Business Park.


** WHITE SUPREMACIST GROUP WANTED RICHMOND RALLY TO START A CIVIL WAR, PROSECUTORS SAY ([link removed])
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Associated Press

A hidden camera captured members of a white supremacist group expressing hope that violence at Monday’s gun-rights rally in Richmond could start a civil war, federal prosecutors said in a court filing Tuesday.


** GENERAL ASSEMBLY
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** DESPITE RALLY, VIRGINIA SENATE ADVANCES 'RED FLAG' GUN LAW ([link removed])
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Associated Press

The day after a massive gathering of gun-rights activists at the Virginia Capitol, the state Senate on Tuesday advanced legislation that would allow authorities to take guns away from people deemed dangerous to themselves or others. The Democratic-led Senate gave preliminary approval to approved the so-called “red flag” law.


** DEMOCRATS QUICKLY SPIKE GUN RIGHTS BILLS FROM REPUBLICAN DELEGATES ([link removed])
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By AMY FRIEDENBERGER, Roanoke Times (Metered Paywall - 10 articles a month)

The morning after thousands of people carrying firearms surrounded the Capitol to voice their opposition to gun control, House Democrats shot down a batch of gun rights bills from Republicans. The subcommittee of the House Public Safety Committee was once known for swiftly killing gun control bills Democrats introduced for years when the House was under Republican control.


** DEMOCRATS REJECT BILLS TO FURTHER RELAX GUN LAWS ([link removed])
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By PATRICIA SULLIVAN AND LAURA VOZZELLA, Washington Post (Metered Paywall - 3 articles a month)

A legislative subcommittee controlled by Democrats rejected a raft of Republican-sponsored bills to loosen restrictions on firearms Tuesday, one day after a major gun-rights rally and over the passionate objections of a man whose wife was killed in last year's mass shooting in Virginia Beach.


** VIRGINIA SENATE DEBATES 'RED FLAG' LAW AS HOUSE DEMOCRATS KILL GOP GUN BILLS ([link removed])
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By JUSTIN MATTINGLY, Richmond Times-Dispatch (Metered Paywall - 5 articles a month)

The day after a gun-rights rally drew an estimated 22,000 people to the state Capitol, the state Senate debated one of the most controversial parts of Gov. Ralph Northam’s gun control package. Senators on Tuesday disagreed on the merits of a proposed “red flag” law, which would allow removal of firearms via a legal warrant from a person deemed “a substantial risk of injury to himself or others” through what is called an “extreme risk protective order.”


** HUSBAND OF MASS SHOOTING VICTIM TO LAWMAKERS: “LET’S WORK TOGETHER.” ([link removed])
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By MARIE ALBIGES, Virginian-Pilot (Metered Paywall - 3 articles a month)

Jason Nixon came to Richmond Tuesday for the first time hoping to speak about a gun bill. But he got to lecture some lawmakers, too. “You guys have lost sight about politics,” he told a group of delegates Tuesday. “It’s not about my side is better than yours." It’s the first time he’s addressed lawmakers in the state Capitol after his wife, Kate Nixon, was murdered along with 11 other people


** FAMILIES ASK LEGISLATORS TO BACK HANDS-FREE DRIVING BILL ([link removed])
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By JUSTIN MATTINGLY, Richmond Times-Dispatch (Metered Paywall - 5 articles a month)

Meredith Spies stood in front of legislators Tuesday and urged the General Assembly to take action on a bill she thinks could have helped save her mother. Karen Giles was driving her Honda Accord in Chesterfield County last February when a dump truck crossed into oncoming traffic and hit her head-on. Giles, a volunteer firefighter and EMT, was pronounced dead at the scene.


** PROPOSAL BANS HOLDING CELLPHONES WHILE DRIVING IN VIRGINIA ([link removed])
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By ANDREW RINGLE, Associated Press

Karen Giles was proud of her 30 years as a volunteer firefighter and emergency medical technician, her daughter said, until she was killed last February when a dump truck driver looked down at his phone to text a friend about a Valentine’s Day gift. Giles’ daughter, Meredith Spies, said she now forgives that driver. But in a press conference on Tuesday, she also said the current sentencing guidelines are not harsh enough.


** BILLS TO MAKE VOTING EASIER ADVANCE IN VIRGINIA LEGISLATURE ([link removed])
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By ZACH ARMSTRONG, Associated Press

Virginia lawmakers have advanced Senate bills that make voting easier, including not requiring an excuse to vote absentee and recognizing Election Day as a state holiday. Other legislation that would extend citizen access to voting -- part of the 11-point “Virginia 2020 plan” put forward by Gov. Northam -- has yet to clear committees.


** 300 VIRGINIA INMATES — SOME SERVING LIFE — COULD SOON BE ELIGIBLE FOR PAROLE FOR THE FIRST TIME ([link removed])
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By MARIE ALBIGES, Virginian-Pilot (Metered Paywall - 3 articles a month)

Weldon “Prince” Bunn remembers serving time with other inmates who would’ve been eligible for parole like him, except for one technicality. His fellow inmates — brothers and comrades, he called them — were sentenced during a five-year period in Virginia after parole had been abolished but before juries were explicitly told that.


** VIRGINIA SENATE BACKS MEASURE TO REPLACE LEE-JACKSON DAY WITH ELECTION DAY HOLIDAY ([link removed])
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By JUSTIN MATTINGLY, Richmond Times-Dispatch (Metered Paywall - 5 articles a month)

A proposal to nix a state holiday that honors two Virginia-born Confederate generals and add Election Day as a state holiday has cleared the Virginia Senate. Senators voted along party lines on Tuesday to scrap Lee-Jackson Day, which falls on the Friday before Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and replace it with Election Day. The bill now heads to the House of Delegates.


** VIRGINIA SENATE VOTES TO END LEE-JACKSON DAY, CREATE ELECTION DAY HOLIDAY ([link removed])
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By LAURA VOZZELLA, Washington Post (Metered Paywall - 3 articles a month)

The Virginia Senate on Tuesday voted to scrap a state holiday honoring two Confederate generals and create a new holiday on Election Day, another tremor in the Democratic earthquake rattling the former capital of the Confederacy. Senators voted 22 to 18 to do away with the Lee-Jackson holiday, with every Democrat and one Republican, Sen. Siobhan S. Dunnavant (Henrico), in favor.


** SENATE VOTES TO END LEE-JACKSON DAY, MAKE ELECTION DAY A STATE HOLIDAY ([link removed])
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By JOSH JANNEY, Winchester Star (Metered Paywall - 5 articles a month)

The Virginia Senate passed a bill Tuesday to do away with Lee-Jackson Day and make Election Day a state holiday. The bill, introduced by 18th District Sen. L. Louise Lucas, D-Portsmouth, makes Election Day — the Tuesday after the first Monday in November — a state holiday and eliminates Lee-Jackson Day. The bill passed the Senate 22-18, largely along party lines, and now goes to the House of Delegates.


** SENATE PANEL KILLS BILL BARRING DOMINION CAMPAIGN DONATIONS ([link removed])
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By JUSTIN MATTINGLY, Richmond Times-Dispatch (Metered Paywall - 5 articles a month)

On the 10th anniversary of a landmark Supreme Court case that allowed for unlimited political donations by corporations, a Virginia committee killed a proposal to ban campaign donations from Dominion Energy. The Senate Privileges and Elections Committee on Tuesday voted down Senate Bill 25 from Sen. Chap Petersen, D-Fairfax City, in a 10-5 vote. The bill would have prohibited candidates from taking donations from public utilities — most notably Dominion, which opposed the bill.


** VIRGINIA SENATE PANEL OKS OFFSHORE DRILLING, FRACKING BANS ([link removed])
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By SARAH RANKIN, Associated Press

A Virginia Senate committee on Tuesday advanced measures that would ban offshore drilling as well as hydraulic fracturing in much of eastern Virginia. Similar versions of both measures have been proposed in previous years but died in what was then a Republican-controlled General Assembly.


** MEASURE SPECIFYING THAT BIRTH CONTROL IS NOT ABORTION ADVANCES OVER GOP OPPOSITION ([link removed])
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By NED OLIVER, Virginia Mercury

Legislation explicitly stating that the use of FDA approved birth control will not be considered abortion under state code cleared a House of Delegates committee on health care for the first time on a party-line vote, with Republican members opposing.


** LBGT BILLS CLEAR VIRGINIA SENATE ([link removed])
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By LAURA VOZZELLA, Washington Post (Metered Paywall - 3 articles a month)

The Virginia Senate on Tuesday passed a host of LGBT rights bills as Democrats continued to flex their new power in the Capitol. The Senate voted to ban conversion therapy on children, repeal the state’s now-defunct ban on same-sex marriage and establish statewide policies for the treatment of transgender students.


** BAN ON GAY CONVERSION THERAPY PASSES STATE SENATE ([link removed])
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By DAVE RESS, Daily Press (Metered Paywall - 5 articles a month)

We’re hearing it a lot around Capitol Square these days, but elections have consequences. Not just for guns. The state Senate Tuesday passed legislation, sponsored by state Sen. Scott Surovell, D-Mount Vernon, banning licensed counselors, psychologists and psychiatrists from subjecting children to conversion therapy -- the often abusive or coercive treatments that allege they can change a person’s sexual orientation. Similar measures have died in past years.


** BILL TYING BROADBAND, DEVELOPMENT DOLLARS DIES ([link removed])
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By MICHAEL MARTZ, Richmond Times-Dispatch (Metered Paywall - 5 articles a month)

Sen. Ryan McDougle, R-Hanover, was making a point about geographic representation in Virginia’s two-year budget, but that didn’t help him get his bid for greater funding of rural broadband communications out of committee.


** BELL BILL TARGETS INHALER ADMINISTRATION ([link removed])
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By JESSICA WETZLER, Daily News Record (Subscription Required)

In 2014, 22.4% of high school students in Virginia had been told by a doctor or nurse that they had asthma, based on a study by the Virginia Department of Health’s Virginia Youth Survey. For school nurses to administer medication to treat asthma, a prescription would need to be provided — but not for long under a bill making its way through the General Assembly.


** FEDERAL ELECTIONS
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** QASIM RASHID RUNNING IN 1ST CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT'S DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY ([link removed])
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Inside NOVA

Stafford lawyer Qasim Rashid is running for Congress in the 1st District. The Democrat ran in the state Senate 28th District race last November. He lost to incumbent Republican Richard Stuart 57%-42%. Rep. Rob Wittman, a Republican, was first elected in a 2007 special election, and won re-election to a sixth full term in 2018, defeating challenger Vangie Williams 55%-45%.


** CONGRESS
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** KAINE: ‘MESSAGE SENT’ BY RALLY ON KING HOLIDAY ([link removed])
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By LOGAN BARRY, Progress Index (Metered paywall - 5 free articles a month)

While a pro-gun rights rally was going on in Richmond’s Capitol Square, a celebration of civil rights was under way 25 miles to the south at Tabernacle Baptist Church, and that timing did not go unnoticed by the church ceremony’s keynote speaker. “I have questions about why people who would want to rally for gun rights would want to choose Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday to do so,” Sen. Timothy M. Kaine, D-Virginia, told service attendees.


** ECONOMY/BUSINESS
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** COMPANY TO CREATE 33 JOBS WITH PULASKI COUNTY PLANT ([link removed])
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By SAM WALL, Roanoke Times (Metered Paywall - 10 articles a month)

An integrated supply chain company will invest $12 million to establish a new logistics and warehousing operation in the New River Valley Commerce Park in Pulaski County, it was announced by state and local officials Tuesday. The facility will also serve as a hub for motor carrier freight services to reach major clients in eastern United States markets, according to a release from Gov. Ralph Northam’s office.


** TEA COMPANY TO BUILD 56-EMPLOYEE PLANT IN FRANKLIN COUNTY ([link removed])
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By MIKE ALLEN, Roanoke Times (Metered Paywall - 10 articles a month)

The newest business at Franklin County’s fledgling industrial park came all the way from California to throw a tea party. Traditional Medicinals, the fourth largest maker of bagged tea in the United States, will build a factory in the county’s Summit View Business Park.


** TRANSPORTATION
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** MAKING YELLOW SCHOOL BUSES A LITTLE MORE GREEN ([link removed])
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By ELLEN ROSEN, New York Times (Metered Paywall - 5 articles a month)

Just ask any parent — yellow school buses, with their classic look, signature smell and rumbling sound, remain largely unchanged from decades past. But with advances in technology, those old buses are beginning to reach the end of the line. A small but growing number of school districts are beginning to replace these older fossil fuel models with new electric buses.


** HAMPTON ROADS SCHOOLS TO BE PART OF PILOT PROGRAM USING ELECTRIC BUSES ([link removed])
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By ROBYN SIDERSKY, Daily Press (Metered Paywall - 5 articles a month)

Four school districts in the region will be among 16 in Virginia to start rolling out electric buses next year to replace diesel ones. Norfolk, Virginia Beach, Chesapeake and Hampton will each purchase a handful of the new buses in time for next school year in a new partnership and pilot program with Dominion Energy.


** VIRGINIA OTHER
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** CARILION SEES SUCCESS IN PROGRAM TO CONNECT PATIENTS WITH TREATMENT FOR OPIOID ADDICTION ([link removed])
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By LUANNE RIFE, Roanoke Times (Metered Paywall - 10 articles a month)

Carilion Clinic’s emergency medicine physicians and psychiatrists said they are astonished by the results of a program they started to get ER patients quickly into treatment programs for opioid addictions. Until the Emergency Department Bridge to Treatment program began, patients who came to the Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital emergency room with untreated opioid addictions would be handed some business cards, maybe a referral slip, and be sent on the their way.


** WHY STORMWATER POSES AN INCREASING CHALLENGE FOR VIRGINIA ([link removed])
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By SARAH VOGELSONG, Virginia Mercury

On July 8, as rush hour clogged the roads of Alexandria, a slow-moving southbound storm caused a deluge of rain to fall over the city. And fall. And fall. And fall. All throughout the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area, precipitation and flood records were shattered.


** EX-NY SPEAKER'S CORRUPTION CONVICTION IS PARTLY OVERTURNED ([link removed])
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By BENJAMIN WEISER, New York Times (Metered Paywall - 5 articles a month)

A federal appeals court on Tuesday partly overturned the 2018 corruption conviction of Sheldon Silver, once the powerful speaker of the New York State Assembly, but allowed much of the conviction to stand — most likely ending his hopes of remaining out of prison. ...Mr. Silver, who was sentenced to 12 years in prison, appealed, and his conviction was overturned by another Second Circuit panel. That panel cited a 2016 United States Supreme Court decision involving Bob McDonnell, a former Republican governor of Virginia, which narrowed the legal definition of corruption.


** LOCAL
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** RICHMOND CITY COUNCIL PANEL BACKS RESOLUTION FOR NEW STATUE ON MONUMENT AVENUE ([link removed])
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By MARK ROBINSON, Richmond Times-Dispatch (Metered Paywall - 5 articles a month)

A Richmond City Council panel on Tuesday advanced a measure laying the groundwork for a new statue on Monument Avenue. The resolution requests seed money to aid a private fundraising effort to honor unheralded African American troops who fought for the Union during the Civil War.


** DANVILLE APPEALS THREE SKILLED GAMING MACHINE DECISIONS ([link removed])
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By CALEB AYERS, Danville Register & Bee

The question of skilled gaming machines in the city of Danville has moved from local governing bodies and commissions into the circuit court. On Thursday, the city attorney’s office filed appeals in Danville Circuit Court of three December decisions by the board of zoning appeals that overturned the recommendations of the zoning administrator, thus allowing three businesses to operate skilled gaming machines without a special use permit.


** AS DOZENS SHOW UP TO SUPPORT SANCTUARY STATUS, DANVILLE COUNCIL PASSES WATERED-DOWN RESOLUTION ([link removed])
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By JOHN R. CRANE, Danville Register & Bee

Several community members spoke Tuesday night during City Council's meeting in favor of making Danville a sanctuary city affirming its support of the Second Amendment and opposing law restricting citizens' right to bear arms. About 50-60 people showed up in support of the idea.

Today's Sponsor:


** Clean Virginia
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Fighting to empower Virginians by promoting cleaner politics. Visit www.cleanvirginia.org ([link removed]) to learn more.


** EDITORIALS
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** ORROCK BILLS PUT LOW-COST HOUSING ON THE TABLE ([link removed])
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Free Lance-Star Editorial (Metered Paywall - 10 articles a month)

You don't find too many people who are against the idea of affordable housing. People tend to agree that having a decent place to live should be a basic human right, but they also acknowledge that providing adequate housing is a huge, complicated and expensive issue. Moreover, merely figuring out what purpose affordable housing should serve, and deciding where to build it, can stop good intentions in their tracks.


** ALLIANCES ARE CRUCIAL TO GOOD GOVERNMENT ([link removed])
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Free Lance-Star Editorial (Metered Paywall - 10 articles a month)

As Richmond becomes more like Congress, with deep divisions along party and ideological lines, voters in the commonwealth may well be wondering what happened to all the state legislators who were not only willing, but able, to forge bipartisan compromises on their behalf. Even if Republicans and Democrats strongly disagree on some hot-button issues, such as gun control and abortion, aren’t there still a lot of other issues they can agree on? Have the bipartisan deal-makers become extinct?


** THANKFUL FOR A RALLY WITHOUT INCIDENT ([link removed])
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Virginian-Pilot Editorial (Metered Paywall - 3 articles a month)

Virginia breathed a sigh of relief on Tuesday, one day after gun control opponents dominated the traditional Lobby Day affair — massing an estimated 22,000 people at the Capitol to protest proposed several measures before the General Assembly. There’s plenty of credit to go around for that, but what matters today is that the event was not a repeat of the ugly violence in Charlottesville


** VIRGINIA IS FOR GUN OWNERS ([link removed])
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Wall Street Journal Editorial (Subscription Required)

The Monday news from Virginia has been reported with almost palpable disappointment: More than 20,000 turned out in Richmond for their Second Amendment right to bear arms without violence. In the runup to the rally many, including Gov. Ralph Northam, pushed the idea that this was going to be another Charlottesville. But the gun owners even picked up their own trash.


** COLUMNISTS
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** WILLIAMS: MLK DAY IN RICHMOND HAS BEEN HIJACKED BY THE GUN LOBBY. WE MUST RECLAIM IT. ([link removed])
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By MICHAEL PAUL WILLIAMS, Richmond Times-Dispatch (Metered Paywall - 5 articles a month)

Our annual commemoration of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was held hostage Monday by a gun-rights rally that not only seized his day but also hijacked his message. King’s message of a beloved community was largely drowned out by a cascade of outrage over gun control measures at Capitol Square. As if to rub our noses in it, rally participants appropriated the language of the civil rights movement.


** MILLOY: LEE-JACKSON DAY WITH A DASH OF HISTORY AND CONTEXT ([link removed])
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By COURTLAND MILLOY, Washington Post (Metered Paywall - 3 articles a month)

At the Robert E. Lee-Stonewall Jackson Day luncheon in Lexington, Va., this past weekend, I was surprised by the level of attention that was paid to racial issues. The all-white crowd — except for me — had gathered for what is essentially a celebration of the Confederacy. There was no apparent reason to bring up the subject of race. But attendees appeared to be grappling for a new understanding. Awkwardly at times, but earnestly.


** OP-ED
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** WITT: VIRGINIA BEARS NO BLAME FOR LAB’S LOSS OF COLLIDER PROJECT ([link removed])
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By ALAN S. WITT, Published in the Daily Press (Metered Paywall - 5 articles a month)

As home to one of only 10 U.S. Department of Energy science labs in the nation, Hampton Roads is proud to be host to the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility. We were all disappointed when the much-touted Electron Ion Collider would be going to New York instead of our own back yard.

Alan S. Witt is chairman of the Friends of Jefferson Lab.


** DUNAWAY: SAVE THE EDUCATIONAL IMPROVEMENT SCHOLARSHIP TAX CREDIT PROGRAM ([link removed])
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By RITA DUNAWAY, Published in the Roanoke Times (Metered Paywall - 10 articles a month)

Del. David Bulova (D-Fairfax) is looking to repeal a Virginia law that makes private school an option for low-income families. House Bill 521, currently pending in the Virginia House of Delegates, would repeal the Education Improvement Scholarship Tax Credit Program (EISTCP). The title is complicated, but the law’s effect is simple: it gives wealthier people an incentive to donate money that enhances the education of kids who aren’t so wealthy. It’s hard to understand how anyone could be opposed to that.

Dunaway is an attorney in Harrisonburg and the author of "Restoring America's Soul: Advancing Timeless Conservative Principles in a Wayward Culture."
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