Category: Governance
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Warner and Kaine Wrong about D.C. Statehood
by Emilio Jaksetic On June 26, 2020, the House of Representatives passed the Washington D.C. Admission Act (H.R. 51), which would admit the District of Columbia (D.C.) as the 51st State. The House vote was essentially along party lines, with all Democrats (except one) voting yes, and all Republicans (and one Independent) voting no. Senators…
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Health Enterprise Zones for Virginia
by James C. Sherlock COVID-19 exposed what many already knew: Poor people suffer broad disparities in health outcomes when compared to their wealthier counterparts. In my original post on health care legislative initiatives in the 2021 General Assembly Session, I recommended the establishment of Health Enterprise Zones. That initiative seeks reduction of health disparities among…
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Virginia Needs to Stop Playing Politics with School Reopenings
by DJ Rippert Politics over science. Michael Hartney is a national fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and an assistant professor of political science at Boston College. He and a collaborator have studied school reopening decisions across the United States looking for factors that correlate with the seemingly arbitrary differences in school reopening policies…
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Virginia Beach’s Nutty Local Elections
by Kerry Dougherty Last week, a friend who was voting early couldn’t decide whom he should vote for in the At-Large race on the Virginia Beach ballot. So he texted me. “Who’s your pick?” he asked, adding, “I don’t need the names for Centerville, Kempsville or Rose Hall Districts because I don’t live in those…
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Amanda Chase and Mark Herring: the Odd Couple in Constitutional Deception?
by Paul Goldman The Virginia Bill of Rights – Article I of the Virginia Constitution – grants you and me the right to cast an informed vote free from government manipulation. When considering this right, I cannot decide who is the bigger phony: Republican gubernatorial hopeful Senator Amanda Chase, R-Chesterfield, or Democratic Attorney General Mark…
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The Jaw Dropping Political Contributions of UVa’s Board of Visitors
By DJ Rippert Waiting for Godot. A recent article on this blog titled, “UVa Board Backs Ryan on Lawn Signage Issue,” seemed to suggest that The University of Virginia’s Board of Visitors (BoV) was a critical link in UVa’s governance structure. My interpretation of the article was that the author (Jim Bacon) believed the BoV…
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W&L Alumni Revolt Gains Momentum
by James A. Bacon The Washington & Lee alumni outcry against an initiative to remove Lee’s name from the university is morphing into a powerful constituency demanding influence in university decision-making. Under the name of The Generals Redoubt, alumni protesters have formed a nonprofit, raised $456,000 in funds, and articulated a coherent alternative vision for…
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Major Impacts of Northam’s War against Teachers
Federal school funding threatened; Democrats and unions in a bind; Lawsuits coming by James C. Sherlock Ralph Northam declared on August 30 of this year that Virginia’s schools are systemically racist and that teachers are presumptively racist and must be treated and monitored. In addition to threatening to create turmoil in the schools and damage to the…
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Northam Labels Virginia’s Teachers Racists
No word on teacher Pam Northam’s status by James C. Sherlock Governor Northam on August 24, 2020 declared Virginia’s schools guilty of systemic (structural) racism and declared his intention to “build antiracist school communities.” He was addressing the #EdEquity VA Virtual Summit – Courage, Equity and Antiracism hosted by Virginia Secretary of Education Atif Qarni…
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Ray of Hope in Virginia Senate
by Kerry Dougherty It’s not much. But it’s something. An anemic attempt to rein in some of the unfettered emergency powers that are being exercised by Virginia officials. I’m referring to the unanimous vote to pass SB5025 late last week by the Virginia Senate. This is one of the very few measures before the General Assembly…
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The Virginia Beach School Board Throws a Fit
by James C. Sherlock Virginia Beach boasts the fourth largest school district in the state with 87 schools and 69,000 students. Those kids, their teachers and their parents deserve better than what happened last night. Horror and embarrassment were the most common reactions of the public to last night’s televised meeting of the Virginia Beach…
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A Betrayal of Representative Democracy
by Emilio Jaksetic Citing the public health danger of COVID-19, the House of Representatives on May 15 passed H. Res. 965, a rule allowing Members of the House to vote by proxy. Passage of that rule was a blow to representative government in the United States and an affront to the right of Americans to…
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COVID-19’s Long-Term Changes in Virginia
by DJ Rippert In the long run… Over the past eight months COVID-19 has dramatically impacted the world, the United States and Virginia. One hundred and twenty thousand cases of COVID-19 have been reported in Virginia Over 2,500 people have died from COVID-19 . The cases, hospitalizations and deaths continue to grow in the Old…
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McEachin Punts on Stoney Contract Inquiry
by James A. Bacon Richmond Commonwealth’s Attorney Collette McEachin said Friday she will not investigate Mayor Levar Stoney’s awarding of a $1.8 million contract to businessman Devon Henry, a Stoney campaign contributor, on the grounds that Henry also donated money in 2011 to her husband’s 2011 state Senate campaign. “Although the amount of money donated…
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For Virginia, Nobody’s Home in the Congressional Infrastructure and Appropriations Committees
by James C. Sherlock Incredible and statistically unlikely as it sounds, the Commonwealth of Virginia has not a single member on either of the Congressional House or Senate Committees that decide what infrastructure projects are authorized, or on either Appropriations Committee that decides what is spent on such projects and on everything else. Those projects…