Our eighth week

Chris Graham

Column by Steve Landes Although there are just a few days remaining until the scheduled end of this year’s session of the Virginia General Assembly, events aren’t slowing down. This is the part of the session where delegates and senators meet to work out the final details on a wide range of legislation, and when…

General Assembly passes strong anti-animal fighting measure

Chris Graham

Story by Chris Graham [email protected] Listen to today’s “SportsDominion Show,” featuring an interview with John Goodwin of The Humane Society of the United States. Show Length: 11:12. It’s not often that you see legislation once viewed as highly controversial make it through a legislative session almost intact from the day it was introduced and passed…

Macacaman

Chris Graham

Stop the Presses column by Chris Graham [email protected] Virginia is going to have a vice-presidential nominee soon. Just has to be in the cards. I mean, Tim Kaine is all over the airwaves, for one. Last week, the wife turns on “Fox News Sunday,” and there our governor is, Sunday morning, 9 a.m., sitting in…

Our sixth week

Chris Graham

Column by Steve Landes We have now passed the midway point of the 2008 General Assembly session, commonly referred to as “crossover.” The House passed 616 of the 1,576 bills filed by delegates and the Senate approved 433 of the 795 bills filed by senators. Now, the House will spend the bulk of its time…

Webb tired of being in Warner’s shadow

Chris Graham

Story by Chris Graham [email protected] Count me as being among those in the Virginia punditry who thinks that the main reason the Commonwealth is in play politically these days is because of Mark Warner. That having been established as a baseline, I’ve been interested, to say the least, at the thought of what people like…

Rob Bell reports on General Assembly session

Chris Graham

General Assembly Report by Rob Bell On Wednesday, part-time legislators from across Virginia gathered for the new session of the General Assembly. After moving in to our motels and apartments, we all came back to Thomas Jefferson’s historic State Capitol to be sworn in and to hear Gov. Tim Kaine’s State of the Commonwealth address.

Social conservatives aiming high with legislative goals

Chris Graham

Story by Chris Graham [email protected] Divorce reform, restrictions on abortion and continued funding for abstinence-only sex education. The Family Foundation of Virginia and the Valley Family Forum have a healthy appetite – but whether they can fill their plate in the 2008 Virginia General Assembly remains to be seen given the changes in the composition…

Breaking ground on the Silicon Shenandoah

Chris Graham

Story by Chris Graham [email protected] It took a year to get from the first public announcement to the groundbreaking. The question now is, how long does it take to go from groundbreaking at the new SRI International Center for Advanced Drug Research in Rockingham County to the point where we start referring to the Valley…