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Senate Democrats are drawing attention today to a vote in the Senate Finance Committee advancing legislation introduced by Republican State Sen. Bill Carrico that instucts localities to subject “suspicious” welfare recipients to drug tests.
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Threats of lawsuits are in the air as Virginia lawmakers make sense of the unannounced amendment to the 2011 legislative redistricting rammed through the State Senate on a party-line vote on Monday.
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It took a minute for me to realize it. The State Senate voted 20-19 in a party-line vote on Monday made possible by the one-day absence of State Sen. Henry Marsh to attend the presidential inauguration to redraw Senate district lines. Ostensibly the move was done to increase the number of majority African-American districts, but go figure, the plan adopted by the Senate GOP also created more Republican-friendly Senate districts. This is what it took me a minute to realize: my own state senator, Emmett Hanger, had to have voted for the plan for it to have passed.
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As President Obama prepares for his second inaugural, the University of Virginia Center for Politics has released the first comprehensive analysis of the 2012 election. Barack Obama and the New America: The 2012 Election and the Changing Face of Politics, published by Rowman and Littlefield, brings together some of the nation’s top academics, analysts and journalists to examine how Obama won a second term and what his victory might mean for the nation’s political future.
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State Sen. Donald McEachin (D-Henrico) and State Sen. Adam Ebbin (D-Alexandria) announced on Thursday that they are co-patrons of a bill to add non-discrimination protections for state employees. Senate Bill 701 protects state employees from discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity or expression in addition to current federal standards. “This is about fairness,”…
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House Republicans have defeated a package of bills that would have established a streamlined process for restoring the voting rights of nonviolent felons. A package of bills that had the support of General Assembly Democrats and Republican Gov. Bob McDonnell was killed in a House of Delegates subcommittee Monday morning.
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After a presidential election where tens of thousands of Virginia voters experienced long lines and several hour long delays at the polls, Democrats in the House of Delegates unveiled a wide array of election reforms at a morning press conference. The election reform package included instituting an Early Vote period, extending voting hours to 8 p.m., restoring voting rights, and a host of other measures to increase access to the ballot box.
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Good evening, I’m David Toscano, the Democratic Leader in the Virginia House of Delegates. It is a pleasure to be with you tonight to discuss our future as Virginians and as a Commonwealth.
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Here’s the good news: If Bob McDonnell has his way, you’ll pay less at the pump. There’s a flip side to that. Every other time you buy anything, you’ll pay for what you’re saving at the pump, and more.
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Like most Republicans, Thomas Hobbes did not believe in Republicanism. He was an absolutist; one guy in charge. (Although it has been argued that a single body like Cromwell’s Parliament qualified in an absolutist way as ‘one guy’.) What can’t be argued is Hobbes clearly thinks it is from here the Social Contract is formed–the rules by which we live together.
