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Sixth District Congressman Bob Goodlatte says he has opposed health-care reform since the earliest stages of the effort by Democrats that led to the passage of the reform law in 2010. Karen Kwiatkowski suggests that Goodlatte may think there are two definitions of the word “oppose.” “That display of opposition was apparently just for us…
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If a single word or phrase can describe a General Assembly session, the 2012 meeting of the state legislature would be known for “overreach.” Governor McDonnell and Lieutenant Governor Bolling warned the Republican majority before the session got underway that there was a need for legislators to be careful to not overreach with their new-found…
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How would you like to be Bob McDonnell right about now? It wasn’t that long ago when the pundits had you pegged as the GOP vice-presidential nominee, and that was before you formally endorsed Mitt Romney, right before the critical South Carolina primary. The endorsement of a Southern Republican governor before a key Southern primary…
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After months of talking down data showing a long-term growth trend, Gov. Bob McDonnell finally seems to be getting it. “Virginia continues to gradually recover from the extremely difficult economic period of the past several years,” the Republican said Tuesday in a statement on the news that state revenue collections grew 17.2 percent in February….
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State Senate Democrats feel that they have political momentum on their side with a series of votes blocking barebones Republican-authored state budgets. “When Senate Democrats came down here several weeks ago we were focused on jobs and public education, repairing our tattered safety net, and solving our transportation crisis, but were instead faced with an…
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A bipartisan 23-17 vote in the State Senate on Thursday sends legislation dubbed by critics the “fire the teacher bill” to a Senate committee, effectively killing it for the 2012 General Assembly session. House Bill 576 was a cornerstone of the education reform agenda of Republican Gov. Bob McDonnell, who said the legislation would bring…
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Mark Warner had just said that Congress won’t be able to come up with a solution to federal-budget and national-debt issues until both Republicans and Democrats put some “skin in the game” to work toward a compromise solution. A member of the audience at the Waynesboro YMCA put those words back at the centrist Democrat,…
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Mark Warner might be in D.C., but he’s definitely not of D.C. “No matter how many challenges you’ve got in the Valley or on City Council or others, they are not as wacky as the people that I work with up in D.C.,” Sen. Warner, D-Va., said during a visit to Waynesboro on March 2….
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For Mark Warner, it risked being a Michael Dukakis moment. “This is politician rule #1: You’re never supposed to wear a hat,” Sen. Warner, D-Va., said after being handed a Dr. Seuss hat that otherwise seemed sensible given what he was about to do. And you thought banging the gavel to open and close sessions…
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On Thursday, Del. Lacey Putney, I-Bedford, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, requested and was granted unanimous consent from the General Assembly to introduce two new budget bills beyond the normal deadline. The Senate failed to pass previous budget bills advanced in the House, rendering them dead for the session.
