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Several pieces of legislation on the creation of a Virginia Health Benefits Exchange will be considered in this year’s General Assembly session. The statewide grassroots organization Virginia Organizing is asking legislators to move forward on the creation of a consumer-friendly Health Benefits Exchange and supports several Exchange bills including: SB 383 (McEachin), HB 357 (McClellan)…
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Attorney Linda Schorsch Jones has announced that she will run for the At-Large seat on the Waynesboro School Board in the May 1 general election. A long-time Waynesboro resident, Jones graduated from Stuarts Draft High School in 1982 and from the University of Virginia in 1986, earning a bachelor of arts degree with honors in…
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One of my campaign slogans is “Let’s show how People Power can defeat the Money Power.” The issue of money in politics was the topic of the first piece I wrote that appeared in national media. This was back in the 1970s. There is hardly a policy issue more central to defining what America will…
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The ACLU of Virginia today filed a brief in court in support of Texas Gov. Rick Perry and three other Republican candidates who are asking a federal judge to order the State Board of Elections to put their names on the ballot for the Virginia Republican Party primary. The ACLU brief argues that the state…
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Today, House Democrats announced their support for legislation to set up a health insurance marketplace in Virginia. Delegates Patrick Hope (D-Arlington) and Jennifer McClellan (D-Richmond) are introducing legislation modeled after the recommendations of Governor Bob McDonnell’s Virginia Health Reform Initiative (VHRI). The VHRI was formed to implement the federal health care reform law in Virginia….
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America is at a crossroads. Shall we be governed by people or by corporations? If you thought we had already answered that question more than two centuries ago, you’re right. The framers of our Constitution were clear that we were to be a government of, for and by the people. They recognized that corporations were…
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The ACLU of Virginia has informed school officials at Colonial Forge High School in Stafford County that they must allow students to wear “Free Banana Man” t-shirts to protest the suspension of a fellow student who sprinted around the football field wearing a banana costume last Friday night. The student, Bryan Thompson, apparently did not…
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Women’s Equality Day, August 26, is both a celebration of women’s progress and a reminder that equality remains a goal, not a reality. On this day in 1920, women gained the right to vote under the 19th Amendment. Today, over 90 years later, the struggle to advance women’s rights is concentrated on the economic front…
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In a massive coordinated information-seeking campaign, the American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia and 33 other affiliates across the nation today are sending requests to more than 375 local law enforcement agencies large and small demanding to know when, why and how they are using cell phone location data to track Americans. The Virginia affiliate…
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In the late 1990s the state teachers’ organization distributed a hopeful poster. With scenes from Monticello and colonial Virginia printed in the background, the text proclaimed that “Virginians led the Eighteenth Century, Virginians can lead the Twenty-first Century.” There is a plentiful supply of documentation of Virginians providing leadership in the Revolutionary period through the…
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