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Special Commentary by Chris Graham [email protected] The battle for next year’s Democratic Party nomination is ever-so-quietly heating up. House Democratic Caucus chair Brian Moran seems to have been focusing his attention on cornering the Mark Warner market at the outset of the ’09 nomination race. Moran has some of the big guns from the Warner…
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Compiled by Chris Graham [email protected] WINNER: I got free ice cream Kline’s Dairy Bar celebrated its grand opening in Downtown Waynesboro this afternoon. For whatever reason, I was there. OK, it was for the free ice cream. Ethics issue – I’m sure the free ice cream was meant at least in part to entice people…
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Column by Chris Graham [email protected] WINNER: Frank Lucente gets his majority Give the old codger credit. A lot had to work just right for him to do it, but he did it. Now comes the hard part. He proved himself adept at being in the minority. But how will he do running the show when…
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Story by Chris Graham [email protected] It was coming up on spring, and you could sense the vitality in the air. And then, suddenly, you could hear it. At 10:30 p.m. the night of March 14, 1908, a loud noise thundered through the streets of Harrisonburg. It was enough to get dozens of people to pick…
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Column by Steve Landes This last week in Richmond was one of the busiest and most eventful of the session, as the General Assembly has now reached the home stretch in completing its work for 2008. In a week that began with a federal holiday and ended with my attendance at the celebration of the…
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General Assembly Report by Rob Bell With the worsening budget numbers, the House of Delegates released its biennial budget. Unlike the governor’s budget, the House budget does not cut $220 million in school construction and lottery money that was going to local schools. These cuts would have cost my four local school divisions over $3…
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General Assembly Report column by Del. Ben Cline This past Sunday was “Budget Sunday,” the day that the House and Senate appropriations committees released their amendments to the two-year budget that the governor introduced last December. Legislators, lobbyists and other groups with a stake in the budget waited in line for hours to get copies…
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General Assembly Report by Rob Bell One of the General Assembly’s biggest jobs in 2008 is to craft the two-year budget that will begin on July 1. This year, the economic slowdown – especially in the housing industry – has meant that revenue is $1.4 billion below projections. Although the overall budget is increasing slightly,…
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General Assembly Report column by Del. Ben Cline As the second week of the 2008 General Assembly session began, we saw ominous signs from Wall Street about the direction of the national economy. In response, the pesident and Congress have announced plans for a bipartisan economic-stimulus package that includes tax credits for distressed sectors of…
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General Assembly Report column by Del. Ben Cline With the bang of the speaker’s gavel at noon last Wednesday, the 2008 session of the Virginia General Assembly began. It’s fitting that the bang of a gavel sounds a lot like the firing of a starter’s pistol in a track race. In Virginia, the legislative session…
