Virginia's Senate on Tuesday defeated a proposed amendment that would have replaced Gov. Bob McDonnell's retail sales tax increase with a 5.5 percent wholesale tax on gasoline.
In 2011, the Republicans got 60 percent of the vote in Virginia's Senate races, while the Democrats received only 40 percent. However, because the Democrats manipulated the district boundaries, they were able to hold exactly half the seats in the Senate.
At last year's 63rd Shad Planking, Virginia's annual spring confab for politicos and potential candidates to see and be seen, Gov. Bob McDonnell joked that Tim Kaine and George Allen were "two guys running for a job that neither one of them really wants. What a battle that's going to be."
Who would have picked the buttoned-down Tim Kaine to make a stretch-run slip-up in Virginia's Senate race before gaffe-prone Republican George Allen?
Democrats in Virginia's Senate said Monday that they will file a lawsuit to determine whether the state's Republican lieutenant governor has the privilege of casting tiebreaking votes on organizational matters — an authority crucial to GOP plans to exercise a majority in the evenly split chamber next year.
Prince William Board of County Supervisors Chairman Corey A. Stewart said Tuesday that he still is considering a 2012 run for Virginia's Senate seat now held by Sen. Jim Webb, a Democrat who is retiring after one term.
