'Your papers, please' must never be heard in America
Va. Gov. Bob McDonnell's transportation funding reform package was drastically rewritten Tuesday in a prickly meeting of the Senate Finance Committee, creating starkly opposing visions for overhauling highway financing system with just a dozen days left to broker a compromise.
Virginia's Republican House speaker on Wednesday ruled against a measure muscled through by Senate Republicans to redraw all 40 state Senate districts, defusing a partisan dispute that had threatened to stymie progress on major legislation.
Even though traffic often grinds to a standstill on some of its biggest highways, Virginia is suddenly attracting intense nationwide attention.
Openly gay Richmond prosecutor Tracy Thorne-Begland was appointed to the bench by the Richmond City Circuit Court Thursday after his nomination was derailed last month in the state legislature.
Listen up, Maryland public schools — state Comptroller Peter V.R. Franchot has a bone to pick with you.
The Virginia Senate passed a new two-year, $85 billion budget, despite the rejection of roughly $3 million in funding for mandatory ultrasounds that women considering abortions will have to undergo.
Arlington County stands to lose $100,000 in road-maintenance funds as reimbursement — or, some would argue, punishment — for a contentious environmental lawsuit county officials filed against the state and the federal government.
Virginia legislators took time from wrapping up the people's business on Friday, the penultimate day of the 2012 General Assembly session, to participate in the annual "Sensitivity Caucus Awards Day."
Virginia Republicans insisted at a Wednesday press conference that their legislative agenda has focused on jobs, education, government reform and public safety.
A provision that would withdraw Virginia from a long-standing, multistate compact devoted to cleaning and maintaining the Potomac River has been stripped from a bill working its way through the House of Delegates.
Five of the six plaintiffs in a lawsuit seeking to throw control of Virginia's congressional redistricting process to the courts have either contributed to or worked for Democrats in the past decade, despite claims that the legal action is not linked to the party.
A lawsuit filed over congressional redistricting in Virginia suggests likely partisan sniping in the state's upcoming General Assembly session, with Democrats already contesting Republican claims to a Senate majority.
The Virginia Senate Democratic Caucus collected $2.1 million in the third quarter of the year as the party tries to fend off hard-charging GOP candidates to hold onto its last bastion of power in Richmond, according to campaign finance figures released Monday.
Virginia House Minority Leader Ward L. Armstrong, whose Southside district was moved north to include parts of Prince William and Loudoun counties during redistricting this year, is among the most notable of the casualties of a process that has left some incumbents playing musical chairs in bids for re-election.
The Virginia General Assembly returns to Richmond on Friday to fill judicial vacancies from trial courts to the state Supreme Court that have sat empty for months, but with no solution in sight to a lingering impasse over congressional redistricting.
House Speaker William J. Howell announced Wednesday that the vast Senate redistricting plan included in a Senate-passed amendment was not germane, or relevant, to the bill's limited intent of making minor, technical changes to 39 House of Delegates districts.
"There were a lot of people who wanted me to rule that the amendment was germane," Mr. Howell said.
