Virginia

Treat Latinos coming over the border like FedEx packages – this is the incredible (and incredibly insulting) solution Virginia State Delegate (and obviously Republican) Barbara Comstock offered up at a recent debate.

As expected, the Virginia legislature's debate over Medicaid expansion was simply a farce. Republicans are scared of being 'primaried' in elections by even-further right tea partiers, and expanding health coverage to those who most need it is a non-starter.

The Virginia General Assembly is set to discuss the Medicaid expansion in an upcoming session. Problem is, the Republican contingent looks set to derail the process before it even starts.

Democratic Virginia Senator Mark Warner is absolutely trouncing his Republican opponent, Ed Gillespie, in a new poll by the Wason Center for Public Policy. It's an over 20 point lead, with even many conservatives voting for the incumbent.

The trial of former Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell continues, with new details of his and his wife's sordid abuses of power while in the Governor's mansion.

The law is clear: When far-flung members of the U.S. military are sued in civil court, judges must at least appoint lawyers for them.
But that basic layer of protection hasn't provided much help to the hundreds of service members sued in Virginia courts each year by high-cost lender USA Discounters.
The state routinely allows plaintiffs like USA Discounters to suggest which lawyers should be appointed. Moreover, the federal Servicemembers Civil Relief Act (SCRA) doesn't detail what those attorneys must do or how much they'll be paid for doing it.
Practically sp

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is an unreliable partner that crafted an unauthorized and unfunded detention mandate woven from the whole cloth of anti-immigrant bias to the detriment of local communities. It is time to focus on what local communities do well and wash local hands of this mess. ICE detainers are requests to local law enforcement to hold the person in the request for up to 48 hours. Discretion to enforce those requests rests with local law enforcement, who also foots the bill.

Barbara Comstock, who wants to be Virginia's 10th District chief lawmaker, has a fatal attraction to lawbreakers. She has literally made a career of defending Republicans guilty of crimes, corruption, even treason.

OneVirginia2021 has a steep climb ahead of them. They're attempting to take the politics out of redistricting with a bipartisan effort to make democracy in Virginia a real thing again. We'll see if they can actually push it through a legislature who – on both ends – have used the process for their own gain.

Dominion Energy in Virginia is just one of the many donors whose contributions to state politicians results in big benefits. This time, instead of paying rebates to their customers after overcharging them, a new bill allowed them to keep that money to pay for a never-likely-to-be-built nuclear power plant.