The Loudoun County Board of Supervisors voted in favor of a study Tuesday to review the history of racial discrimination and consider the merits of reparations.
The county supervisor, Juli Briskman, said the proposal was specifically related to the county’s choice to continue segregating its schools for 14 years after Brown vs. Board of Education, the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court decision that prohibited school segregation, Fox 5 DC reported.
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A new University of Mary Washington (UMW) poll of 1,000 Virginia adults found Terry McAuliffe leading with 43 percent, Glenn Youngkin with 38 percent, and Liberation Party candidate Princess Blanding at two percent. Among the 528 likely voters in the poll, Youngkin gained ten points, reaching 48 percent, while McAuliffe and Blanding stayed at 43 percent and two percent, respectively. But elections forecaster Chaz Nuttycombe said that the big story is the Public Policy Polling (PPP) poll released Tuesday that had McAuliffe leading Youngkin 45 to 42 percent; it surveyed 875 Virginia voters on September 17 and 18 with a 3.3 percent margin of error. It did not include Blanding.
“The one big exclamation point that should be having Dems say, ‘Oh s–t, oh f–k, oh s–t, oh f–k,’ is the PPP poll that came out. That had McAuliffe up by three. PPP is a very Democrat-leaning pollster,” he said. “Their polls usually overestimate Democrats by a few points.”
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The Virginia Employment Commission is still lagging in processing claims, according to an interim report from the Joint Legislative Audit Review Commission (JLARC) presented to legislators Monday.
“A theme that you will hear in the presentation is that while the agency could not have been expected to be fully prepared to respond to the pandemic, it could have been better prepared,” JLARC Director Hal Greer said. “As you’ll hear, 18 months into the pandemic, the agency is still overwhelmed by backlogs of claims. Its call center continues to under-perform, and the agency is struggling with how to recoup a significant amount of benefit payments that were incorrectly issued.”
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Partisan map drawers presented the first set of maps of the whole commonwealth to the Virginia Redistricting Commission Monday. The commission is nearing the end of its allotted time to create maps for the Virginia General Assembly; the maps are expected to be submitted between October 10th and October 24th. But the maps presented to the commission are drafts, and the commission still needs to analyze public comment and political data and how that should affect the maps. Additionally, the commission has to find a way to turn the two sets of proposals from the Republican and Democratic map drawers into one final draft.
“We’re three weeks away from when we’re supposed to vote on final maps to be presented to the General Assembly. So the clock is really moving quickly now. So think about your ideas on how to reconcile the two versions of each map that we have,” Co-Chair Greta Harris (D) told the commission.
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The Stafford County Board of Supervisors (BOS) voted six to zero with one absent to pass a resolution denouncing the use of Critical Race Theory, the 1619 Project, and requiring students to identify preferred pronouns. The resolution also warns that the BOS will review all school board appropriation requests and block any that fund those items.
“BE IT RESOLVED by the Stafford County Board of Supervisors on this the 21st day of September, 2021, that it be and hereby does denounce the teaching of the 1619 Project and critical race theory (CRT) and related principles in Stafford County Public Schools; and BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Board does not support students of Stafford County Public Schools being required to identify their chosen pronouns,” the resolution as passed states.
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Planned Parenthood of Metropolitan Washington, D.C., (PPMW) is now providing telehealth abortions to people with addresses in Virginia, Maryland, and D.C., according to a September 10 press release. After a phone screening and an online consultation, PPMW mails abortion drugs to the patient. Total cost for the service is $525, including a follow-up consultation and pregnancy test.
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Five-cent taxes on single-use plastic bags are spreading across Virginia’s more urban localities. On Saturday, Arlington County and the City of Alexandria adopted the local tax ordinances, while Fairfax County adopted a similar ordinance on September 14. The taxes take effect on January 1, 2022.
“Arlington is proud to take this step to reduce plastic bag waste in our community and to do so with our regional partners,” Arlington County Board Chair Matt de Ferranti said in a press release. “We have long sought the legal authority for this small fee as a way to protect our environment and become a more sustainable community. We look forward to working with residents and neighbors on implementation.”
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Senator Tim Kaine (D-Virginia) is pushing the House of Representatives to pass his Dr. Lorna Breen Health Care Provider Protection Act, focused on addressing mental health in healthcare professionals. On Wednesday, Kaine held a press conference touting the passage of his bill in the Senate.
“You all have a story about how the time of coronavirus has affected you just as I have a story. But in particular, in particular, the effect of the last year-and-a-half on our front-line health care workers has been incredibly dramatic,” Kaine said.
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A Virginia Beach couple has been sentenced to years in prison for their $31.8 million counterfeit coupon fraud scheme, the U.S. Eastern District of Virginia Attorney’s Office (USAO-EDVA) announced Tuesday.
“These two defendants have been sentenced and held accountable for operating one of the largest coupon fraud schemes ever discovered in the United States, resulting in over $31 million in losses to victims across the country,” USAO-EDVA Acting U.S. Attorney Raj Parekh said.
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RICHMOND, Virginia — Pro-life advocates marched around the Virginia Capitol in Richmond on Friday, the same day as early voting in Virginia’s elections. Virginia legislators Delegate Emily Brewer (R-Suffolk), Delegate John McGuire (R-Henrico) and Senator Bryce Reeves (R-Spotsylvania) spoke to the Virginia March for Life crowd from the steps of the Capitol building.
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Former President Donald Trump sent a letter on Friday to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, asking the top election official to investigate potential threats to the state’s election integrity.
In the letter to Raffensperger, Trump cited a report from The Georgia Star News, which detailed that 43,000 absentee ballot votes counted in DeKalb County, Georgia 2020 election potentially violated chain of custody rule.
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Republican Glenn Youngkin’s gubernatorial campaign has responded to his Democrat opponent’s apparent change of heart about current Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam (D).
Terry McAuliffe, the former head of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) who is running for his second non-consecutive term as governor of Virginia, once called on Northam to resign when a yearbook image of the Commonwealth’s governor wearing blackface or a Ku Klux Klan hood reemerged.
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One day before early voting begins, GOP gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin and Democratic candidate Terry McAuliffe faced off for the first time in a debate at the Appalachian School of Law in southwestern Virginia Thursday. Moderators asked candidates about policies including abortion, Critical Race Theory (CRT), right to work, qualified immunity, vaccine mandates, and Confederate monuments. Youngkin repeatedly tried to link policy issues to McAuliffe’s past record, while McAuliffe repeatedly tried to tie Youngkin to former President Trump. Both candidates also committed to accepting the result of the election if certified by the state.
Moderators asked McAuliffe he would sign laws that legalize third trimester abortions even without currently-required approval of three doctors in Virginia.
“If they came up with a solution, and the woman’s life has to be in danger, it has to be certified, and if you had a legitimate doctor that says, ‘This woman, her life’s in danger,’ of course I would support that,” McAuliffe said.
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A new poll announced Thursday has Virginia’s gubernatorial race in a statistical tie, with early voting beginning Friday. According to an Emerson College poll commissioned by WRIC, Democratic candidate Terry McAuliffe has the support of 49 percent of likely voters while GOP candidate Glenn Youngkin has 45 percent. That’s within the margin of error: plus or minus 3.4 percent.
“Statistically speaking, the poll isn’t telling you that McAuliffe is going to win or Youngkin is going to lose. It is really saying it is a dead heat,” Emerson College Polling Director Spencer Kimball told WRIC.
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The Loudoun County school board voted on a revised professional conduct policy to specifically mention “Protected Speech” and the First Amendment rights of employees.
The new policy is a response to Loudoun County Public Schools (LCPS) teacher Tanner Cross who went viral for his comments at a school board meeting in May, where he spoke out against the district’s gender policy and was put on administrative leave shortly afterward. On Aug. 30 the Virginia Supreme Court ruled to reinstate him, calling his removal “likely unconstitutional.”
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After a strategy shift, the Virginia Redistricting Commission spent its two meetings this week discussing guidance from legal teams about how to ensure legal compliance with the Voting Rights Act (VRA), and how to consider political subdivisions, communities of interest, and partisan equity. Republican and Democratic legal teams shared different analyses of how to ensure compliance with section two of the VRA, which requires that districts not dilute the voting power of protected minorities. Democratic legal counsel argued that map drawers must create majority-minority districts where possible including through coalitions of minority groups. Republican counsel said that while creating those districts was permissible and even likely to happen, explicitly instructing the mapdrawers to consider race fell outside the legal criteria under which race can be considered, violating the Equal Protection Clause.
The commission debated the issue for hours across two meetings on Monday and Wednesday and defeated three proposals to say the mapdrawers “shall,” “may,” or “shall provide where practicable,” the majority-minority districts.
Senator Ryan McDougle (R-Hanover) summarized the debate over the “shall” language Monday: “This motion specifically means that we’re going to get sued one way or the other — one counsel is saying we specifically can’t do this, one counsel is saying we specifically have to do this.”
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Six Afghan refugees in Virginia and Wisconsin have tested positive for the measles, the Associated Press reported on Tuesday.
The cases were reported among Afghan refugees who were evacuated to the U.S. after the Taliban took over Kabul, according to the AP. The cases were reported four days after flights bringing Afghans to the U.S. were suspended because some of the refugees had measles, the AP reported.
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Loudoun County Circuit Court Judge Jeanette Irby declined Wednesday to recuse herself from the recall case of School Board Member Beth Barts. Barts’ attorney Charles King had motioned for local judges to recuse themselves, arguing that an outside judge is necessary to consider testimony from local officials. On Monday, Judge Stephen Sincavage said he would recuse himself, saying he has children in the school district, according to Loudoun Now.
“I am not recusing myself from this matter,” Irby said, according to The Loudoun Times-Mirror.
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How to encourage more Virginians to get the COVID-19 vaccine is the latest battleground in the gubernatorial race. On Monday, Terry McAuliffe announced his “Virginia is for vaccine lovers” plan with a push for school divisions to require the vaccine and ensure health care providers follow federal guidance. His plan also includes business incentives, enhanced marketing, and a voluntary COVID-safety compliance certification.
“COVID is here. It’s not going away anytime soon, so we have to do everything that we possibly can to keep our children in school, build the strongest economy, and we’ve got to really get serious, and we’ve got to fight this deadly infection of COVID,” he said on a Tuesday press call.
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As Pennsylvania Senate Intergovernmental Operations Committee Majority Chair Cris Dush (R-Wellsboro) investigates recent elections, Democratic lawmakers against tightening election security must contend with a withering 2019 audit of Pennsylvania’s voter registry.
At his investigation’s initial hearing last Thursday, Dush announced his intention to hold the Department of State (DOS) accountable for the mismanagement identified in the audit by calling the department to testify at the committee’s next hearing to be scheduled soon.
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The Open FCPS Coalition is calling for the court to reconsider the recall case against Fairfax County School Board member Elaine Tholen. In a Monday press release, the coalition alleged that the prosecutor who said there wasn’t enough evidence to pursue the case had conflicts of interest.
“Following James Hingeley’s decision to not represent the over 5,000 voters that signed a recall petition against Elaine Tholen, it was revealed that Hingeley actually campaigned with Ms. Tholen in 2019,” the release states.
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A new federal policy, which would require many private businesses to enforce COVID-19 vaccine mandates or weekly testing, has come under criticism from Virginia manufacturers.
President Joe Biden announced a new rule Thursday, which will require private businesses that employ 100 or more people to require every worker be vaccinated against COVID-19 or receive weekly tests. The rule, which will be promulgated through OSHA, is expected to face legal challenges from Republican states. It will affect about 100 million people nationwide.
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An obscure item in the Lynchburg City Council Meeting Minutes could have implications on the control of Mr. Jefferson’s Capitol Square. The Lynchburg City Council is currently working on an agenda item to move next year’s city council election from 2022 to 2023.
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Roanoke has removed a series of portraits of past mayors from its Noel C. Taylor Municipal Building, making way for works from local artists.
“We felt the entryway to the seat of our local government should better celebrate the diversity present in our community and highlight the contributions made by a wider representation of residents,” City Manager Bob Cowell explained in an August update.
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Fairfax County Public Schools’ (FCPS) in Virginia denied that one of its departments calls itself “woke” in an automated voice message, Fox News reported Friday.
“Sorry, woke special services 2 email is not available, record your message at the tone,” the Department of Special Services automated voicemail appeared to say. FCPS said the message actually said “Wok” for one of their administrative centers, Willow Oaks, Fox News reported.
The Department of Special Services organizes into four different offices which includes help with psychology services, student safety and wellness, social work and special education.
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Finally, week one of the NFL season is here! A lot of you are thinking: “I’m not watching the NFL, they are woke, they kneel during the National Anthem, they play two anthems, etc., etc.”
Seriously folks, who gives a rip about the NFL and their Twinkie-like woke executives. Pro football is about us: the fans—and the players. Most NFL fans are Trump voters, and after a season of phony lockdowns, they’ll be coming out in record numbers to tailgate, party, root for their teams and most of all – have fun. It’s called living again. And try locking them down – or requiring VAX papers at the gate for entry. See what happens. Make my day!
So, it’s opening week- stop whining and start living!
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More Virginia schools are instituting COVID-19 vaccination requirements for high school student athletes. On Thursday, the Arlington County Public Schools Superintendent Francisco Durán announced the policy for his district in a Thursday presentation to the school board.
He included a message for the public. “We do not want to quarantine a class. We do not want to close a school, and we will have to do that only if there are outbreaks that occur. So please, please work with us,” he said.
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After removing the huge statue of Lee from its pedestal on Wednesday, crews spent all day Thursday excavating a corner of the pedestal in search of an 1887 time capsule reportedly placed in the monument. But they never found it.
“Disappointing not to find the time capsule,” Governor Ralph Northam’s Chief of Staff Clark Mercer told reporters Thursday evening.
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Virginia’s Democrat gubernatorial candidate, who has often been pitched as a moderate, recently joined a far-left State House Delegate on the campaign trail.
Last weekend, Terry McAuliffe campaigned in the Stafford area with Del. Joshua Cole (D-VA-28), knocking doors with the first-term Delegate.
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The National Archives website features a “harmful language alert” that appears above all content in its online catalog, including the Constitution and other founding documents, but also including recent documents like a photo of the Obamas at the 2013 presidential inauguration. Some conservatives are reacting to this as an example of D.C. bureaucracy tampering with American history.
“What are we becoming? Now the National Archives posts a “Harmful Language Alert” on its website when you pull up the U.S. Constitution?! Are you kidding me,” former Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli tweeted Monday.
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Senator Bill Stanley (R-Franklin) is the newest addition to the Virginia Redistricting Commission. His predecessor Senator Stephen Newman (R-Bedford) resigned after the commission’s busy schedule for the next two months was announced.
“I know he put a lot of effort, time, and passion into this commission. He resigned shortly after we released our wonderful meetings. So I don’t know if [Co-Chair Greta Harris (D)] and I scared him away or what,” Co-Chair Mackenzie Babichenko (R) joked.
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President Joe Biden has asked several Trump appointees to resign from military advisory boards, triggering anger from conservatives who say the move breaks norms.
“Typically, military advisory boards by tradition have been exempted from undue partisan influence. On non-military boards, it is generally accepted that new presidential administrations do changes, but avoid doing it to any depth for military boards,” Republican Party of Virginia Chair Rich Anderson told The Virginia Star.”This recent development is a continuation of the Biden administration practice of politicizing any and every element of American life, in and out of government.”
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The Republican nominee for Lieutenant Governor of Virginia, former Delegate Winsome Sears (R-Norfolk), fired a majority of her staff on Wednesday evening. Multiple outlets report that Sears did this as more of a “course correction” to complete her campaign.
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After Wednesday’s removal of General Robert E. Lee’s statue in Richmond, the City Council is setting its sights on the last remaining Confederate statue in town.
“The Richmond City Council will discuss moving the A.P. Hill monument as well as A.P. Hill’s remains, which are inside the monument,” according to WBBT. “On Sept. 13, the city council will take action to relocate the remains and monument to Fairview Cemetery in Culpeper at the request of A.P. Hill’s descendants.”
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Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr along with 14 other state attorneys general filed an amicus brief before the Supreme Court in support of allowing a Virginia church to determine who is a minister “under its own doctrine.”
“This is another example of the threat to religious liberty and we will continue to defend the First Amendment,” said Carr. “We joined this coalition to urge the U.S. Supreme Court to protect the rights of religious organizations.”
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Representative Mark Green (R-TN-07), a former combat veteran now serving in Congress, penned an opinion piece in The Daily Signal, hammering the Biden Administration for the chaotic Afghanistan withdrawal.
The member of the Foreign Affairs committee detailed that Biden’s decision “leaves America just as vulnerable as we were on 9/11.”
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Former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson spoke against mask mandates, Critical Race Theory, and COVID-19 vaccines for children in a Loudoun County appearance alongside GOP candidates Glenn Youngkin and Winsome Sears on Wednesday night. A large, energetic crowd filled a conference room; the event was hosted by Fight for Schools and 1776 Action.
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The Robert E. Lee statue that towered over Richmond for more than a century is on its way to storage. A crowd of a few hundred people peered through tree branches trying to watch from the public viewing site, and cheered as the monument was lifted off its pedestal. Crews cut along an original seam and removed Lee’s torso from the rest of the statue to allow transport by flatbed truck. The mood among the public was largely upbeat.
“It’s powerful for one day to dig in and celebrate, but you have to remember it’s just symbolic and it really doesn’t change anything about our lives. So we have to make real change,” Richmond resident Emily Gaidowski told The Virginia Star.
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Some parents are protesting the Fairfax County Public Schools COVID-19 vaccine mandate for student athletes. On Tuesday afternoon, a group of a little more than 20 parents protested outside the FCPS Gatehouse Administration Center. FCPS parent Missy Pratt began organizing the protest after Braband’s announcement. Pratt said she’s focused on the vaccine mandate, but she’s also opposed to mask mandates.
“‘No vax, no mask, we push back,’ that was our chant all day long at the rally,” Pratt told The Virginia Star
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Voting in Virginia begins in less than two weeks, and abortion law is taking center stage in Virginia’s statewide races. Democratic candidates are highlighting a controversial Texas law as an example of what Republicans would push for, while Republicans point to a late-term abortion bill that Virginia Democrats pushed for in 2019. On Friday, GOP lieutenant governor candidate Winsome Sears said on Newsmax that she would support a heartbeat bill in Virginia.
Sears said, “Here’s the thing: when did it become the wrong thing for us to support the babies in the womb?”
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The Daily Caller News Foundation interviewed Iranian-Christian Dimis Christophy, a Loudoun County, Virginia parent who unleashed on his child’s woke public school board during a meeting on August 10th. TRANSCRIPT: Christophy: Just to clear up, I know, King and Queen are not pronouns. I get it. Okay. There’s a…
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A trial over whether teachers will be required to use their students’ preferred gender pronouns will have to wait for now.
“A Virginia judge postponed Tuesday a trial in a lawsuit brought by three teachers challenging Loudoun County Public Schools’ policy requiring staff to use transgender students’ chosen pronouns,” The Washington Times reported. “Loudoun County Circuit Judge James E. Plowman Jr. decided to delay the trial after he granted a motion last week to let two of the teachers join the lawsuit and allow their amended complaint. He has not yet set a new date for the trial.”
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After prompting from state authorities, Thomas Nelson Community College (TNCC) has proposed changing its name to Virginia Peninsula Community College. Thomas Nelson signed the Declaration of Independence and was Governor of Virginia. However, he owned a large Virginia estate that included slaves, and he had a “lifelong investment in the institution of slavery” with a desire to perpetuate it, according to a TNCC historical background article.
In July 2020, as part of a national reckoning over monuments and historical treatment of Black Americans, Virginia’s State Board for Community Colleges (VSBCC) asked Virginia’s 23 community colleges to review the “appropriateness” of school names and the names of facilities.
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Virginians for American First (VFAF), a 501(c)4 established to help restore the founding fathers’ vision of the American republic, launched a project with the goal of promoting election security throughout the state.
As a step in the project, the organization conducted a survey of registrars, officials responsible for the conduct of elections at the county and city level, and issued a report that explained numerous areas of concern.
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Delegate Steve Heretick (D-Portsmouth) is representing plaintiffs in another lawsuit seeking an end to a ban on skill games in Virginia. On September 1, Roanoke-area convenience store operator Falu Patel filed suit claiming that the recently-enact ban violates his constitutional rights; Patel is represented by Heretick and Virginia Beach attorney Mike Joynes.
“It is appalling to me that here in the year 2021, we are still seeing affirmative acts of discrimination through the legislative process. It is clear from the statements made by the legislators who pushed the skill games ban agenda that SB 971 had one purpose – to discriminate against Asian American and African American convenience store owners who had these legal gaming devices in their establishments,” Joynes and Heretick said in a press release.
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Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) is ramping up its punishments for faculty, staff, and students who refuse to take the COVID-19 vaccine.
According to one report, those faculty, staff and students will be removed from campus completely if they do not take the vaccine or submit to regular COVID-19 testing. The stricter policies come after VCU’s American Association of University Professors (AAUP) chapter wrote a letter to the school demanding that the administration take a stronger stance against the unvaccinated.
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A criminal justice reform advocacy group is urging Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam to use his pardon power generously before leaving office at the end of his term in January.
Families Against Mandatory Minimums, which works to repeal mandatory minimum sentencing laws nationally, wrote a letter to Northam and asked him to grant full or partial clemency to deserving inmates who have reformed while in prison and for those who were given excessive sentences for their crimes.
A Virginia law from the 1990s prohibiting discretionary parole limits options for felons who received harsh penalties, leaving a pardon as one of the only options remaining. The state also has various mandatory minimum sentences on the books, which require a certain length of incarcerated time for specific crimes.
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Danville Public Schools moved its middle and high school classes to virtual on Friday with about 1,100 out of the district’s total 6,900 students quarantined for COVID-19. The school is using the Labor Day weekend to do a deep-clean. Director of Curriculum and Instruction Brenda Muse said most of those cases were among middle and high school students.
“Those levels have been increasing, and so in consultation with our State Superintendent Dr. Lane and with our local health department we asked for some advice on what they felt we needed to do. And our health department said a deep cleaning would greatly assist at the secondary level,” Muse said.
Nearby Franklin County also had middle and high-school students attend classes virtually on Friday, with a plan to return in-person Tuesday.
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The Virginia GOP launched an ad bashing Democrat gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe for his recent fundraiser with former President Bill Clinton.
“I go back with President Clinton and Hillary to 1980,” McAuliffe says in an interview included in the ad. “We’ve vacationed together for years. We’re best friends.”
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Two more teachers will join Tanner Cross’ lawsuit against the Loudoun County School Board. On Thursday, the Loudoun Circuit Court approved a motion to amend the case, which adds Loudoun County High School history teacher Monica Gill and Smart’s Mill Middle School English teacher Kim Wright to the case.
The amended complaint also shifts focus to a requirement in the new transgender policy that teachers use students preferred pronouns; the original complaint focused on the district firing Cross after he spoke out at a school board meeting.
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