The Schar School’s Power Lunch event series gathers some of the world’s top political leaders, journalists, and experts to discuss the prospects for the next four years of US public policy.
Each week, influential thinkers address some of the most pressing issues facing the United States and the world. Moderated by Professor Justin Gest, all events will stream live on the Schar School’s YouTube channel.
In this first “VA 2020 Election” show, we will review the recent US Senate and US House races in Virginia. Our review will be followed by a panel discussion with featured guests and later an open discussion with onAir Hub members. OnAir membership is free. Join here.
Subsequent VA 2020 election shows, starting on Nov. 16 at 7pm, will focus on individual races
What follows is a slideshow with short summaries of the candidates.
The Schar School’s Power Lunch event series gathers some of the world’s top political leaders, journalists, and experts to discuss the prospects for the next four years of US public policy.
Each week, influential thinkers address some of the most pressing issues facing the United States and the world. Moderated by Professor Justin Gest, all events will stream live on the Schar School’s YouTube channel.
In this first “VA 2020 Election” show, we will review the recent US Senate and US House races in Virginia. Our review will be followed by a panel discussion with featured guests and later an open discussion with onAir Hub members. OnAir membership is free. Join here.
Subsequent VA 2020 election shows, starting on Nov. 16 at 7pm, will focus on individual races
What follows is a slideshow with short summaries of the candidates.
Fatally flawed or a ‘step in the right direction’?
“The Gerrymander: a New Species of Monster” Boston Gazette, March 26, 1812. (Library of Congress Newspaper, Serials and Government Publications Division)
By Bob Lewis
A lot of people worked decades for this: taking decennial reapportionment of Virginia’s legislative districts from the self-serving hands of partisan lawmakers, at least in part, and giving the job to a new commission.
Finally, they believed, voters could soon pick their representatives instead of the other way around. And they were close, they believed. So close.
Led mostly by Democrats who had been in the legislative minority since the end of the 20th century, redistricting reform advocates believed their moment was at hand in the 2019 General Assembly. A commission had found traction at a transitional legislative moment with a clearly ascendant Democratic Party on the cusp of seizing control and Republicans, fearing that very prospect, welcoming a new commission that would spare them from the gerrymandering in the 2021 redistricting that they had inflicted upon Democrats in 2001 and 2011.
But the good-government group that had pushed the state constitutional amendment was about to learn a hard lesson in transactional politics. When push comes to shove and their power is threatened, politicians will work across party lines to preserve their prerogatives. That’s why Proposed Constitutional Amendment 1 now on every Virginia ballot feels like it falls short of the mark for some.
First, however, some background.
The state Constitution gives sole authority to apportion Virginia’s 100 House of Delegates districts, its 40 state Senate districts and its 11 U.S. House districts to the General Assembly and, by extension, the party in charge. The work of reapportionment begins again in earnest in less than three months.
The U.S. Constitution compels every state to perform this exercise in demography and geography each year immediately following the Census to ensure that each U.S. House member represents roughly the same number of constituents in Congress. Virginia’s Constitution requires compact and contiguous districts of the same population, meaning that, to the greatest degree practical, boundaries should not split communities of interest such as neighborhoods or voting precincts. For generations, dominant parties have trashed those precepts with impunity to maximize the number of districts favorable to their candidates and minimize those favoring their rivals.
It’s called gerrymandering, a practice nearly as old as the republic. Advances in digital information and computer analysis allow legislators to marry election data with fresh, granular Census data to engineer bespoke and often meandering districts, cherry-picking constituencies with microscopic precision to achieve partisan performance objectives.
Partisan gerrymandering, though vexing to the party out of power, is legal, the U.S. Supreme Court has held. It turns illegal when gerrymandering is racial in nature, concentrating Black voters into the fewest possible districts and minimizing their opportunities to elect candidates of their choice. Sometimes, racial gerrymandering — intentional or not — is inherent in achieving a partisan goal.
In the 2001 redistricting, a Republican-led legislature sketched a serpentine congressional district that took in as many Democrat-friendly precincts with African American populations as high as possible. It crept its way from Hampton Roads through select Peninsula precincts — at one point no wider than a bridge where it crossed a creek — before coiling itself around part of Richmond at its westernmost terminus. Crafting that Democratic super-district for Democratic Rep. Bobby Scott, then the only Black member of Virginia’s congressional delegation, produced several adjacent congressional districts tailored for Republicans.
Federal courts have intervened to rectify egregiously gerrymandered Virginia constructs, including last year when judges redrew lines for 26 House of Delegates districts after finding that the Republican-controlled 2011 reapportionment shoe-horned too many Black voters into too few state House districts, much the way Scott’s district was drawn 10 years earlier. Republicans appealed the lower-court map that created six new Democratic majority districts all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, where they lost a 5-4 decision.
At the start of 2019, optimism was strong that, at last, the Virginia Constitution would be amended to give an all-citizen panel ultimate say on divvying up districts without regard to partisan aims. It explicitly prohibited segregating communities of color into a few districts to leave more White (and presumably more conservative) voters in other districts.
No plan that cut legislators out of picking their constituents was likely to live long once in the hands of legislators. The original plan was gutted and replaced with what appears now on every Virginia ballot. It would establish a 16-member panel, half of them legislators with four each from the House and Senate and equal numbers of Democrats and Republicans from each chamber. The other eight would be citizen members selected by retired judges from lists prepared by legislators.
It’s a legislative move that Del. Lashrecse Aird, D-Petersburg and a leading advocate against the amendment, called “the ultimate okey doke.”
“Although it is a commission and although it is half legislators and half citizens, at the core of the matter, legislators are ultimately picking the entire commission and controlling the entire process,” Aird said. “It’s not independent by any means.
“There is nothing in this amendment that says we should make sure it is racially and ethnically balanced, that it is geographically balanced, that it is gender balanced. There is no language whatsoever to make sure that the makeup of this commission is representative of the commonwealth, and particularly of Black and Brown representation,” she said.
The commission also has a potential pitfall. Supermajority requirements could make it tough for the commission to agree on new district lines. Dissent from just two legislative members of the same chamber and same party would derail the commission’s work and put the Virginia Supreme Court in charge of drawing the lines.
Aird and members of the Legislative Black Caucus voiced their concerns, yet the resolution won easy bipartisan passage with overwhelming Democratic backing in 2019 — the first of two enactments in years separated by a legislative election required for amendments to the state Constitution.
After last fall’s election gave Democrats legislative majorities — and the power to dictate redistricting for the first time since 1991 — their intraparty rift over Amendment 1 widened. This year, just nine House Democrats supported the amendment, joining 45 Republican delegates to narrowly secure the required second enactment and send the amendment to voters.
Now, with 2.2 million Virginians having already voted, Virginia Democrats present the conflicted and chaotic spectacle of party elders such as Sens. Mark Warner and Tim Kaine and U.S. Rep. Don Beyer endorsing Amendment 1 while the Democratic Party of Virginia campaigns to kill it.
Democrats also passed a new law that contains the explicit protections against racial and other forms of gerrymandering that were in earlier versions of amendment legislation. However, it would be up to the courts to hold lawmakers accountable for following that criteria, something they haven’t done in the past with compactness, for example.
A.E. Dick Howard, the University of Virginia law professor who superintended the state Constitution’s 1971 rewrite, says he shares some of Aird’s concerns and her preference for a fully independent commission.
“That would have been cleaner. It would have been a more effective way to prevent gerrymandering,” he said. But he said he will support the ballot amendment because “it’s an important step in the right direction.”
Howard said that while the text of Amendment 1 does not explicitly call out racial gerrymandering, it contains clear prohibitions against it.
Another essential improvement under Amendment 1 is transparency for a process historically done in strict secrecy behind locked doors, limited to only a handful of power brokers. The amendment would guarantee public access to commission meetings and records, he noted.
So seven days and a wakeup before voting on the amendment ends, the Democrats’ dilemma boils down to this: did they come this far and get so close to fall short, or will they make the perfect the enemy of the good?
Both say they’re working to end gerrymandering, and both say it’s the other guys who want to keep it around. They both use the same anti-gerrymandering talking points, like “Voters should choose their representatives, not the other way around.”
The Democratic Party of Virginia is officially against it. But two of its top figures, U.S. Sens. Mark Warner and Tim Kaine, voted for it on their own ballots already. It passed out of a Democratic-controlled General Assembly this year, but Republican leaders and conservative groups are urging their voters to support it.
Against that confusing backdrop, it’s understandable that many Virginia voters, particularly Democrats who for years have heard their party leaders talk up the urgent need for redistricting reform, don’t know what to make of ballot question 1. It asks if the state should create a 16-member, bipartisan redistricting commission to redraw Virginia’s congressional and legislative maps every decade starting in 2021 as new census data comes in.
For years, those who wanted to see redistricting power taken away from the General Assembly pushed for an independent, non-partisan commission, envisioned as a group of citizens who would draw fairer lines than self-interested politicians looking to juice their party’s numbers or protect their own seats.
The proposed constitutional amendment on the ballot this year doesn’t do that, giving half the commission seats to sitting legislators and half to citizens nominated by legislators and appointed by retired judges.
That’s one of the main shortcomings some Democratic lawmakers are highlighting to argue the plan wouldn’t really reform anything, instead allowing a smaller group of politicians and the politically connected to wield redistricting power. Rather than putting a flawed plan in the Constitution and maybe improving it in time for 2031, they say, it’s better to take the time to get it right.
“People across the board that think it ought to be a citizen-led process should all vote no on this,” said Del. Marcus Simon, D-Fairfax. “The amendment moves us in a direction that cements legislator involvement.”
That argument has been maddening for amendment supporters. If those insisting they want true independence from the General Assembly get their wish and the amendment is defeated, supporters point out, the General Assembly keeps its constitutional power to draw maps. That means no independence for the 2021 process, but a general promise to do something for 2031.
“Gerrymandering is cemented into the system now. Who do you think controls this?” said Brian Cannon, executive director of redistricting reform group OneVirginia2021. “It’s a false understanding of the status quo at best.”
OneVirginia2021 Executive Director Brian Cannon speaks at a news conference on Feb. 12 in support of a constitutional amendment on redistricting reform. (Ned Oliver/Virginia Mercury)
That point is reinforced by the state’s official text explaining the amendment to voters, which says a no vote “will leave the sole responsibility for drawing the districts with the General Assembly and the governor.” Opponents have quibbled with that explanation. But it’s legally required to be both neutral and factual, and the Supreme Court of Virginia refused to hear a challenge claiming it isn’t.
Some redistricting reformers say they’d like to see something similar to the California Citizens Redistricting Commission, 14-member, all-citizen panel made up of five Democrats, five Republicans and four people with no partisan affiliation. California’s application process is overseen by the state auditor, but partisan leaders have an opportunity to strike applicants they find objectionable.
Regardless of where legislators stand on how much independence from partisan players a good commission needs, there wasn’t enough support in the General Assembly to make a fully independent commission feasible for 2021.
The compromise plan that emerged was the product of a unique political moment, with control of the General Assembly up for grabs in 2019, when Republicans and Democrats weren’t sure which party was going to be in charge for the redistricting year.
Though some opponents have characterized the amendment as a scheme hatched by Republicans, the proposal for a commission with an equal number of legislators and citizens was introduced in early 2019 by Senate Democrats. That resolution became the amendment that passed a Republican-controlled legislature in 2019 and a Democratic-led one in 2020, despite the partisan power shift in between. Under Virginia’s system, it had to pass two years in a row before going to voters for a final up-or-down decision.
After passing with overwhelming bipartisan support in 2019 despite objections from about a dozen members of the Virginia Legislative Black Caucus in the House, the amendment was almost blocked in 2020 as House Democrats abandoned it in droves. Nine House Democrats joined with 45 Republicans to pass it 54-46.
Democratic House members abandoned the proposed redistricting amendment in big numbers during a floor vote earlier this year. Just nine Democratic delegates joined with Republicans to pass it. (Ned Oliver/ Virginia Mercury)
If Democrats had chosen to scrap the amendment this year and start over, it would’ve killed any chance for constitutional changes in time for the 2021 process.
Several senior lawmakers said allowing some legislative role was critical to drafting something with broad, bipartisan support, the idea being that elected officials are more familiar with how redistricting works and the geography of the areas they represent.
“If you just had straight citizens, who’s to say how that’s going to turn out?” said Senate Majority Leader Dick Saslaw, D-Fairfax, who supports the amendment and called arguments against it “pure bullsh**t” during the 2020 regular legislative session. “We did not put a provision in the bill, which some of the legislators wanted, that incumbency would be taken into effect.”
Under Republican control, the Senate passed several redistricting reform plans that routinely failed in the House. That changed in 2019, after a federal court ruled 11 majority-minority districts drawn in the Republican-led, 2011 redistricting had been unconstitutionally racially gerrymandered. That ended with the court redrawing the maps for the 2019 elections, signaling that Republicans were in serious jeopardy of losing their majority.
In an interview, Del. Kirk Cox, R-Colonial Heights, the House speaker in 2019, said that seeing a court-appointed expert from California redraw his district and others changed his thinking on redistricting reform. But he still felt legislators should be involved.
“They know the process,” Cox said. “It’s almost like having a commission that deals with police reform, a citizen commission, and not having anyone who’s actually been in a squad car or ever done it.”
The amendment’s critics say the bipartisan history of gerrymandering shows why they’re pushing for a stronger break from how things have been done in the past.
“To me, if you drew a map that they threw out as unconstitutional against Black people, you maybe shouldn’t be invited back to that table,” said Del. Marcia Price, D-Newport News.
Del. Cia Price, D-Newport News, speaks against the proposed redistricting amendment on the House floor in March. (Ned Oliver/Virginia Mercury)
During the 2020 session, Price pushed for an alternative, non-binding commission that would have included more prominent protections for minority communities. But she was forced to amend her proposal to include seats for legislators, commenting at the time that she was told she “did not have the votes” for a commission that banned legislators.
Her bill ultimately failed to pass, but many of the House Democrats now saying they can only support a truly independent commission voted for it, even with the seats for legislators added.
Simon acknowledged that a fully independent commission was a tough sell.
“It was impossible in 2019 because Republicans don’t believe in it,” he said. “It became really difficult to do in 2020 because Democrats in the Senate were wedded to their commission they had come up with.”
Others see a simple explanation for why some House Democrats are reluctant to vote for something that would force them to give up their power: They see a chance to use their hard-won majority to draw maps in their interest just like Republicans did in 2011.
“Once you come to that conclusion, you have to come up with some reasons why you’re opposed,” said Cox.
Other arguments against the amendment have centered on the perceived lack of attention to diversity and racial representation, as well as the potential role for the conservative-leaning Supreme Court of Virginia. Critics have suggested that, since either party can deadlock the commission and send the map-drawing process to the Supreme Court, Republicans might choose to take their chances with judges appointed under Republican legislatures.
Supporters have dismissed those concerns as overblown, noting the Supreme Court has recently upheld Democratic positions on major issues like a gun ban at the state Capitol and Gov. Ralph Northam’s COVID-19 shutdown orders. They also point out that the new proposed process will be public, unlike current redistricting, in which lawmakers hash out district lines behind closed doors.
Some Democrats claim they’ve already solved partisan gerrymandering by passing redistricting criteria legislation that says the statewide maps cannot “unduly favor or disfavor any political party.” But alleged violations of that broad standard may be difficult to prove or disprove, and would most likely require a ruling from the state Supreme Court, which tends to defer to legislative authority where laws are vague or ill-defined.
The amendment has been endorsed by numerous newspaper editorial pages, civic organizations and national good-government groups, including the League of Women Voters, the ACLU of Virginia, Common Cause, the Virginia Chamber of Commerce, the Princeton Gerrymandering Project and the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School.
“This is the best the Democrats could do in Virginia,” David Daley, a gerrymandering expert and author of the book “Ratf**ked: Why Your Vote Doesn’t Count,” said at a recent press event with redistricting reform supporters. “And if we’re going to have a process in Virginia in 2020 in which citizens have any seat at the table, this is the way to do it. If this does not happen, the Democrats will have complete control of the process.”
The amendment’s most prominent opponents include the Democratic Party of Virginia (which is officially urging Democrats to vote no on sample ballots and other literature), the Virginia conference of the NAACP and progressive advocacy groups like Progress Virginia and New Virginia Majority.
A recent poll conducted by Christopher Newport University’s Wason Center for Public Policy found significant public support for the amendment, with 48 percent of voters in favor, 28 percent opposed and 24 percent undecided.
Though some party leaders have flipped their positions on redistricting reform, the poll suggested rank-and-file voters may not be getting the message. It found 64 percent of likely Democratic voters in favor of the amendment, and Republicans more likely to oppose it.
Still, support for the amendment was weaker than what prior polls on redistricting reform have shown.
“Virginians are learning that Amendment 1 is not independent, nor is it non-partisan,” Del. Lashrecse Aird, D-Petersburg, said in a statement released by anti-amendment group Fair Districts VA.
Amendment supporters are cautiously optimistic that it will pass. Del. Sally Hudson, D-Charlottesville, a progressive, first-term lawmaker who was one of the nine House Democrats to vote for the amendment, said that’s what makes opposition a “safe play for progressives” who “get to say they were holding out for better without being on the hook if it fails.”
“If this amendment passes there will be nowhere to hide in the next round of reform,” Hudson said. “The only step forward will be full independence. Because that’s what’s hard about the politics right now. People who want more reform and people who want none can come together to oppose the amendment. But they can’t come together on an alternative.”
A voting sign at Pemberton Elementary School in Henrico,, November 5, 2019. (Parker Michels-Boyce/ for the Virginia Mercury)
Voting in Virginia was already changing even before COVID-19 arrived.
The combination of a global pandemic and some major shifts in state election laws — ushered in after Democrats took control of the General Assembly — means that when Virginians cast their ballots this year, they can expect things to be a little different.
Here’s what you need to know to make sure your vote counts in November.
When is the election and what’s on the ballot?
The election is Nov. 3.
In addition to the main event — the matchup between President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden — U.S. Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., is facing off against Republican challenger Daniel Gade and all 11 of Virginia’s seats in the U.S. House of Representatives are on the ballot.
Voters will also be asked to weigh in on a statewide referendum to create a bipartisan redistricting commission that, if approved, would redraw the state’s political maps every 10 years using new U.S. census data. Another state referendum question proposes to create a motor vehicle tax exemption for disabled military veterans.
There are numerous other local races and issues on the ballot depending on where you live, including a special election for vacant House of Delegates seat in the Winchester area and casino referendums in several cities.
Absentee voting
Early voting, which just got easier due to a change in state law that allows anyone to cast an absentee ballot without needing an excuse, began Sept. 18.
Officials are already seeing big spikes in absentee ballot requests as people seek safe alternatives allowing them to avoid any Election Day crowds, and asking voters to submit their ballot requests early to avoid any issues with a last-minute surge.
All polling places will be open on Election Day with social distancing protocols in place, so anyone who wants to go through the typical in-person voting process can do so. As usual, polls will be open from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m., and anyone in line at 7 p.m. will be allowed to vote. You can look up your polling place here.
If you choose to get an absentee ballot through the mail, there are multiple ways to return it.
You can mail it back using the provided envelope, which will include prepaid postage and a tracking code allowing you to keep tabs on your ballot through an online system called Ballot Scout.
Or you can take the ballot back yourself, dropping it off with an employee at your local election office or at one of the drop boxes the General Assembly recently approved.
If you don’t want to rely on the mail but still want to cast your ballot early, in-person absentee voting is going on now at your local elections office and satellite voting offices. You don’t have to fill out an application to cast an absentee ballot in person, you just have to verify your identity when you go.
There are some limitations on mail-in absentee ballots if it’s your first time voting in a particular locality and you registered to vote by mail. There are exemptions for people who might face particular difficulty voting in person, such as college students, military personnel and their spouses, the elderly and people with illnesses or disabilities. If it’s your first time voting in your city or county and you want to vote by mail, check with your local registrar to verify your eligibility.
What are the key deadlines?
The deadline to register to vote in November is Oct. 13.
The deadline to request an absentee ballot through the mail is Oct. 23.
The deadline to vote absentee in person is Oct. 31.
If I vote by mail, will my ballot arrive in time?
There can be complications if you wait until the last minute to mail your ballot back, and that’s a heightened concern for many this year due to slowdowns with the U.S. Postal Service.
If you want a mail-in ballot, the Postal Service recommends requesting one as early as possible and mailing it back before Election Day, preferably at least a week in advance.
In Virginia, election officials will count ballots that come in a few days after the polls close, as long as they’re postmarked by 7 p.m. on Election Day. Ballots received after noon on Nov. 6 will not be counted. Ballots with a missing or illegible postmark will be counted as long as they come in before the deadline.
Do I still need an ID to vote?
A change to state law this year means photo IDs are no longer strictly required. But if you have one, you should still bring it to streamline the process. Anyone who doesn’t have an ID can get a regular ballot, but only after they sign a statement affirming they are who they say they are.
Anyone who doesn’t have an ID and refuses to sign the statement can cast a provisional ballot, which will be set aside until election officials can determine whether the person is or isn’t a valid voter.
Other changes to state law expanded the types of identification documents that will be accepted, allowing voters to use expired driver’s licenses, bank statements, utility bills and paychecks to verify their identity. College students will also be able to use any higher education ID, regardless of whether it includes a photo or was issued by a non-Virginia school.
Three million dollars for public outreach. Nearly $2.5 million for refrigerators and thermometers. And more than $71 million for mass vaccination clinics, where hundreds of thousands of Virginians could be immunized against COVID-19.
Virginia’s plan, released to the Mercury Friday, shows the size and scale of a public health campaign designed to protect millions against a historic virus. The plan was submitted to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for review this week and remains “a living document as more information is understood, more vaccines are introduced, and any other considerations develop,” wrote Joseph Hilbert, the Virginia Department of Health’s deputy commissioner for governmental and regulatory affairs, in a Friday email.
But the plan also underscores many of the factors that health workers will contend with when it comes to distributing any future vaccine. While VDH is preparing for a potential Nov. 1 release — a date requested by the Trump administration after the president suggested a vaccine could be ready as early as this month — there’s “no absolute guarantee” of when any safe and effective immunization will be approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, said Christy Gray, the director of the department’s division of immunization.
Federal health officials have called a release before Election Day “very unlikely.”
What’s clear is that vaccination will be incremental and unprecedented compared to any previous disease outbreaks within the last decade. Virginia developed pandemic influenza planning more than a decade ago during the H1N1 swine flu outbreak — plans that have informed some of the state’s current coronavirus procedures.
But those mass vaccination efforts were still significantly different than what’s required for the COVID-19 pandemic — a potentially deadly virus that places certain types of people, including the elderly and infirm and those with other health conditions, most at risk. Virginia’s plans call for health experts to consider infection control measures at immunization sites, raising the possibility of drive-through clinics or events at large indoor venues that leave room for social distancing.
There are also significant outstanding questions about the vaccine itself, including how many doses will initially be available. While the federal government will determine how much of the vaccine is distributed to Virginia, according to the state’s planning document, health officials are planning a phased approach under the assumption that only limited amounts will be available when it’s first released.
The initial planning scenario tasks state officials with developing priority groups for the first distribution. Under the state’s plan, those include residents at long-term care facilities — which in Virginia account for nearly 50 percent of the state’s total COVID-19 deaths, according to VDH data — as well as health care workers and “people who play a key role in keeping essential functions of society running and cannot socially distance in the workplace.”
Those positions have yet to be determined, but could include first responders, teachers and childcare providers, according to the state’s planning document. Priority consideration will also be given to other high-risk groups, including Virginians aged 65 or older, people of color — who have also been disproportionately affected by the virus — and people living in congregate living facilities such as prisons, homeless shelters, or even college campuses.
“In the event that Virginia’s allocation during Phase 1 is insufficient to vaccinate all those included in the initial populations of focus, it is important for the Virginia Unified Command to identify and estimate the subset groups within these initial populations of focus to determine who will receive the first available doses of COVID-19 vaccine,” the plan reads.
More than 20 different divisions and agencies have a role in the 60-page document, including the Virginia Department of Education and the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia, which are expected to coordinate with local health departments on immunizing students and employees at K-12 schools and college campuses.
The plan calls for nearly $121 million in total spending for vaccination efforts, including more than $3.3 million for supplemental supplies such as Band-Aids, syringes and needles. The state anticipates paying nearly $40 million for a pharmacy benefits administrator to manage claims for un- and underinsured patients and distribute payments to pharmacies and other community providers for administering vaccines.
The vaccine itself will be supplied to the state free of charge, but the CDC says that administrative costs will likely be shouldered by state and local governments. Providers must vaccinate patients regardless of their insurance status or ability to pay.
VDH will distribute money to local health departments to assist with mass vaccination, according to the plan. But it’s still not entirely clear how the state will fund the effort. Virginia Finance Secretary Aubrey Layne recently said that roughly $700 million in remaining federal CARES Act money could go toward the state’s immunization campaign.
Gray said another complication could be the dosages for any future immunization. Many of the vaccines currently under trial will require two doses, “separated by 21 or 28 days,” according to the plan.
“Those vaccines are not interchangeable with each other, so that’s another consideration that wasn’t necessarily the case during any previous disease outbreaks,” she added. In other words, if patients receive an initial dose of a vaccine from a certain pharmaceutical company, their doctor, pharmacist or local health department will need to follow up with them to make sure they receive a second dose of the same vaccine within a certain timeframe.
It’s an effort that requires massive coordination and also the involvement of doctors across Virginia. The state’s planning document encourages patients to be immunized at their “medical home” whenever possible, and describes the early recruitment of doctors as one of the most important early factors in mass vaccination.
Earlier this month, Virginia Health Commissioner Dr. Norman Oliver sent a letter to providers asking them to register with the state if they planned on distributing a COVID-19 vaccine. Dr. Sandy Chung, a Northern Virginia-based pediatrician and president of the Virginia chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, said most primary care physicians already have experience in giving out vaccinations to large number of patients, but the state is likely hoping to recruit nontraditional providers such as school systems or large employers.
“I think that’s what they’re trying to assess — which health care providers are able to do this or willing to do this,” she added. “They need to know who’s ready.”
House of Delegates members walk past the south portico around at the end of the veto session at the Virginia State Capitol in Richmond, VA Wednesday, April 22, 2020. The House members were meeting outside in a tent instead of the House Chamber in order to practice social distancing due to the COVID-19 virus. (AP Photo/POOL, Bob Brown)
In the wee hours of an unseasonably balmy, humid Sunday in mid-March, legislative staff on the ninth and 10th floors of Capitol Square’s decrepit, old General Assembly Building had opened their windows wide to mitigate the swelter from unrelenting, clanking steam radiators. Beyond exhaustion from a week of late nights, many hours of work lay ahead for them.
Those top floors were rarefied real estate, home to the most powerful committees in state government — those with the final say over how the state spends tens of billions of dollars — and the expert staffs who did the heavy lifting. And on this last long night, days behind schedule and hours past the 2010 legislature’s scheduled final adjournment, a dozen delegates and senators cloistered behind closed doors, bickering and dickering over the fine print of what would be the $77 billion state government spending blueprint through June 2012.
It’s known as the budget conference, an innocuous-sounding insider term that means little or nothing to ordinary Virginians. But the agreement that rival House and Senate members sealed with a handshake around 2 a.m. on that warm, late-winter Sunday — and at the conclusion of budget conferences every year — was highly consequential to their daily lives from the taxes they pay to funding for their kids’ schools and everything in between. It’s no less true in the current special session as House and Senate budget negotiators try to square differing versions of a pandemic-ravaged proposed budget of $137 billion, 77 percent larger than that budget adopted 10 years earlier.
No other piece of legislation holds as much sway as state budget bills, which not only form the 24-month financial framework for the commonwealth but also supersedes other state law. That such critical legislating is done at the last minute in sometimes chaotic, often contentious late-night sessions well out of public view by sleep-starved people amid the intermingled odors of cold pizza and burned coffee did not — and should not — inspire confidence.
Nobody has seen the budget conference process from more different perspectives than Bill Leighty, an immensely accomplished senior state government veteran who cut his teeth in the 1980s with a seven-year stint on the Senate Finance Committee staff. From there, Leighty would direct the sprawling Virginia Retirement System before serving as chief of staff to two successive governors, Mark Warner and Tim Kaine.
“What makes them (budget conferences) so powerful is that what they agree on and put in the conference report goes directly to the floor and can only be voted up or down — no amendments,” said Leighty, now retired and an adviser to the L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs at Virginia Commonwealth University. “And, because they’re presented so late, everyone is loath to send it back to conference for a redo.”
How late? In 2010, the committee staffs had only 15 hours that Sunday to write the budget conferees’ agreement into its final form and have printed copies on all 140 legislators’ desks for that up-or-down floor vote, leaving them barely enough time to go home, change clothes and return to Capitol Square. The House and Senate convened at 5 p.m., agreed to the conferees’ work and adjourned sine die before 6.
That’s the lawmaking equivalent of driving down a twisting, one-lane mountain road on a moonless night with one working headlight and brakes that didn’t pass inspection. Yet somehow, mainly through the exacting work of highly professional staffs fighting off sleep with energy drinks and raw adrenalin, it has never jumped the guardrails and tumbled into the abyss.
Budget conferences don’t always bust their deadlines, and it’s not as though there aren’t weighty issues at play when they do. In 2010, like this year, the state was in the grips of a monstrous economic collapse that ravaged the official revenue estimates on which the budget is built. Both years forced significant cuts in state operating outlays.
In 2004, during a battle over reforms Warner proposed to fix what he called a structural imbalance in the state budget (Republicans labeled it a tax increase, and they weren’t wrong), the House and Senate deferred passage of a budget to an April special session. In the end, Warner got most of what he wanted from a GOP House and Senate through the budget bill.
Leighty recalls that budget battle as significant because of its use of the “repealer clause,” a provision in the budget that trumps statutory law. He said he authored dozens of them over his years on the Finance Committee and said the clauses can be spotted in any budget bill by looking for sections that begin with the words “Notwithstanding any other provision of law… .”
“We put all the tax changes in the (2004) budget bill so that it overrode tax law,” he said.
Opacity and even occasional sleight-of-hand is an old tradition of budget conferences. Reporters and their voice on Capitol Square — the Virginia Capitol Correspondents Association — have stormed and huffed about it many times over the decades (including two years when this writer was its president) to no avail.
Over the decades, conferees have gone to bizarre, almost zany lengths to shield the byzantine proceedings from public view. In his years as a cub Finance Committee staffer, Leighty was assigned by the committee chairman, the late Sen. Ed Willey, to walk conspicuously past the cramped press filing room in the musty bowels of the Capitol with a boxload of budget documents and calculators, luring reporters in the opposite direction of where the conferees would actually meet.
“Ed Willey had one hard-and-fast rule: that the conference committee had to meet in a public building. So we picked some wonderful places: the Science Museum, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, the budget offices, the Old Finance Building,” he said.
In one such cat-and-mouse adventure in the 1980s, the conferees had covertly gathered in an empty room in the then-mothballed Old Finance Building (since renovated to its former splendor and renamed the Oliver Hill Building) that sits just down the hill from the Capitol and nextdoor to the Executive Mansion. The tactic worked, Leighty recalled, until Joe Gatins, a sharp-eyed reporter for theRichmond Times-Dispatch, spotted a single room with lights blazing in a darkened, derelict building.
“He went through the system of tunnels that connect the buildings on Capitol Square and popped up right in the middle of the conference committee,” Leighty said with a chuckle. “When he did, they scattered.”
What does the public miss in those closed cabals? It’s hard to say.
We know the items that are in conflict between the House and Senate budget bills, we know there is argument — sometimes loud enough to penetrate the closed doors — and we know there is compromise. The biggest disputes were not partisan but between House and Senate members battling over conflicting provisions in their rival budget bills. Their final resolution on those disagreements was usually pretty clear when it was over.
This week, that process starts anew, but possibly with a wrinkle. It’s not clear whether the budget conferees will gather socially distanced in person (doubtful considering that floor sessions have been conducted virtually) or via Zoom conference. And if it’s the latter, will the press (and public) be able to watch?
That’s a prospect that would have been unimaginable when Joe Gatins was sleuthing for stealthy conferees.
The story of how the former Confederacy capital turned blue is one of demographic shifts, a Democratic political machine and Donald Trump.
The story of how Virginia went blue in presidential years is one of demographic shifts, a Democratic political machine and Trump. It’s the story of how a state’s voting patterns can change – and how politicians know all too well that they can change back again.
“Virginia is a blue state”, said Stephen Farnsworth, a political science professor at the University of Mary Washington.
Virginia’s economy is, compared to elsewhere in the country, “recession resistant. That makes it an appealing place for people to move when they’re thinking about their futures,” Farnsworth explained. People move from all over the country – and indeed all over the world – to live and work in Virginia.
After controlling both chambers of the state legislature and the executive mansion for the first time in a generation, hundreds of new laws passed by the Democratic controlled Virginia General Assembly and signed by Governor Ralph Northam (D) take effect July 1.
Northam signed more than 1,200 bills that cleared the General Assembly during the 2020 session.
Many of those bills are duplicates, commending resolutions, or technical tweaks to existing law. Although many Virginians might not see or know the direct impact, several bills will directly impact daily life and discussion in Virginia.
“We’re excited about what’s going to happen and what will become law at midnight,” said Del. Jeff Bourne (D-Richmond). “We are putting Virginia on the right side of history. Although, we may be getting on the right side of history a little late for some things.”
Virginia Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine is preparing for battle with President Donald Trump over renaming military facilities that honor Confederates — and he’s expecting to win.
In an interview with the Mercury, Kaine said he believes the GOP-controlled Senate would override a possible presidential veto of a defense policy bill that would begin a process to rename the facilities. Doing so would require support from two-thirds of those voting.
Republicans hold 53 seats — or 53% — in the U.S. Senate. Democrats hold 233 seats — about 54% — in the U.S. House.
“I think we need to put it on his desk,” Kaine said. “If he were to veto this bill, I think we would override it.”
If the bill becomes law, it would be a major victory for the movement for racial justice and equality, which has intensified in recent months.
Suburban voters like Schmiegelow represent an existential challenge for Virginia Republicans, who haven’t won a statewide election since 2009. They’ve lost control of the executive mansion, the state legislature, and a majority of the state’s congressional seats.
The latest blow came last week when almost 1,300 bills passed by the new Democratic majority in the General Assembly went into effect. Republican laws on everything from abortion to voter ID were wiped off the book.
Part of the problem for Virginia Republicans is the president, according to Shaun Kenney, the former executive director of the Republican Party of Virginia.
“The suburbs just do not react well to Donald Trump in the White House,” Kenney said. “There’s just no way of getting around that.”
Fatally flawed or a ‘step in the right direction’?
“The Gerrymander: a New Species of Monster” Boston Gazette, March 26, 1812. (Library of Congress Newspaper, Serials and Government Publications Division)
By Bob Lewis
A lot of people worked decades for this: taking decennial reapportionment of Virginia’s legislative districts from the self-serving hands of partisan lawmakers, at least in part, and giving the job to a new commission.
Finally, they believed, voters could soon pick their representatives instead of the other way around. And they were close, they believed. So close.
Led mostly by Democrats who had been in the legislative minority since the end of the 20th century, redistricting reform advocates believed their moment was at hand in the 2019 General Assembly. A commission had found traction at a transitional legislative moment with a clearly ascendant Democratic Party on the cusp of seizing control and Republicans, fearing that very prospect, welcoming a new commission that would spare them from the gerrymandering in the 2021 redistricting that they had inflicted upon Democrats in 2001 and 2011.
But the good-government group that had pushed the state constitutional amendment was about to learn a hard lesson in transactional politics. When push comes to shove and their power is threatened, politicians will work across party lines to preserve their prerogatives. That’s why Proposed Constitutional Amendment 1 now on every Virginia ballot feels like it falls short of the mark for some.
First, however, some background.
The state Constitution gives sole authority to apportion Virginia’s 100 House of Delegates districts, its 40 state Senate districts and its 11 U.S. House districts to the General Assembly and, by extension, the party in charge. The work of reapportionment begins again in earnest in less than three months.
The U.S. Constitution compels every state to perform this exercise in demography and geography each year immediately following the Census to ensure that each U.S. House member represents roughly the same number of constituents in Congress. Virginia’s Constitution requires compact and contiguous districts of the same population, meaning that, to the greatest degree practical, boundaries should not split communities of interest such as neighborhoods or voting precincts. For generations, dominant parties have trashed those precepts with impunity to maximize the number of districts favorable to their candidates and minimize those favoring their rivals.
It’s called gerrymandering, a practice nearly as old as the republic. Advances in digital information and computer analysis allow legislators to marry election data with fresh, granular Census data to engineer bespoke and often meandering districts, cherry-picking constituencies with microscopic precision to achieve partisan performance objectives.
Partisan gerrymandering, though vexing to the party out of power, is legal, the U.S. Supreme Court has held. It turns illegal when gerrymandering is racial in nature, concentrating Black voters into the fewest possible districts and minimizing their opportunities to elect candidates of their choice. Sometimes, racial gerrymandering — intentional or not — is inherent in achieving a partisan goal.
In the 2001 redistricting, a Republican-led legislature sketched a serpentine congressional district that took in as many Democrat-friendly precincts with African American populations as high as possible. It crept its way from Hampton Roads through select Peninsula precincts — at one point no wider than a bridge where it crossed a creek — before coiling itself around part of Richmond at its westernmost terminus. Crafting that Democratic super-district for Democratic Rep. Bobby Scott, then the only Black member of Virginia’s congressional delegation, produced several adjacent congressional districts tailored for Republicans.
Federal courts have intervened to rectify egregiously gerrymandered Virginia constructs, including last year when judges redrew lines for 26 House of Delegates districts after finding that the Republican-controlled 2011 reapportionment shoe-horned too many Black voters into too few state House districts, much the way Scott’s district was drawn 10 years earlier. Republicans appealed the lower-court map that created six new Democratic majority districts all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, where they lost a 5-4 decision.
At the start of 2019, optimism was strong that, at last, the Virginia Constitution would be amended to give an all-citizen panel ultimate say on divvying up districts without regard to partisan aims. It explicitly prohibited segregating communities of color into a few districts to leave more White (and presumably more conservative) voters in other districts.
No plan that cut legislators out of picking their constituents was likely to live long once in the hands of legislators. The original plan was gutted and replaced with what appears now on every Virginia ballot. It would establish a 16-member panel, half of them legislators with four each from the House and Senate and equal numbers of Democrats and Republicans from each chamber. The other eight would be citizen members selected by retired judges from lists prepared by legislators.
It’s a legislative move that Del. Lashrecse Aird, D-Petersburg and a leading advocate against the amendment, called “the ultimate okey doke.”
“Although it is a commission and although it is half legislators and half citizens, at the core of the matter, legislators are ultimately picking the entire commission and controlling the entire process,” Aird said. “It’s not independent by any means.
“There is nothing in this amendment that says we should make sure it is racially and ethnically balanced, that it is geographically balanced, that it is gender balanced. There is no language whatsoever to make sure that the makeup of this commission is representative of the commonwealth, and particularly of Black and Brown representation,” she said.
The commission also has a potential pitfall. Supermajority requirements could make it tough for the commission to agree on new district lines. Dissent from just two legislative members of the same chamber and same party would derail the commission’s work and put the Virginia Supreme Court in charge of drawing the lines.
Aird and members of the Legislative Black Caucus voiced their concerns, yet the resolution won easy bipartisan passage with overwhelming Democratic backing in 2019 — the first of two enactments in years separated by a legislative election required for amendments to the state Constitution.
After last fall’s election gave Democrats legislative majorities — and the power to dictate redistricting for the first time since 1991 — their intraparty rift over Amendment 1 widened. This year, just nine House Democrats supported the amendment, joining 45 Republican delegates to narrowly secure the required second enactment and send the amendment to voters.
Now, with 2.2 million Virginians having already voted, Virginia Democrats present the conflicted and chaotic spectacle of party elders such as Sens. Mark Warner and Tim Kaine and U.S. Rep. Don Beyer endorsing Amendment 1 while the Democratic Party of Virginia campaigns to kill it.
Democrats also passed a new law that contains the explicit protections against racial and other forms of gerrymandering that were in earlier versions of amendment legislation. However, it would be up to the courts to hold lawmakers accountable for following that criteria, something they haven’t done in the past with compactness, for example.
A.E. Dick Howard, the University of Virginia law professor who superintended the state Constitution’s 1971 rewrite, says he shares some of Aird’s concerns and her preference for a fully independent commission.
“That would have been cleaner. It would have been a more effective way to prevent gerrymandering,” he said. But he said he will support the ballot amendment because “it’s an important step in the right direction.”
Howard said that while the text of Amendment 1 does not explicitly call out racial gerrymandering, it contains clear prohibitions against it.
Another essential improvement under Amendment 1 is transparency for a process historically done in strict secrecy behind locked doors, limited to only a handful of power brokers. The amendment would guarantee public access to commission meetings and records, he noted.
So seven days and a wakeup before voting on the amendment ends, the Democrats’ dilemma boils down to this: did they come this far and get so close to fall short, or will they make the perfect the enemy of the good?
Both say they’re working to end gerrymandering, and both say it’s the other guys who want to keep it around. They both use the same anti-gerrymandering talking points, like “Voters should choose their representatives, not the other way around.”
The Democratic Party of Virginia is officially against it. But two of its top figures, U.S. Sens. Mark Warner and Tim Kaine, voted for it on their own ballots already. It passed out of a Democratic-controlled General Assembly this year, but Republican leaders and conservative groups are urging their voters to support it.
Against that confusing backdrop, it’s understandable that many Virginia voters, particularly Democrats who for years have heard their party leaders talk up the urgent need for redistricting reform, don’t know what to make of ballot question 1. It asks if the state should create a 16-member, bipartisan redistricting commission to redraw Virginia’s congressional and legislative maps every decade starting in 2021 as new census data comes in.
For years, those who wanted to see redistricting power taken away from the General Assembly pushed for an independent, non-partisan commission, envisioned as a group of citizens who would draw fairer lines than self-interested politicians looking to juice their party’s numbers or protect their own seats.
The proposed constitutional amendment on the ballot this year doesn’t do that, giving half the commission seats to sitting legislators and half to citizens nominated by legislators and appointed by retired judges.
That’s one of the main shortcomings some Democratic lawmakers are highlighting to argue the plan wouldn’t really reform anything, instead allowing a smaller group of politicians and the politically connected to wield redistricting power. Rather than putting a flawed plan in the Constitution and maybe improving it in time for 2031, they say, it’s better to take the time to get it right.
“People across the board that think it ought to be a citizen-led process should all vote no on this,” said Del. Marcus Simon, D-Fairfax. “The amendment moves us in a direction that cements legislator involvement.”
That argument has been maddening for amendment supporters. If those insisting they want true independence from the General Assembly get their wish and the amendment is defeated, supporters point out, the General Assembly keeps its constitutional power to draw maps. That means no independence for the 2021 process, but a general promise to do something for 2031.
“Gerrymandering is cemented into the system now. Who do you think controls this?” said Brian Cannon, executive director of redistricting reform group OneVirginia2021. “It’s a false understanding of the status quo at best.”
OneVirginia2021 Executive Director Brian Cannon speaks at a news conference on Feb. 12 in support of a constitutional amendment on redistricting reform. (Ned Oliver/Virginia Mercury)
That point is reinforced by the state’s official text explaining the amendment to voters, which says a no vote “will leave the sole responsibility for drawing the districts with the General Assembly and the governor.” Opponents have quibbled with that explanation. But it’s legally required to be both neutral and factual, and the Supreme Court of Virginia refused to hear a challenge claiming it isn’t.
Some redistricting reformers say they’d like to see something similar to the California Citizens Redistricting Commission, 14-member, all-citizen panel made up of five Democrats, five Republicans and four people with no partisan affiliation. California’s application process is overseen by the state auditor, but partisan leaders have an opportunity to strike applicants they find objectionable.
Regardless of where legislators stand on how much independence from partisan players a good commission needs, there wasn’t enough support in the General Assembly to make a fully independent commission feasible for 2021.
The compromise plan that emerged was the product of a unique political moment, with control of the General Assembly up for grabs in 2019, when Republicans and Democrats weren’t sure which party was going to be in charge for the redistricting year.
Though some opponents have characterized the amendment as a scheme hatched by Republicans, the proposal for a commission with an equal number of legislators and citizens was introduced in early 2019 by Senate Democrats. That resolution became the amendment that passed a Republican-controlled legislature in 2019 and a Democratic-led one in 2020, despite the partisan power shift in between. Under Virginia’s system, it had to pass two years in a row before going to voters for a final up-or-down decision.
After passing with overwhelming bipartisan support in 2019 despite objections from about a dozen members of the Virginia Legislative Black Caucus in the House, the amendment was almost blocked in 2020 as House Democrats abandoned it in droves. Nine House Democrats joined with 45 Republicans to pass it 54-46.
Democratic House members abandoned the proposed redistricting amendment in big numbers during a floor vote earlier this year. Just nine Democratic delegates joined with Republicans to pass it. (Ned Oliver/ Virginia Mercury)
If Democrats had chosen to scrap the amendment this year and start over, it would’ve killed any chance for constitutional changes in time for the 2021 process.
Several senior lawmakers said allowing some legislative role was critical to drafting something with broad, bipartisan support, the idea being that elected officials are more familiar with how redistricting works and the geography of the areas they represent.
“If you just had straight citizens, who’s to say how that’s going to turn out?” said Senate Majority Leader Dick Saslaw, D-Fairfax, who supports the amendment and called arguments against it “pure bullsh**t” during the 2020 regular legislative session. “We did not put a provision in the bill, which some of the legislators wanted, that incumbency would be taken into effect.”
Under Republican control, the Senate passed several redistricting reform plans that routinely failed in the House. That changed in 2019, after a federal court ruled 11 majority-minority districts drawn in the Republican-led, 2011 redistricting had been unconstitutionally racially gerrymandered. That ended with the court redrawing the maps for the 2019 elections, signaling that Republicans were in serious jeopardy of losing their majority.
In an interview, Del. Kirk Cox, R-Colonial Heights, the House speaker in 2019, said that seeing a court-appointed expert from California redraw his district and others changed his thinking on redistricting reform. But he still felt legislators should be involved.
“They know the process,” Cox said. “It’s almost like having a commission that deals with police reform, a citizen commission, and not having anyone who’s actually been in a squad car or ever done it.”
The amendment’s critics say the bipartisan history of gerrymandering shows why they’re pushing for a stronger break from how things have been done in the past.
“To me, if you drew a map that they threw out as unconstitutional against Black people, you maybe shouldn’t be invited back to that table,” said Del. Marcia Price, D-Newport News.
Del. Cia Price, D-Newport News, speaks against the proposed redistricting amendment on the House floor in March. (Ned Oliver/Virginia Mercury)
During the 2020 session, Price pushed for an alternative, non-binding commission that would have included more prominent protections for minority communities. But she was forced to amend her proposal to include seats for legislators, commenting at the time that she was told she “did not have the votes” for a commission that banned legislators.
Her bill ultimately failed to pass, but many of the House Democrats now saying they can only support a truly independent commission voted for it, even with the seats for legislators added.
Simon acknowledged that a fully independent commission was a tough sell.
“It was impossible in 2019 because Republicans don’t believe in it,” he said. “It became really difficult to do in 2020 because Democrats in the Senate were wedded to their commission they had come up with.”
Others see a simple explanation for why some House Democrats are reluctant to vote for something that would force them to give up their power: They see a chance to use their hard-won majority to draw maps in their interest just like Republicans did in 2011.
“Once you come to that conclusion, you have to come up with some reasons why you’re opposed,” said Cox.
Other arguments against the amendment have centered on the perceived lack of attention to diversity and racial representation, as well as the potential role for the conservative-leaning Supreme Court of Virginia. Critics have suggested that, since either party can deadlock the commission and send the map-drawing process to the Supreme Court, Republicans might choose to take their chances with judges appointed under Republican legislatures.
Supporters have dismissed those concerns as overblown, noting the Supreme Court has recently upheld Democratic positions on major issues like a gun ban at the state Capitol and Gov. Ralph Northam’s COVID-19 shutdown orders. They also point out that the new proposed process will be public, unlike current redistricting, in which lawmakers hash out district lines behind closed doors.
Some Democrats claim they’ve already solved partisan gerrymandering by passing redistricting criteria legislation that says the statewide maps cannot “unduly favor or disfavor any political party.” But alleged violations of that broad standard may be difficult to prove or disprove, and would most likely require a ruling from the state Supreme Court, which tends to defer to legislative authority where laws are vague or ill-defined.
The amendment has been endorsed by numerous newspaper editorial pages, civic organizations and national good-government groups, including the League of Women Voters, the ACLU of Virginia, Common Cause, the Virginia Chamber of Commerce, the Princeton Gerrymandering Project and the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School.
“This is the best the Democrats could do in Virginia,” David Daley, a gerrymandering expert and author of the book “Ratf**ked: Why Your Vote Doesn’t Count,” said at a recent press event with redistricting reform supporters. “And if we’re going to have a process in Virginia in 2020 in which citizens have any seat at the table, this is the way to do it. If this does not happen, the Democrats will have complete control of the process.”
The amendment’s most prominent opponents include the Democratic Party of Virginia (which is officially urging Democrats to vote no on sample ballots and other literature), the Virginia conference of the NAACP and progressive advocacy groups like Progress Virginia and New Virginia Majority.
A recent poll conducted by Christopher Newport University’s Wason Center for Public Policy found significant public support for the amendment, with 48 percent of voters in favor, 28 percent opposed and 24 percent undecided.
Though some party leaders have flipped their positions on redistricting reform, the poll suggested rank-and-file voters may not be getting the message. It found 64 percent of likely Democratic voters in favor of the amendment, and Republicans more likely to oppose it.
Still, support for the amendment was weaker than what prior polls on redistricting reform have shown.
“Virginians are learning that Amendment 1 is not independent, nor is it non-partisan,” Del. Lashrecse Aird, D-Petersburg, said in a statement released by anti-amendment group Fair Districts VA.
Amendment supporters are cautiously optimistic that it will pass. Del. Sally Hudson, D-Charlottesville, a progressive, first-term lawmaker who was one of the nine House Democrats to vote for the amendment, said that’s what makes opposition a “safe play for progressives” who “get to say they were holding out for better without being on the hook if it fails.”
“If this amendment passes there will be nowhere to hide in the next round of reform,” Hudson said. “The only step forward will be full independence. Because that’s what’s hard about the politics right now. People who want more reform and people who want none can come together to oppose the amendment. But they can’t come together on an alternative.”
A voting sign at Pemberton Elementary School in Henrico,, November 5, 2019. (Parker Michels-Boyce/ for the Virginia Mercury)
Voting in Virginia was already changing even before COVID-19 arrived.
The combination of a global pandemic and some major shifts in state election laws — ushered in after Democrats took control of the General Assembly — means that when Virginians cast their ballots this year, they can expect things to be a little different.
Here’s what you need to know to make sure your vote counts in November.
When is the election and what’s on the ballot?
The election is Nov. 3.
In addition to the main event — the matchup between President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden — U.S. Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., is facing off against Republican challenger Daniel Gade and all 11 of Virginia’s seats in the U.S. House of Representatives are on the ballot.
Voters will also be asked to weigh in on a statewide referendum to create a bipartisan redistricting commission that, if approved, would redraw the state’s political maps every 10 years using new U.S. census data. Another state referendum question proposes to create a motor vehicle tax exemption for disabled military veterans.
There are numerous other local races and issues on the ballot depending on where you live, including a special election for vacant House of Delegates seat in the Winchester area and casino referendums in several cities.
Absentee voting
Early voting, which just got easier due to a change in state law that allows anyone to cast an absentee ballot without needing an excuse, began Sept. 18.
Officials are already seeing big spikes in absentee ballot requests as people seek safe alternatives allowing them to avoid any Election Day crowds, and asking voters to submit their ballot requests early to avoid any issues with a last-minute surge.
All polling places will be open on Election Day with social distancing protocols in place, so anyone who wants to go through the typical in-person voting process can do so. As usual, polls will be open from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m., and anyone in line at 7 p.m. will be allowed to vote. You can look up your polling place here.
If you choose to get an absentee ballot through the mail, there are multiple ways to return it.
You can mail it back using the provided envelope, which will include prepaid postage and a tracking code allowing you to keep tabs on your ballot through an online system called Ballot Scout.
Or you can take the ballot back yourself, dropping it off with an employee at your local election office or at one of the drop boxes the General Assembly recently approved.
If you don’t want to rely on the mail but still want to cast your ballot early, in-person absentee voting is going on now at your local elections office and satellite voting offices. You don’t have to fill out an application to cast an absentee ballot in person, you just have to verify your identity when you go.
There are some limitations on mail-in absentee ballots if it’s your first time voting in a particular locality and you registered to vote by mail. There are exemptions for people who might face particular difficulty voting in person, such as college students, military personnel and their spouses, the elderly and people with illnesses or disabilities. If it’s your first time voting in your city or county and you want to vote by mail, check with your local registrar to verify your eligibility.
What are the key deadlines?
The deadline to register to vote in November is Oct. 13.
The deadline to request an absentee ballot through the mail is Oct. 23.
The deadline to vote absentee in person is Oct. 31.
If I vote by mail, will my ballot arrive in time?
There can be complications if you wait until the last minute to mail your ballot back, and that’s a heightened concern for many this year due to slowdowns with the U.S. Postal Service.
If you want a mail-in ballot, the Postal Service recommends requesting one as early as possible and mailing it back before Election Day, preferably at least a week in advance.
In Virginia, election officials will count ballots that come in a few days after the polls close, as long as they’re postmarked by 7 p.m. on Election Day. Ballots received after noon on Nov. 6 will not be counted. Ballots with a missing or illegible postmark will be counted as long as they come in before the deadline.
Do I still need an ID to vote?
A change to state law this year means photo IDs are no longer strictly required. But if you have one, you should still bring it to streamline the process. Anyone who doesn’t have an ID can get a regular ballot, but only after they sign a statement affirming they are who they say they are.
Anyone who doesn’t have an ID and refuses to sign the statement can cast a provisional ballot, which will be set aside until election officials can determine whether the person is or isn’t a valid voter.
Other changes to state law expanded the types of identification documents that will be accepted, allowing voters to use expired driver’s licenses, bank statements, utility bills and paychecks to verify their identity. College students will also be able to use any higher education ID, regardless of whether it includes a photo or was issued by a non-Virginia school.
Three million dollars for public outreach. Nearly $2.5 million for refrigerators and thermometers. And more than $71 million for mass vaccination clinics, where hundreds of thousands of Virginians could be immunized against COVID-19.
Virginia’s plan, released to the Mercury Friday, shows the size and scale of a public health campaign designed to protect millions against a historic virus. The plan was submitted to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for review this week and remains “a living document as more information is understood, more vaccines are introduced, and any other considerations develop,” wrote Joseph Hilbert, the Virginia Department of Health’s deputy commissioner for governmental and regulatory affairs, in a Friday email.
But the plan also underscores many of the factors that health workers will contend with when it comes to distributing any future vaccine. While VDH is preparing for a potential Nov. 1 release — a date requested by the Trump administration after the president suggested a vaccine could be ready as early as this month — there’s “no absolute guarantee” of when any safe and effective immunization will be approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, said Christy Gray, the director of the department’s division of immunization.
Federal health officials have called a release before Election Day “very unlikely.”
What’s clear is that vaccination will be incremental and unprecedented compared to any previous disease outbreaks within the last decade. Virginia developed pandemic influenza planning more than a decade ago during the H1N1 swine flu outbreak — plans that have informed some of the state’s current coronavirus procedures.
But those mass vaccination efforts were still significantly different than what’s required for the COVID-19 pandemic — a potentially deadly virus that places certain types of people, including the elderly and infirm and those with other health conditions, most at risk. Virginia’s plans call for health experts to consider infection control measures at immunization sites, raising the possibility of drive-through clinics or events at large indoor venues that leave room for social distancing.
There are also significant outstanding questions about the vaccine itself, including how many doses will initially be available. While the federal government will determine how much of the vaccine is distributed to Virginia, according to the state’s planning document, health officials are planning a phased approach under the assumption that only limited amounts will be available when it’s first released.
The initial planning scenario tasks state officials with developing priority groups for the first distribution. Under the state’s plan, those include residents at long-term care facilities — which in Virginia account for nearly 50 percent of the state’s total COVID-19 deaths, according to VDH data — as well as health care workers and “people who play a key role in keeping essential functions of society running and cannot socially distance in the workplace.”
Those positions have yet to be determined, but could include first responders, teachers and childcare providers, according to the state’s planning document. Priority consideration will also be given to other high-risk groups, including Virginians aged 65 or older, people of color — who have also been disproportionately affected by the virus — and people living in congregate living facilities such as prisons, homeless shelters, or even college campuses.
“In the event that Virginia’s allocation during Phase 1 is insufficient to vaccinate all those included in the initial populations of focus, it is important for the Virginia Unified Command to identify and estimate the subset groups within these initial populations of focus to determine who will receive the first available doses of COVID-19 vaccine,” the plan reads.
More than 20 different divisions and agencies have a role in the 60-page document, including the Virginia Department of Education and the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia, which are expected to coordinate with local health departments on immunizing students and employees at K-12 schools and college campuses.
The plan calls for nearly $121 million in total spending for vaccination efforts, including more than $3.3 million for supplemental supplies such as Band-Aids, syringes and needles. The state anticipates paying nearly $40 million for a pharmacy benefits administrator to manage claims for un- and underinsured patients and distribute payments to pharmacies and other community providers for administering vaccines.
The vaccine itself will be supplied to the state free of charge, but the CDC says that administrative costs will likely be shouldered by state and local governments. Providers must vaccinate patients regardless of their insurance status or ability to pay.
VDH will distribute money to local health departments to assist with mass vaccination, according to the plan. But it’s still not entirely clear how the state will fund the effort. Virginia Finance Secretary Aubrey Layne recently said that roughly $700 million in remaining federal CARES Act money could go toward the state’s immunization campaign.
Gray said another complication could be the dosages for any future immunization. Many of the vaccines currently under trial will require two doses, “separated by 21 or 28 days,” according to the plan.
“Those vaccines are not interchangeable with each other, so that’s another consideration that wasn’t necessarily the case during any previous disease outbreaks,” she added. In other words, if patients receive an initial dose of a vaccine from a certain pharmaceutical company, their doctor, pharmacist or local health department will need to follow up with them to make sure they receive a second dose of the same vaccine within a certain timeframe.
It’s an effort that requires massive coordination and also the involvement of doctors across Virginia. The state’s planning document encourages patients to be immunized at their “medical home” whenever possible, and describes the early recruitment of doctors as one of the most important early factors in mass vaccination.
Earlier this month, Virginia Health Commissioner Dr. Norman Oliver sent a letter to providers asking them to register with the state if they planned on distributing a COVID-19 vaccine. Dr. Sandy Chung, a Northern Virginia-based pediatrician and president of the Virginia chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, said most primary care physicians already have experience in giving out vaccinations to large number of patients, but the state is likely hoping to recruit nontraditional providers such as school systems or large employers.
“I think that’s what they’re trying to assess — which health care providers are able to do this or willing to do this,” she added. “They need to know who’s ready.”
House of Delegates members walk past the south portico around at the end of the veto session at the Virginia State Capitol in Richmond, VA Wednesday, April 22, 2020. The House members were meeting outside in a tent instead of the House Chamber in order to practice social distancing due to the COVID-19 virus. (AP Photo/POOL, Bob Brown)
In the wee hours of an unseasonably balmy, humid Sunday in mid-March, legislative staff on the ninth and 10th floors of Capitol Square’s decrepit, old General Assembly Building had opened their windows wide to mitigate the swelter from unrelenting, clanking steam radiators. Beyond exhaustion from a week of late nights, many hours of work lay ahead for them.
Those top floors were rarefied real estate, home to the most powerful committees in state government — those with the final say over how the state spends tens of billions of dollars — and the expert staffs who did the heavy lifting. And on this last long night, days behind schedule and hours past the 2010 legislature’s scheduled final adjournment, a dozen delegates and senators cloistered behind closed doors, bickering and dickering over the fine print of what would be the $77 billion state government spending blueprint through June 2012.
It’s known as the budget conference, an innocuous-sounding insider term that means little or nothing to ordinary Virginians. But the agreement that rival House and Senate members sealed with a handshake around 2 a.m. on that warm, late-winter Sunday — and at the conclusion of budget conferences every year — was highly consequential to their daily lives from the taxes they pay to funding for their kids’ schools and everything in between. It’s no less true in the current special session as House and Senate budget negotiators try to square differing versions of a pandemic-ravaged proposed budget of $137 billion, 77 percent larger than that budget adopted 10 years earlier.
No other piece of legislation holds as much sway as state budget bills, which not only form the 24-month financial framework for the commonwealth but also supersedes other state law. That such critical legislating is done at the last minute in sometimes chaotic, often contentious late-night sessions well out of public view by sleep-starved people amid the intermingled odors of cold pizza and burned coffee did not — and should not — inspire confidence.
Nobody has seen the budget conference process from more different perspectives than Bill Leighty, an immensely accomplished senior state government veteran who cut his teeth in the 1980s with a seven-year stint on the Senate Finance Committee staff. From there, Leighty would direct the sprawling Virginia Retirement System before serving as chief of staff to two successive governors, Mark Warner and Tim Kaine.
“What makes them (budget conferences) so powerful is that what they agree on and put in the conference report goes directly to the floor and can only be voted up or down — no amendments,” said Leighty, now retired and an adviser to the L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs at Virginia Commonwealth University. “And, because they’re presented so late, everyone is loath to send it back to conference for a redo.”
How late? In 2010, the committee staffs had only 15 hours that Sunday to write the budget conferees’ agreement into its final form and have printed copies on all 140 legislators’ desks for that up-or-down floor vote, leaving them barely enough time to go home, change clothes and return to Capitol Square. The House and Senate convened at 5 p.m., agreed to the conferees’ work and adjourned sine die before 6.
That’s the lawmaking equivalent of driving down a twisting, one-lane mountain road on a moonless night with one working headlight and brakes that didn’t pass inspection. Yet somehow, mainly through the exacting work of highly professional staffs fighting off sleep with energy drinks and raw adrenalin, it has never jumped the guardrails and tumbled into the abyss.
Budget conferences don’t always bust their deadlines, and it’s not as though there aren’t weighty issues at play when they do. In 2010, like this year, the state was in the grips of a monstrous economic collapse that ravaged the official revenue estimates on which the budget is built. Both years forced significant cuts in state operating outlays.
In 2004, during a battle over reforms Warner proposed to fix what he called a structural imbalance in the state budget (Republicans labeled it a tax increase, and they weren’t wrong), the House and Senate deferred passage of a budget to an April special session. In the end, Warner got most of what he wanted from a GOP House and Senate through the budget bill.
Leighty recalls that budget battle as significant because of its use of the “repealer clause,” a provision in the budget that trumps statutory law. He said he authored dozens of them over his years on the Finance Committee and said the clauses can be spotted in any budget bill by looking for sections that begin with the words “Notwithstanding any other provision of law… .”
“We put all the tax changes in the (2004) budget bill so that it overrode tax law,” he said.
Opacity and even occasional sleight-of-hand is an old tradition of budget conferences. Reporters and their voice on Capitol Square — the Virginia Capitol Correspondents Association — have stormed and huffed about it many times over the decades (including two years when this writer was its president) to no avail.
Over the decades, conferees have gone to bizarre, almost zany lengths to shield the byzantine proceedings from public view. In his years as a cub Finance Committee staffer, Leighty was assigned by the committee chairman, the late Sen. Ed Willey, to walk conspicuously past the cramped press filing room in the musty bowels of the Capitol with a boxload of budget documents and calculators, luring reporters in the opposite direction of where the conferees would actually meet.
“Ed Willey had one hard-and-fast rule: that the conference committee had to meet in a public building. So we picked some wonderful places: the Science Museum, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, the budget offices, the Old Finance Building,” he said.
In one such cat-and-mouse adventure in the 1980s, the conferees had covertly gathered in an empty room in the then-mothballed Old Finance Building (since renovated to its former splendor and renamed the Oliver Hill Building) that sits just down the hill from the Capitol and nextdoor to the Executive Mansion. The tactic worked, Leighty recalled, until Joe Gatins, a sharp-eyed reporter for theRichmond Times-Dispatch, spotted a single room with lights blazing in a darkened, derelict building.
“He went through the system of tunnels that connect the buildings on Capitol Square and popped up right in the middle of the conference committee,” Leighty said with a chuckle. “When he did, they scattered.”
What does the public miss in those closed cabals? It’s hard to say.
We know the items that are in conflict between the House and Senate budget bills, we know there is argument — sometimes loud enough to penetrate the closed doors — and we know there is compromise. The biggest disputes were not partisan but between House and Senate members battling over conflicting provisions in their rival budget bills. Their final resolution on those disagreements was usually pretty clear when it was over.
This week, that process starts anew, but possibly with a wrinkle. It’s not clear whether the budget conferees will gather socially distanced in person (doubtful considering that floor sessions have been conducted virtually) or via Zoom conference. And if it’s the latter, will the press (and public) be able to watch?
That’s a prospect that would have been unimaginable when Joe Gatins was sleuthing for stealthy conferees.
The story of how the former Confederacy capital turned blue is one of demographic shifts, a Democratic political machine and Donald Trump.
The story of how Virginia went blue in presidential years is one of demographic shifts, a Democratic political machine and Trump. It’s the story of how a state’s voting patterns can change – and how politicians know all too well that they can change back again.
“Virginia is a blue state”, said Stephen Farnsworth, a political science professor at the University of Mary Washington.
Virginia’s economy is, compared to elsewhere in the country, “recession resistant. That makes it an appealing place for people to move when they’re thinking about their futures,” Farnsworth explained. People move from all over the country – and indeed all over the world – to live and work in Virginia.
After controlling both chambers of the state legislature and the executive mansion for the first time in a generation, hundreds of new laws passed by the Democratic controlled Virginia General Assembly and signed by Governor Ralph Northam (D) take effect July 1.
Northam signed more than 1,200 bills that cleared the General Assembly during the 2020 session.
Many of those bills are duplicates, commending resolutions, or technical tweaks to existing law. Although many Virginians might not see or know the direct impact, several bills will directly impact daily life and discussion in Virginia.
“We’re excited about what’s going to happen and what will become law at midnight,” said Del. Jeff Bourne (D-Richmond). “We are putting Virginia on the right side of history. Although, we may be getting on the right side of history a little late for some things.”
Virginia Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine is preparing for battle with President Donald Trump over renaming military facilities that honor Confederates — and he’s expecting to win.
In an interview with the Mercury, Kaine said he believes the GOP-controlled Senate would override a possible presidential veto of a defense policy bill that would begin a process to rename the facilities. Doing so would require support from two-thirds of those voting.
Republicans hold 53 seats — or 53% — in the U.S. Senate. Democrats hold 233 seats — about 54% — in the U.S. House.
“I think we need to put it on his desk,” Kaine said. “If he were to veto this bill, I think we would override it.”
If the bill becomes law, it would be a major victory for the movement for racial justice and equality, which has intensified in recent months.
Suburban voters like Schmiegelow represent an existential challenge for Virginia Republicans, who haven’t won a statewide election since 2009. They’ve lost control of the executive mansion, the state legislature, and a majority of the state’s congressional seats.
The latest blow came last week when almost 1,300 bills passed by the new Democratic majority in the General Assembly went into effect. Republican laws on everything from abortion to voter ID were wiped off the book.
Part of the problem for Virginia Republicans is the president, according to Shaun Kenney, the former executive director of the Republican Party of Virginia.
“The suburbs just do not react well to Donald Trump in the White House,” Kenney said. “There’s just no way of getting around that.”
Federal elections on the ballot: President, US Senator, and 11 US House members
Ballot measures: Redistricting Amendment
The State Board of Elections administers elections and campaign finance laws, including the preparation of ballots and implementation of state and federal election laws (such as the Help America Vote Act).
> The Virginia onAir Hub is currently focusing on this year’s US Senate and House races. After the federal elections are concluded, Virginia onAir will focus on governance.
>Select this link to view all the US House races in a slide show.
>Select this link to view the US House races in an interactive map (not viewable on phones).
Summary
Federal elections on the ballot: President, US Senator, and 11 US House members
Ballot measures: Redistricting Amendment
The State Board of Elections administers elections and campaign finance laws, including the preparation of ballots and implementation of state and federal election laws (such as the Help America Vote Act).
> The Virginia onAir Hub is currently focusing on this year’s US Senate and House races. After the federal elections are concluded, Virginia onAir will focus on governance.
>Select this link to view all the US House races in a slide show.
>Select this link to view the US House races in an interactive map (not viewable on phones).
All voters are encouraged to vote mail ballots. Virginia law requires a reason to vote absentee, however, state officials have determined that COVID-19 is a valid reason for everyone to vote absentee, even if they are not ill. All voters are encouraged to apply online for their absentee ballot and to use reason 2A on the form (2A covers disability or illness and does not require documentation
ALERT: Due to COVID-19 (coronavirus), the May 5th election has been moved to May 19th and the June 9th Primary election has been moved to June 23. The deadline to apply for an absentee ballot for the May 19th election is May 12th.
be a resident of Virginia and of the precinct in which you want to vote;
be 18 years old by the next general election;
not have been convicted of a felony, or have had your civil rights restored; and
not currently be declared incapacitated by a court.
How to register
Use our Register to Vote form below to fill out the National Voter Registration Form.
Sign and date your form. This is very important!
Mail or hand-deliver your completed form to the address we provide.
Make sure you register before the voter registration deadline.
Election Day registration N/A
Voting Rights restoration
If you have been convicted of a felony and have questions about whether you can register to vote, visit Restore Your Vote to determine your eligibility.
You are a Military or Overseas voter if you are in uniformed services, living overseas OR a spouse or dependent of a uniformed services voter. To get registered and vote, you can utilize Overseas Vote Foundation.
If you have additional questions about elections and voting overseas you can use our state specific elections official directory or contact the Overseas Vote Foundation.
Voting with Disabilities
Any person, regardless disability status, has the right to register to vote at any office or agency that provides such a service. These offices include but are not limited to: Department of Health (VDH), Department of Social Services (DSS), Department of Mental Health (DMHRSAR), Department for Rehabilitation Services (DRS), Department for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing (VDDHH), and the Department for the Blind and Vision Impaired (DBVI).
Your local registrar’s office also has registration forms and should be able to accommodate any special needs. In addition, you can download a voter registration form from the state board of elections website.
Curbside voting is still available for people ages 65 and older, or any person with a disability. With the implementation of HAVA (Help America Vote Act), curbside voters may now be able to vote on an electronic voting device in lieu of a paper ballot. However, some cities continue to use paper ballots. To vote curbside you must ask your driver or other individual to inform the election officers that there is a person that wishes to vote curbside. The necessary equipment will then be brought to you in your vehicle. You shall be afforded every opportunity to vote in a private and independent fashion, but voting equipment must remain in the view of the election officers.
You have the right to have an election officer or other person help you vote if you are physically disabled, unable to read or unable to write. Blind voters may also have any person assist them.
You may have anyone who is not your employer or union representative assist you. The officer of election or other person so designated who helps you prepare your ballot shall do so in accordance with your instructions, without soliciting your vote or in any manner attempting to influence your vote, and shall not in any manner divulge or indicate, by signs or otherwise, how you voted on any office or question. For individuals with vision impairments the state board of elections works to provide large print copies of all voting related material. Your local registrar’s office should have large print versions of all materials in circulation at this time.
In accordance with the Help America Vote Act, Virginia is in the process of making all of its polling places fully accessible to elderly voters and voters with disabilities. If you find that your polling place is not accessible for any reason please fill out the voter accessibility feedback form. The state board of elections is dedicated to providing the best voting experience possible, and will value your input and will keep any remarks confidential.
In accordance with the Help America Vote Act, every polling location in Virginia must be equipped with at least one accessible voting system that will allow all voters with a disability to vote in the same private and independent manner as a voter without a disability. If you require voting assistance due to a physical disability or inability to read or write, you can receive it upon request. Any of the election officers can advise you of your rights in this area. If you have cognitive disabilities, due to any reason, you can be eligible to vote if you are not currently ruled to be mentally incompetent by a court of law.
To qualify for absentee in-person voting you must be:
Any person who, in the regular and orderly course of his business, profession, or occupation or while on personal business or vacation, will be absent from the county or city in which he is entitled to vote;
Any person who is (i) a member of a uniformed service of the United States, as defined in 42 U.S.C. § 1973ff-6(7), on active duty, or (ii) a member of the merchant marine of the United States, or (iii) who temporarily resides outside of the United States, or (iv) the spouse or dependent residing with any person listed in (i), (ii), or (iii), and who will be absent on the day of the election from the county or city in which he is entitled to vote. See Absentee Voting Procedures for Overseas Personnel (Military & Non-Military)
Any student attending a school or institution of learning, or his spouse, who will be absent on the day of election from the county or city in which he is entitled to vote;
Any person who is unable to go in person to the polls on the day of election because of a disability, illness or pregnancy ;
Any person who is confined while awaiting trial or for having been convicted of a misdemeanor, provided that the trial or release date is scheduled on or after the third day preceding the election. Any person who is awaiting trial and is a resident of the county or city where he is confined shall, on his request, be taken to the polls to vote on election day if his trial date is postponed and he did not have an opportunity to vote absentee;
Any person who is a member of an electoral board, registrar, officer of election, or custodian of voting equipment;
Any person serving as a designated representative of a political party, independent candidate or candidate in a political party;
Any duly registered person who is unable to go in person to the polls on the day of the election because he is primarily and personally responsible for the care of an ill or disabled family member who is confined at home.
Any duly registered person who is unable to go in person to the polls on the day of the election because of an obligation occasioned by his religion.
Any person who, in the regular and orderly course of his business, profession, or occupation, will be at his place of work and commuting to and from his home to his place of work for eleven or more hours of the thirteen that the polls are open (6:00 AM to 7:00 PM).
Certain first responders who meet code definitions for law-enforcement officers, firefighters, search and rescue personnel and emergency medical services personnel.
Any registered and qualified voter may request a mail ballot for presidential and vice-presidential electors only by writing across the top of their absentee application “request ballot for presidential electors only.” A voter who votes a “presidential only” ballot may not later decide to vote the rest of the ballot. The same procedures and deadlines apply as for other absentee applications and ballots. Please note: When completing your absentee ballot application, reason 7A should only be used by voters who have moved to another state (away from Virginia) less than 30 days before the presidential election. This reason code should not be selected by voters that do not intend to move to another state less than 30 days prior to the election.
The electoral board will usually make ballots available for absentee voting 45 days prior to Election Day and ending 3 days before Election Day.
Vote by Mail (Absentee)
Absentee ballot process
Absentee voting is available and no excuse is required. The last day to request an absentee ballot is 11 days before the election (October 23rd, 2020). You can return your absentee ballot request form through mail, in person at your local elections office, or online. Voted ballots must be postmarked by Election Day and received by 12pm 3 days after the election in order to be counted.
ALERT: Due to COVID-19 (coronavirus), voters mailing absentee ballots for the November General Election do NOT need a witness. Please contact the Board of Elections for more information.
You may now request an absentee ballot online! Just fill out and submit this form before the deadline (5pm 11 days before the election).
All voters are eligible for absentee voting either in-person or by mail for 45 days before the election. You can request your absentee ballot at any time during the year.
Voted mail ballots must be postmarked on or before Election Day and be received by your local registrar by noon on the third day after the election in order to be counted.
As a reminder, first time voters who registered through the mail may vote absentee, but you must mail a copy of one of the below forms of ID with your absentee ballot:
Valid photo ID
Current utility bill
Other government document that confirms name and address
Emergency Absentee Voting
You can apply for an emergency absentee ballot if you:
Are hospitalized or have an illness
You are dealing with a hospitalization, illness or death of a spouse, child or parent
Have another emergency found to justify an emergency absentee ballot
If you meet these requirements, you can have a designated representative request an absentee ballot through the day before the election. You must complete the application and deliver it to the local registrar’s office by 2pm the day before the election. Voted ballots must be returned before the polls close on Election Day.
How to get Absentee ballot
Use our Absentee Ballot Form below to prepare your application.
Sign and date the form. This is very important!
Return your completed application to your Local Election Office as soon as possible. We’ll provide the mailing address for you.
All Local Election Offices will accept mailed or hand-delivered forms. If it’s close to the deadline, call and see if your Local Election Office will let you fax or email the application.
Make sure your application is received by the deadline. Your application must actually arrive by this time — simply being postmarked by the deadline is insufficient.
Please contact your Local Election Office if you have any further questions about the exact process.
What to do next
Once you receive the ballot, carefully read and follow the instructions.
Sign and date where indicated.
Mail your voted ballot back to the address indicated on the return envelope.
Your voted ballot must arrive by the deadline or it will not be counted.
Absentee ballot application deadline
In Person: 3 days before Election Day.
By Mail: 7 days before Election Day.
Online: 7 days before Election Day.
Absentee ballot submission deadline
Election Day
Absentee Ballot (form)
Elections Alert (Form)
Pollling Information
Polling Place Locator
You can find your polling place by utilizing your state resource.
If you have further questions on your polling place location, please contact your local election office.
Polling Place Hours
Polls are open from 6:00 am to 7:00 pm.
Poll Worker Information
Visit www.workelections.com to find localized information for becoming a poll worker in your area.
In order to be a poll worker in Virginia:
You must be registered to vote in Virginia
You will be entitled to compensation
You must be at least 18 years of age
Political affiliation generally required
You must complete required training.
Must be a US citizen
You cannot hold an elected office or be the employee of an elected official
The State Board of Elections is authorized to supervise, coordinate, and adopt regulations governing the work of local electoral boards, registrars, and officers of election; to provide electronic application for voter registration and delivery of absentee ballots to eligible military and overseas voters; to establish and maintain a statewide automated voter registration system to include procedures for ascertaining current addresses of registrants; to prescribe standard forms for registration, transfer and identification of voters; and to require cancellation of records for registrants no longer qualified. Code of Virginia, Title 24.2, Chapters 1, 4 and 4.1. The Department of Elections conducts the board’s administrative and programmatic operations and discharges the board’s duties consistent with delegated authority.
The Virginia State Board of Elections has been a party in a number of lawsuits.
Sarvis v. Judd
In July 2014, The Rutherford Institute supported the Libertarian Party of Virginia and alleged Virginia ballot laws favored “the election chances of Democrat and Republican candidates at the expense of Libertarian Party and independent candidates.”
In Robert C. Sarvis, et al. v. Charles E. Judd, et al, the lawsuit was filed on behalf of the Libertarian Party of Virginia, several Libertarian Party candidates and an independent (non-party) candidate for public office in the November 2014 general election. The lawsuit challenged the Virginia State Board of Elections and the laws which require minor-party candidates to gather signatures on petitions to achieve ballot access as well as the laws which require minor-party and independent candidates’ names to be placed below those of major-party candidates on the ballot.
Libertarian Party of Virginia v. Judd
In 2013, the ACLU supported the Libertarian Party of Virginia, and contended that the Libertarians would suffer “irreparable harm” given Virginia’s ballot access laws.
In Libertarian Party of Virginia v. Judd, the Libertarian Party won the case regarding state residency requirements for petition circulators per the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit on May 29, 2013. It was the first time a minor party had won a constitutional election law case in the Fourth Circuit since 1989 and 1988. In response to the Fourth Circuit’s ruling, the State of Virginia via former Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli as well as several other states, like Oklahoma, submitted petitions to the Supreme Court of the United States asking to reverse the Fourth Circuit’s decision. On December 2, 2013, the petitions against the Fourth Circuit’s ruling were denied by the Supreme Court, and so the Libertarian Party of Virginia won the case regarding state residency requirements for petition circulators.
Perry v. Judd
In January 2012, Texas Governor Rick Perry, former senator Rick Santorum, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman Jr. failed to qualify for the ballot and sued the State Board of Elections. U.S. District Judge John A. Gibney Jr. denied the request to add their names to Virginia’s Republican primary ballot.
Project Vote v. Long
In February 2010, after receiving reports from local community partners regarding large numbers of rejected voter registration applications, Project Vote and its voting partner, Advancement Project, sought to review Norfolk’s rejected registration applications to ascertain if qualified persons were unlawfully kept off the voting rolls. Elisa Long, the general registrar of Norfolk, and Nancy Rodrigues, secretary of the State Board of Elections denied Project Vote and Advancement Project the right to review the records, and both groups filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Norfolk, Virginia.
In July 2011, the Court granted Project Vote’s Motion for Summary Judgment and ordered the Norfolk County Registrar “to permit access to any requesting party for copy and/or inspection of voter registration applications and related records,” in compliance with public disclosure requirements under the National Voter Registration Act.
Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections
In Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections (1966) the U.S. Supreme Court found that Virginia’s poll tax was unconstitutional under the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment. The 24th Amendment (1964) prohibited poll taxes in federal elections. However, five states continued to impose a poll tax for voters in state elections. By this ruling, the Supreme Court banned the use of a poll tax in state elections.
Virginia has one of the most restrictive set of ballot access laws in the United States. According to the Code of Virginia subsection 24.2-101, without “major party” status for automatic ballot access in Virginia, minor party and independent candidates have to gather petition signatures to get on the ballot. For example, the requirement for statewide elections is 10,000 signatures, including at least 400 from each of Virginia’s 11 congressional districts. In order for a minor party to gain automatic ballot access as a major party, one of its nominated candidates must receive 10% of the vote in a statewide race. To obtain the signatures necessary to receive statewide ballot access in Virginia, it has been quoted to cost between $45,000 to $90,000 or up to $100,000.
These qualifications and requirements may vary slightly depending on whether the office sought is a local office, a general assembly seat, a statewide office, or a federal office. Generally, all candidates must meet the following minimum qualifications:
Be a resident of the Commonwealth of Virginia for one year immediately preceding the election.
The board has developed and published candidate informational bulletins specific to each office type. In addition to the qualifications, forms and filing requirements, candidate information bulletins provide candidates with information he/she will need to run for office.
Incumbent Senator Mark Warner first won election in 2008 getting 65% of the vote over former governor Jim Gilmore. In 2014, during the Tea Party movement, Senator Warner won re-election with 49.1% of the vote defeating former chairman of the Republican National Committee Ed Gillespie by 0.8%. Warner is running for a third term.
Dr. Daniel Gade is a retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel, professor, and public policy leader running to serve the Commonwealth of Virginia in the U.S. Senate. Gade has served in President George W. Bush’s administration, working on veteran issues and military healthcare, and has since served on several national-level policy councils, including the National Council on Disability and the VA Advisory Committee on Disability Compensation.
WASHINGTON (ABC7) — The biggest political race in Virginia is for a seat in the U.S. Senate.
Incumbent Democrat Mark Warner is running for a third term. Republican challenger Daniel Gade is hoping to replace him.
ABC7 Northern Virginia Bureau Chief talked to both for one-on-one interviews.
“Why do you believe you deserve a third term,” Barber asked Warner.
“I spent 30 years in business before I went into public service and I went into public service because I wanted to get stuff done and I brought a bi-partisan approach,” said Sen. Warner who was a telecommunications executive before he became Virginia’s Governor and U.S. Senator.
“Your opponent has accused you of not wearing a mask at functions. What would you say to those criticisms — the way the Republicans have handled this pandemic,” asked Barber of Gade.
“Yeah neither, well first off it shouldn’t be a partisan issue, I mean this is a global pandemic,” said Gade. “As serious as the deaths are, in some sense, is the fact our economy has ground to a halt.”
At Wednesday’s debate, held virtually due to the coronavirus pandemic, Gade tried to gain ground by attacking Warner as a career politician who flip-flops on key issues.
“The same old stale ideas aren’t working for Virginians,” Gale said.
Warner pitched himself as a business and tech-savvy moderate who is well-known to Virginians. He dismissed Gade’s attacks as theater.
“President Trump has been shown by the Washington Post to have committed over 20,000 lies in his tenure. It appears my opponent is actually trying to catch up with him today,” Warner said.
The three debates will have the two candidates discuss various issues facing Virginians and other Americans, such as the COVID-19 pandemic and healthcare prices.
The first debate is slated for Sept. 23 and will be hosted by the Northern Virginia Chamber of Commerce and NBC4 Washington.
Warner and Gade are scheduled to debate again on Oct. 3 in Norfolk, where the event will be hosted by Norfolk State University and a yet undecided media partner. The Norfolk debate will be focused on issues surrounding race and justice
Richmond will be another location for a debate between Gade and Warner, where the event will be hosted by the AARP and WTVR on Oct. 13.
A poll released this week by the Virginia Commonwealth University L. Douglas Wilder School of Government shows presidential candidate Joe Biden and U.S. Sen. Mark Warner leading by double-digit margins in the commonwealth.
The Richmond-based university conducted a telephone poll of just over 800 adults from Aug. 28 to Sept. 7.
The results show Democratic nominee Biden ahead of President Donald Trump by 14 percentage points (53% to 39%).
Va. Sen. Mark Warner showed a 17-point lead over his GOP challenger Daniel Gade in a recent VCU poll.
Warner, a Democrat who has represented Virginia in Congress for more than a decade, is ahead of his Republican challenger Daniel Gade by 17 percentage points (55% to 38%). The poll had a margin of error of 5.17 percentage points for all adults sampled and 6.22 percentage points for likely voters.
Mark Warner’s favorable rating is 51%, up 14 points since May, while his unfavorable rating rose from 21% in May to 26% in August. Daniel Gade, his Republican challenger, is largely unknown with two-thirds of likely voters (67%) not knowing enough to have an opinion of him. Positively, his favorable rating of 20% doubles his unfavorable rating of 10%.
“Senator Warner has a comfortable margin at this point with a healthy lead, a positive favorable rating, and an opponent in Daniel Gade, who is largely unknown to most voters. Gade’s hope lies in his low unfavorable rating and the opportunity to define himself if he can reach the voters.”
U.S. Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) joined Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) in introducing comprehensive broadband infrastructure legislation to expand access to affordable high-speed internet for all Americans.
The Accessible, Affordable Internet for All Act will seek to address the digital divide by investing $100 billion to build high-speed broadband infrastructure in unserved and underserved communities. The legislation in the House of Representatives is led by House Majority Whip James E. Clyburn (D-SC) and members of the House Rural Broadband Task Force.
“The current health crisis has only underscored what we already know: that too many households across the country lack reliable access to broadband,” said Sen. Warner. “In Virginia alone, it’s estimated that more than 700,000 Virginians lack access to broadband, making it harder for families to access essential services during these unprecedented times. Access to broadband helps communities meaningfully participate in the digital economy. Individuals can apply for a job or submit a college application, families can connect with their health care providers without having to travel long distances, and teachers and students can advance and supplement their online learning. Accessibility to broadband is vital to increasing digital literacy, achieving economic stability, and advancing education, and this critical legislation will help bridge the gap for communities that still need access to this critical technology.”
Republican nominee for US Senate Daniel Gade is challenging Mark Warner to five debates. Virginians deserve to hear the difference between the tired ideas of a career politician and the new, fresh visions of a lifelong servant leader. Daniel Gade is demanding these 5 debates be spread throughout the entire Commonwealth, including Southwest, Tidewater, Richmond, Southside, and Northern VA.
“Virginians deserve to hear the difference between Mark Warner’s do-nothing career and a fighter who can actually get things done in the Senate for Virginians,” said Daniel Gade. “I am thrilled to challenge Warner to these 5 debates that will cover real issues such as affordable healthcare, quality education, well-paying jobs, individual liberty and much more. As a warfighter and a professor, I look forward to debating Warner on the battlefield of ideas.”
WASHINGTON (ABC7) — The biggest political race in Virginia is for a seat in the U.S. Senate.
Incumbent Democrat Mark Warner is running for a third term. Republican challenger Daniel Gade is hoping to replace him.
ABC7 Northern Virginia Bureau Chief talked to both for one-on-one interviews.
“Why do you believe you deserve a third term,” Barber asked Warner.
“I spent 30 years in business before I went into public service and I went into public service because I wanted to get stuff done and I brought a bi-partisan approach,” said Sen. Warner who was a telecommunications executive before he became Virginia’s Governor and U.S. Senator.
“Your opponent has accused you of not wearing a mask at functions. What would you say to those criticisms — the way the Republicans have handled this pandemic,” asked Barber of Gade.
“Yeah neither, well first off it shouldn’t be a partisan issue, I mean this is a global pandemic,” said Gade. “As serious as the deaths are, in some sense, is the fact our economy has ground to a halt.”
At Wednesday’s debate, held virtually due to the coronavirus pandemic, Gade tried to gain ground by attacking Warner as a career politician who flip-flops on key issues.
“The same old stale ideas aren’t working for Virginians,” Gale said.
Warner pitched himself as a business and tech-savvy moderate who is well-known to Virginians. He dismissed Gade’s attacks as theater.
“President Trump has been shown by the Washington Post to have committed over 20,000 lies in his tenure. It appears my opponent is actually trying to catch up with him today,” Warner said.
The three debates will have the two candidates discuss various issues facing Virginians and other Americans, such as the COVID-19 pandemic and healthcare prices.
The first debate is slated for Sept. 23 and will be hosted by the Northern Virginia Chamber of Commerce and NBC4 Washington.
Warner and Gade are scheduled to debate again on Oct. 3 in Norfolk, where the event will be hosted by Norfolk State University and a yet undecided media partner. The Norfolk debate will be focused on issues surrounding race and justice
Richmond will be another location for a debate between Gade and Warner, where the event will be hosted by the AARP and WTVR on Oct. 13.
A poll released this week by the Virginia Commonwealth University L. Douglas Wilder School of Government shows presidential candidate Joe Biden and U.S. Sen. Mark Warner leading by double-digit margins in the commonwealth.
The Richmond-based university conducted a telephone poll of just over 800 adults from Aug. 28 to Sept. 7.
The results show Democratic nominee Biden ahead of President Donald Trump by 14 percentage points (53% to 39%).
Va. Sen. Mark Warner showed a 17-point lead over his GOP challenger Daniel Gade in a recent VCU poll.
Warner, a Democrat who has represented Virginia in Congress for more than a decade, is ahead of his Republican challenger Daniel Gade by 17 percentage points (55% to 38%). The poll had a margin of error of 5.17 percentage points for all adults sampled and 6.22 percentage points for likely voters.
Mark Warner’s favorable rating is 51%, up 14 points since May, while his unfavorable rating rose from 21% in May to 26% in August. Daniel Gade, his Republican challenger, is largely unknown with two-thirds of likely voters (67%) not knowing enough to have an opinion of him. Positively, his favorable rating of 20% doubles his unfavorable rating of 10%.
“Senator Warner has a comfortable margin at this point with a healthy lead, a positive favorable rating, and an opponent in Daniel Gade, who is largely unknown to most voters. Gade’s hope lies in his low unfavorable rating and the opportunity to define himself if he can reach the voters.”
U.S. Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) joined Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) in introducing comprehensive broadband infrastructure legislation to expand access to affordable high-speed internet for all Americans.
The Accessible, Affordable Internet for All Act will seek to address the digital divide by investing $100 billion to build high-speed broadband infrastructure in unserved and underserved communities. The legislation in the House of Representatives is led by House Majority Whip James E. Clyburn (D-SC) and members of the House Rural Broadband Task Force.
“The current health crisis has only underscored what we already know: that too many households across the country lack reliable access to broadband,” said Sen. Warner. “In Virginia alone, it’s estimated that more than 700,000 Virginians lack access to broadband, making it harder for families to access essential services during these unprecedented times. Access to broadband helps communities meaningfully participate in the digital economy. Individuals can apply for a job or submit a college application, families can connect with their health care providers without having to travel long distances, and teachers and students can advance and supplement their online learning. Accessibility to broadband is vital to increasing digital literacy, achieving economic stability, and advancing education, and this critical legislation will help bridge the gap for communities that still need access to this critical technology.”
Republican nominee for US Senate Daniel Gade is challenging Mark Warner to five debates. Virginians deserve to hear the difference between the tired ideas of a career politician and the new, fresh visions of a lifelong servant leader. Daniel Gade is demanding these 5 debates be spread throughout the entire Commonwealth, including Southwest, Tidewater, Richmond, Southside, and Northern VA.
“Virginians deserve to hear the difference between Mark Warner’s do-nothing career and a fighter who can actually get things done in the Senate for Virginians,” said Daniel Gade. “I am thrilled to challenge Warner to these 5 debates that will cover real issues such as affordable healthcare, quality education, well-paying jobs, individual liberty and much more. As a warfighter and a professor, I look forward to debating Warner on the battlefield of ideas.”
Incumbent Senator Mark Warner first won election in 2008 getting 65% of the vote over former governor Jim Gilmore. In 2014, during the Tea Party movement, Senator Warner won re-election with 49.1% of the vote defeating former chairman of the Republican National Committee Ed Gillespie by 0.8%. Warner is running for a third term.
Dr. Daniel Gade is a retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel, professor, and public policy leader running to serve the Commonwealth of Virginia in the U.S. Senate. Gade has served in President George W. Bush’s administration, working on veteran issues and military healthcare, and has since served on several national-level policy councils, including the National Council on Disability and the VA Advisory Committee on Disability Compensation.
Mark Warner
Current Position: US Senator since 2009 Affiliation: Democrat Former Position(s): Governor from 2002 – 2006
Senator Warner was elected to the U.S. Senate in November 2008 and reelected to a second term in November 2014. He serves on the Senate Finance, Banking, Budget, and Rules Committees as well as the Select Committee on Intelligence, where he is the Vice Chairman.
During his time in the Senate, Senator Warner has established himself as a bipartisan leader who has worked with Republicans and Democrats alike to cut red tape, increase government performance and accountability, and promote private sector innovation and job creation. Senator Warner has been recognized as a national leader in fighting for our military men and women and veterans, and in working to find bipartisan, balanced solutions to address our country’s debt and deficit.
Current Position: Professor, American University Affiliation: Republican Candidate: 2020 US Senator
Dr. Daniel Gade is a retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel, professor, and public policy leader running to serve the Commonwealth of Virginia in the U.S. Senate. During more than 20 years of military service, he was awarded the Legion of Merit, Bronze Star, and two Purple Hearts. Daniel graduated from West Point in 1997 and served in multiple locations in the United States and Korea.
Gade has served in President George W. Bush’s administration, working on veteran issues and military healthcare, and has since served on several national-level policy councils, including the National Council on Disability and the VA Advisory Committee on Disability Compensation.
Limited Government We must return to a fiscally responsible government that promotes individual freedom. Powers not given to the federal government explicitly in the Constitution are reserved to the people or to the States. Government overreach should be called what it is: tyranny. It’s past time to rein in government overreach and return to Constitutional government
Mark Warner
Transparency On the Senate Budget Committee, Warner was appointed chairman of a bipartisan task force on government performance in 2009. Warner was a lead sponsor of the 2010 Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA), which imposed specific program performance goals across all federal agencies and set up a more transparent agency performance review process.
On May 21, 2013, Warner introduced the Digital Accountability and Transparency Act of 2014 (S. 994; 113th Congress), DATA. “The legislation requires standardized reporting of federal spending to be posted to a single website, allowing citizens to track spending in their communities and agencies to more easily identify improper payments, waste and fraud.” On November 6, 2013, the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs committee unanimously passed DATA.
On January 27, 2014, a version of the White House Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) marked up version of the bill was leaked. This White House version “move[s] away from standards and toward open data structures to publish information” and “requir[es] OMB in consultation with Treasury to review and, if necessary, revise standards to ensure accuracy and consistency through methods such as establishing linkages between data in agency financial systems…” Senator Warner’s responded with the following statement: “The Obama administration talks a lot about transparency, but these comments reflect a clear attempt to gut the DATA Act. DATA reflects years of bipartisan, bicameral work, and to propose substantial, unproductive changes this late in the game is unacceptable. We look forward to passing the DATA Act, which had near universal support in its House passage and passed unanimously out of its Senate committee. I will not back down from a bill that holds the government accountable and provides taxpayers the transparency they deserve.”
On April 10, 2014, the Senate voted by unanimous consent to pass the bill, which was then passed by the House in a voice vote on April 28, 2014.
Civil Rights
Daniel Gade
Protect Individual Liberties and Civil Rights
Our civil rights include the right to live in accordance with our religious principles, the right to unrestricted free speech and exchange of ideas, and the right to protect ourselves by keeping and bearing arms. This is the only way to ensure equal protection and justice for all, regardless of race, class, or creed.
Mark Warner
Gun laws
On April 17, 2013, Warner voted to expand background checks for gun purchases as part of the Manchin-Toomey Amendment.
In 2017, he called himself a strong supporter of second amendment rights and vowed to advocate for responsible gun ownership for hunting, recreation, and self-defense.
In January 2019, Warner was one of forty senators to introduce the Background Check Expansion Act, a bill that would require background checks for either the sale or transfer of all firearms including all unlicensed sellers. Exceptions to the bill’s background check requirement included transfers between members of law enforcement, loaning firearms for either hunting or sporting events on a temporary basis, providing firearms as gifts to members of one’s immediate family, firearms being transferred as part of an inheritance, or giving a firearm to another person temporarily for immediate self-defense.
Economy
Daniel Gade
Promote Free Market Systems
Markets that are free of government interference or crony capitalism are engines of economic growth and prosperity for all. Low individual and business taxes, decreased regulation, and free and unfettered trade is the key to further improvement in the standard of living for all Americans.
Mark Warner
Between 2010 and 2013, Warner invested considerable time and effort in leading the Senate’s Gang of Six, along with Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA). Together, Chambliss and Warner sought to craft a bipartisan plan along the lines of the Simpson-Bowles Commission to address U.S. deficits and debt.
Although the Gang of Six ultimately failed to produce a legislative “grand bargain”, they did agree on the broad outlines of a plan that included spending cuts, tax reforms that produced more revenue, and reforms to entitlement programs like Medicare and Social Security—entitlement reforms that are opposed by most Democrats. Although President Obama showed interest in the plan, leaders in Congress from both parties kept a deal from being made. In 2011, the bipartisan Concord Coalition awarded Warner and Chambliss its Economic Patriots Award for their work with the Gang of Six.
Minimum wage
In April 2014, the United States Senate debated the Minimum Wage Fairness Act (S. 1737; 113th Congress). The bill would amend the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938(FLSA) to increase the federal minimum wage for employees to $10.10 per hour over the course of a two-year period. The bill was strongly supported by President Barack Obama and many Democratic Senators, but strongly opposed by Republicans in the Senate and House. Warner expressed a willingness to negotiate with Republicans about some of the provisions of the bill, such as the timeline for the phase-in. Warner said that any increase needs to be done “in a responsible way.”
Finance
From the start of his Senate term, Warner attempted to replicate in Washington, D.C. the bipartisan partnerships that he used effectively during his tenure as Virginia governor. In 2010, Warner worked with a Republican colleague on the Banking Committee, Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN), to write a key portion of the Dodd-Frank Act that seeks to end taxpayer bailouts of failing Wall Street financial firms by requiring “advance funeral plans” for large financial firms.
In 2013, the Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress gave Sens. Warner and Corker its Publius Award for their bipartisan work on financial reform legislation.
In 2018, Warner became one of the few Democrats in the Senate supporting a bill that would relax “key banking regulations”. As part of at least 11 other Democrats, Warner argued that the bill would “right-size post-crisis rules imposed on small and regional lenders and help make it easier for them to provide credit”. Chuck Schumer and Elizabeth Warren have stated their opposition to the legislation.
Military
Daniel Gade
Maintain a strong national defense
The power to declare war resides in Congress, not the Executive. Since the end of World War II, Congress has shirked this responsibility. I believe that we should commit troops only a) in defense of a vital national interest b) when there is a defined end state and c) when military force is the only remaining option. Military families shouldn’t be the only ones having dinner table conversations before their loved ones go to war. I am opposed to the open-ended commitment of troops around the world.
Mark Warner
Defense
In 2011, Warner voted for the four-year extension of the USA PATRIOT Act. In 2011, he engaged Northern Virginia’s high-tech community in a pro-bono effort to correct burial mistakes and other U.S. Army management deficiencies at Arlington National Cemetery. In 2012, he successfully pushed the Navy to improve the substandard military housing in Hampton Roads.
Also in 2012, he pushed the Office of Personnel Management to address chronic backlogs in processing retirement benefits for federal workers, many of whom live in Washington’s northern Virginia suburbs. Warner was successful in pushing the Department of Veterans Affairs to expand access to PTSD treatment for female military veterans returning from service in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In August 2013, Warner was one of twenty-three Democratic senators to sign a letter to the Defense Department warning of some payday lenders “offering predatory loan products to service members at exorbitant triple digit effective interest rates and loan products that do not include the additional protections envisioned by the law” and asserting that service members along with their families “deserve the strongest possible protections and swift action to ensure that all forms of credit offered to members of our armed forces are safe and sound.”
Warner was awarded the Distinguished Public Service Medal by U.S. Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus, the Navy’s highest honor for a civilian, for his consistent support of Virginia’s military families and veterans.
Democracy
In June 2019, Warner and Amy Klobuchar introduced the Preventing Adversaries Internationally from Disbursing Advertising Dollars (PAID AD) Act, a bill that would modify U.S. federal campaign finance laws to outlaw the purchasing of ads that name a political candidate and appear on platforms by foreign nationals in the midst of an election year.
Healthcare
Mark Warner
On a video in his senate office, Warner promised Virginians, “I would not vote for a health-care plan that doesn’t let you keep health insurance you like.” [33]
He voted for the 2010 Affordable Care Act (ACA, commonly called Obamacare), helping the Senate reach the required sixty votes to prevent it from going to a filibuster. (As there were exactly 60 Democratic Senators at the time, each Democrat can be said to have cast the deciding vote.) He and 11 Senate freshmen discussed adding an amendment package aimed at addressing health care costs by expanding health IT and wellness prevention.
In January 2019, Warner was one of six Democratic senators to introduce the American Miners Act of 2019, a bill that would amend the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977 to swap funds in excess of the amounts needed to meet existing obligations under the Abandoned Mine Land fund to the 1974 Pension Plan as part of an effort to prevent its insolvency as a result of coal company bankruptcies and the 2008 financial crisis. It also increased the Black Lung Disability Trust Fund tax and ensured that miners affected by the 2018 coal company bankruptcies would not lose their health care.
Start ups, Saudi Arabia
Warner was the original Democratic sponsor of the Startup Act legislation and has partnered with the bill’s original author Sen. Jerry Moran (R-KS) to introduce three iterations of the bill: Startup Act in 2011, Startup Act 2.0 in 2012 and Startup Act 3.0 in early 2013. Warner describes the legislation as the ‘logical next step’ following enactment of the bipartisan JOBS Act.”
In 2015, Warner criticized the Saudi Arabian-led intervention in Yemen, saying: “I’m concerned in particular with some of the indiscriminate bombing in Yemen … [Gulf states] need to step up and they need to step up with more focus than the kind of indiscriminate bombing.”
In June 2017, Warner voted to support Trump’s $350 billion arms deal with Saudi Arabia.
In May 2018, Warner voted for Gina Haspel to be the next CIA director.
In 2016, American foreign policy scholar Stefan Halper served as an FBI operative and contacted members of the Donald Trump Presidential campaign. In May 2018, Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, warned Republican lawmakers that it would be “potentially illegal” to reveal the identity of Stefan Halper.
A masked protester near the Virginia State Capitol during a “Reopen Virginia Rally” in Richmond, Va., April 22, 2020. (Parker Michels-Boyce/ For the Virginia Mercury)
Americans can be a selfish lot. Not everybody, of course. But too many people couldn’t care less about taking the necessary steps to keep deaths and infections from COVID-19 at bay.
It’s not that hard: Stay at home as much as possible. Wear a mask out in public and in buildings. Wash your hands. Avoid situations where you can’t stay at least 6 feet apart. Treat workers with respect and deference who must come into contact with consumers. Limit the number of people at social gatherings.
Folks, none of these are Herculean tasks. We’re not being asked to climb mountains, mine for ore or donate a kidney just to survive.
Yet several months into this raging pandemic, the “me-first” mentality is readily apparent, in the commonwealth and elsewhere:
• The Virginia Department of Health issued a news release last week noting COVID-19 cases were surging in Norton city and Lee, Scott and Wise counties. “Keep in mind that your behavior can help protect yourself and others — or put you and them at increased risk,” said Dr. Sue Cantrell, a director of health districts in the area. (I tried to interview Cantrell about whether resistance to mask-wearing contributed to the numbers, but I couldn’t reach her.)
• A mid-October wedding at Wintergreen Resort forced several employees to quarantine because of possible exposure to COVID-19, an official said. Some staffers tested positive. Weddings are special, but shouldn’t couples limit the number of guests because of the times we’re in? Even then, you don’t know if all the well-wishers had recent tests confirming they were free of the virus.
• Lynchburg General Hospital’s acute care facilities were “strained,” a top official said, because of an influx of coronavirus patients last week.
• Despite new restrictions imposed by Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker prohibiting indoor dining in specific communities, a throng of customers showed up and packed a restaurant in defiance of the guidelines, the Chicago Tribune reported. The restaurant’s social media post said it was opening “out of survival and to help our staff pay their bills.” Yet Pritzker this week warned “there seems to be a COVID storm coming.”
The United States has proved the days of exceptionalism are over — unless you’re talking about leading everybody else with more than 226,000 deaths. By mid-October, the United States had the highest numbers of COVID-19 infections and deaths, and officials said we’ve entered a third peak of cases in many states.
We don’t have a vaccine. So why is it so hard for Americans to do what medical experts advise to fight this thing?
University professors I interviewed and scholarly articles suggested several reasons: Partisanship, since many Republicans followed President Donald Trump’s lead in downplaying or even denying the coronavirus’ existence, and they resisted wearing masks. A rugged individualism — baked into the nation’s founding — over working for the common good. And pandemic fatigue, even as there’s no end in sight to the carnage.
“We are a country that values individualism, materialism and wealth over the well-being of our neighbors,” Tim Goler, assistant professor of sociology and urban affairs at Norfolk State University, told me. He’s one of the researchers overseeing a pandemic study of older adults.
Goler added that people are fed up with being at home, especially if they haven’t been directly affected by deaths or illnesses: “They’re willing to sacrifice people dying.” You saw indications of this even earlier this year, when protesters demanded states to reopen their economies — even as spikes of infections continued.
“The pandemic has exposed the extent to which we do not live in a ‘United States of America,’ ” said Ernestine Duncan, a psychology professor at NSU. She noted people in other nations have accepted strong restrictions on movements and behavior, and they’re faring better than the U.S.
Clearly, we’re an individualistic society, Duncan noted.
It made me wonder about the last time our sprawling, populous country really sacrificed as a whole for the common good. Historians might point to World War II, in which food, gasoline and clothes were rationed.
Officials and residents collected scrap metal and rubber for the war effort. Women entered defense plants to work because so many men had joined the military and people grew “Victory Gardens” in large numbers to supplement their meals.
The circumstances, though, aren’t totally analogous. Back then, Americans were forced into rationing because of governmental mandates; that hasn’t always been the case this time. Trump has hesitated to restrict the movements and actions of citizens in spite of the way the coronavirus is transmitted.
In the 21st century, our rugged, go-it-alone mentality has horrific consequences. We shouldn’t be surprised by the ever-rising COVID-19 death toll if we continue to be more concerned about individual comfort rather than our collective safety.
Virginia Health Officials are warning about small gatherings. It’s part of the concern over rising numbers in southwest Virginia but the message goes to the entire state as we head into the holidays.
“Coming together as an extended family as if you are in one household does present risk,” said Dr. Daniel Carey, Virginia Secretary of Health and Human Resources.
During a COVID-19 briefing Wednesday, Governor Ralph Northam said those gatherings are the reason behind a percent positivity climb from 5% to 8% in southwest Virginia.
“I know that many people are tired of COVID restrictions. We are all tired of not having social get togethers, not going to see sports or shows, not having the regular interactions that we count on in our lives,” said Northam.
To understand the mind of a teacher, those of us who do other things for a living must attempt some mental gymnastics.
Let’s imagine a professional passion so acute that when the coronavirus shuttered classrooms, they pivoted with little warning or rehearsal to digitally link dozens of children from home and continue daily instruction remotely.
Close your eyes and comprehend a devotion to students so strong that you spend your personal money to supplement classroom supplies as eclectic as sanitizing wipes and Elmer’s glue, crepe paper and whiteboard markers.
Now, as days start shortening and summer bends toward autumn and a new academic calendar, imagine balancing your innate yearning for the classroom with a well-reasoned fear of a monstrously contagious, potentially deadly virus that medicine still can’t control and science doesn’t fully understand.
Finally, overlay that against the backdrop of political conflict and chaos that multiplies by the day.
The Virginia Department of Corrections says it’s down to 22 active cases of COVID-19 among inmates in the 40 prisons it operates around the state.
Gov. Ralph Northam’s secretary of public safety, Brian Moran, touted the figures Friday, which include six hospitalized prisoners and 16 still being held at various correctional facilities. He emphasized the latter number in a presentation to lawmakers.
“We have 16, let me repeat, 16 active cases in all of our correctional facilities,” he said during a joint meeting of the Senate’s judiciary and social services committees. “That’s out of 28,000 inmates, 40 correctional facilities. Sixteen — one six — active cases.”
Virginia is refusing to release information on COVID-19 outbreaks at poultry processing plants on the grounds of privacy concerns, despite a June decision to provide such data for long-term care facilities.
In response to a Freedom of Information Act request filed by the Mercury in June after Gov. Ralph Northam’s administration began releasing facility-specific data for nursing homes, the Virginia Department of Health said it would not provide the same information for poultry processing plants “in order to ensure that VDH is able to preserve the anonymity of individuals whose medical records have been examined during the investigation of COVID-19.”
“VDH is considering how to make the information you have requested available at the health district and/or regional level,” wrote VDH Deputy Commissioner for Governmental and Regulatory Affairs Joseph Hilbert in an email.
Neither a followup request to Hilbert nor an inquiry to the governor’s office about the justification for releasing such information for nursing homes but not poultry plants were answered.
A masked protester near the Virginia State Capitol during a “Reopen Virginia Rally” in Richmond, Va., April 22, 2020. (Parker Michels-Boyce/ For the Virginia Mercury)
Americans can be a selfish lot. Not everybody, of course. But too many people couldn’t care less about taking the necessary steps to keep deaths and infections from COVID-19 at bay.
It’s not that hard: Stay at home as much as possible. Wear a mask out in public and in buildings. Wash your hands. Avoid situations where you can’t stay at least 6 feet apart. Treat workers with respect and deference who must come into contact with consumers. Limit the number of people at social gatherings.
Folks, none of these are Herculean tasks. We’re not being asked to climb mountains, mine for ore or donate a kidney just to survive.
Yet several months into this raging pandemic, the “me-first” mentality is readily apparent, in the commonwealth and elsewhere:
• The Virginia Department of Health issued a news release last week noting COVID-19 cases were surging in Norton city and Lee, Scott and Wise counties. “Keep in mind that your behavior can help protect yourself and others — or put you and them at increased risk,” said Dr. Sue Cantrell, a director of health districts in the area. (I tried to interview Cantrell about whether resistance to mask-wearing contributed to the numbers, but I couldn’t reach her.)
• A mid-October wedding at Wintergreen Resort forced several employees to quarantine because of possible exposure to COVID-19, an official said. Some staffers tested positive. Weddings are special, but shouldn’t couples limit the number of guests because of the times we’re in? Even then, you don’t know if all the well-wishers had recent tests confirming they were free of the virus.
• Lynchburg General Hospital’s acute care facilities were “strained,” a top official said, because of an influx of coronavirus patients last week.
• Despite new restrictions imposed by Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker prohibiting indoor dining in specific communities, a throng of customers showed up and packed a restaurant in defiance of the guidelines, the Chicago Tribune reported. The restaurant’s social media post said it was opening “out of survival and to help our staff pay their bills.” Yet Pritzker this week warned “there seems to be a COVID storm coming.”
The United States has proved the days of exceptionalism are over — unless you’re talking about leading everybody else with more than 226,000 deaths. By mid-October, the United States had the highest numbers of COVID-19 infections and deaths, and officials said we’ve entered a third peak of cases in many states.
We don’t have a vaccine. So why is it so hard for Americans to do what medical experts advise to fight this thing?
University professors I interviewed and scholarly articles suggested several reasons: Partisanship, since many Republicans followed President Donald Trump’s lead in downplaying or even denying the coronavirus’ existence, and they resisted wearing masks. A rugged individualism — baked into the nation’s founding — over working for the common good. And pandemic fatigue, even as there’s no end in sight to the carnage.
“We are a country that values individualism, materialism and wealth over the well-being of our neighbors,” Tim Goler, assistant professor of sociology and urban affairs at Norfolk State University, told me. He’s one of the researchers overseeing a pandemic study of older adults.
Goler added that people are fed up with being at home, especially if they haven’t been directly affected by deaths or illnesses: “They’re willing to sacrifice people dying.” You saw indications of this even earlier this year, when protesters demanded states to reopen their economies — even as spikes of infections continued.
“The pandemic has exposed the extent to which we do not live in a ‘United States of America,’ ” said Ernestine Duncan, a psychology professor at NSU. She noted people in other nations have accepted strong restrictions on movements and behavior, and they’re faring better than the U.S.
Clearly, we’re an individualistic society, Duncan noted.
It made me wonder about the last time our sprawling, populous country really sacrificed as a whole for the common good. Historians might point to World War II, in which food, gasoline and clothes were rationed.
Officials and residents collected scrap metal and rubber for the war effort. Women entered defense plants to work because so many men had joined the military and people grew “Victory Gardens” in large numbers to supplement their meals.
The circumstances, though, aren’t totally analogous. Back then, Americans were forced into rationing because of governmental mandates; that hasn’t always been the case this time. Trump has hesitated to restrict the movements and actions of citizens in spite of the way the coronavirus is transmitted.
In the 21st century, our rugged, go-it-alone mentality has horrific consequences. We shouldn’t be surprised by the ever-rising COVID-19 death toll if we continue to be more concerned about individual comfort rather than our collective safety.
Virginia Health Officials are warning about small gatherings. It’s part of the concern over rising numbers in southwest Virginia but the message goes to the entire state as we head into the holidays.
“Coming together as an extended family as if you are in one household does present risk,” said Dr. Daniel Carey, Virginia Secretary of Health and Human Resources.
During a COVID-19 briefing Wednesday, Governor Ralph Northam said those gatherings are the reason behind a percent positivity climb from 5% to 8% in southwest Virginia.
“I know that many people are tired of COVID restrictions. We are all tired of not having social get togethers, not going to see sports or shows, not having the regular interactions that we count on in our lives,” said Northam.
To understand the mind of a teacher, those of us who do other things for a living must attempt some mental gymnastics.
Let’s imagine a professional passion so acute that when the coronavirus shuttered classrooms, they pivoted with little warning or rehearsal to digitally link dozens of children from home and continue daily instruction remotely.
Close your eyes and comprehend a devotion to students so strong that you spend your personal money to supplement classroom supplies as eclectic as sanitizing wipes and Elmer’s glue, crepe paper and whiteboard markers.
Now, as days start shortening and summer bends toward autumn and a new academic calendar, imagine balancing your innate yearning for the classroom with a well-reasoned fear of a monstrously contagious, potentially deadly virus that medicine still can’t control and science doesn’t fully understand.
Finally, overlay that against the backdrop of political conflict and chaos that multiplies by the day.
The Virginia Department of Corrections says it’s down to 22 active cases of COVID-19 among inmates in the 40 prisons it operates around the state.
Gov. Ralph Northam’s secretary of public safety, Brian Moran, touted the figures Friday, which include six hospitalized prisoners and 16 still being held at various correctional facilities. He emphasized the latter number in a presentation to lawmakers.
“We have 16, let me repeat, 16 active cases in all of our correctional facilities,” he said during a joint meeting of the Senate’s judiciary and social services committees. “That’s out of 28,000 inmates, 40 correctional facilities. Sixteen — one six — active cases.”
Virginia is refusing to release information on COVID-19 outbreaks at poultry processing plants on the grounds of privacy concerns, despite a June decision to provide such data for long-term care facilities.
In response to a Freedom of Information Act request filed by the Mercury in June after Gov. Ralph Northam’s administration began releasing facility-specific data for nursing homes, the Virginia Department of Health said it would not provide the same information for poultry processing plants “in order to ensure that VDH is able to preserve the anonymity of individuals whose medical records have been examined during the investigation of COVID-19.”
“VDH is considering how to make the information you have requested available at the health district and/or regional level,” wrote VDH Deputy Commissioner for Governmental and Regulatory Affairs Joseph Hilbert in an email.
Neither a followup request to Hilbert nor an inquiry to the governor’s office about the justification for releasing such information for nursing homes but not poultry plants were answered.
Virginia onAir curators have recorded and produced a number of video interviews on Virginia representatives and candidates for state Senate and House to help Virginia voters learn more about each politician.
Inside this post are some of the interviews conducted mostly by George Mason University students.
Summary
Virginia onAir curators have recorded and produced a number of video interviews on Virginia representatives and candidates for state Senate and House to help Virginia voters learn more about each politician.
Inside this post are some of the interviews conducted mostly by George Mason University students.
This interview was Democracy onAir’s first experimental video interview of a politician. Much gratitude to David Bulova for participating in this first effort by Democracy onAir to develop for students an easy to use, pre-formatted template to record, edit, and display their politician interviews.
Virginia onAir is US onAir’s model of a curated state Hub. Over the past two years, George Mason University alumni, faculty, students, and staff through their GMU onAir chapter have led the development and testing of this Hub.
Virginia is located in the Southern region of the USA with Richmond as its capital. The Virginia General Assembly has 40 Senate members and 100 House of Delegate members. Ralph Northam is the current governor. Mark Warner and Tim Kaine are its senators.
> To view Virginia’s current political leaders, select the feature image or the post title above. To view leaders by position, select the three dots in the post title.
> Select this link to view all US House members in a slide show.
>Select this link to view all US House members in a map format (only in big screens).
Summary
Virginia onAir is US onAir’s model of a curated state Hub. Over the past two years, George Mason University alumni, faculty, students, and staff through their GMU onAir chapter have led the development and testing of this Hub.
Virginia is located in the Southern region of the USA with Richmond as its capital. The Virginia General Assembly has 40 Senate members and 100 House of Delegate members. Ralph Northam is the current governor. Mark Warner and Tim Kaine are its senators.
> To view Virginia’s current political leaders, select the feature image or the post title above. To view leaders by position, select the three dots in the post title.
> Select this link to view all US House members in a slide show.
>Select this link to view all US House members in a map format (only in big screens).
About
VirginiaonAir Mission:
Virginia onAir organizes students and members of affiliated nonpartisan organizations to become engaged in and impact state and federal Virginia politics facilitating a more civil, collaborative, and vibrant democracy in the state.
Virginia onAir Hub members/curators aggregate information and media-rich content on elections and governance so Virginia residents can learn more about and interact with their representatives and each other on the issues important to them.
Our lead onAir chapter to be started with George Mason University students, faculty, and staff will coordinate student curators from Virginia colleges, universities, and high schools.
We are currently looking for student curators who are attending any Virginia college or university. To learn more about becoming an Virginia onAir curator as well as interning with, donating to, and sponsoring Virginia go to this post on the US onAir central Hub.
Directors & Students
Virginia onAir is lead by a team of students from George Mason University (GMU) along with students from Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU), Virginia Tech (VT), University of Virginia (UVA), Old Dominion University (ODU), and other Virginia colleges and universities. Short biographies of the lead Virginia onAir directors are below.
I am currently the Outreach Director for Virginia onAir. I am a recent graduate of George Mason University. I majored in Global Affairs and was a Global Political Fellow where I interned with Democracy onAir. I am also a founding member of the GMU onAir chapter.
My mission is to help expand the Virginia onAir network to other areas of the state to ultimately provide an all encompassing, unbiased source for news and general information on Virginia politics.
I am currently the Curation Director for Virginia onAir. I am a recent graduate of George Mason University. I majored in Global Affairs and was a Global Political Fellow where I interned with Democracy onAir. I am also a founding member of the GMU onAir chapter.
My mission is to help expand the Virginia onAir network to other areas of the state to ultimately provide an all encompassing, unbiased source for news and general information on Virginia politics.
Shuaib Ahmed coordinates the technology initiatives that support Democracy onAir through UX, web analytics, server management, cybersecurity, interactive district and region mapping, custom software, media content, and organizational support.
Shuaib is a recent graduate of George Mason University. Shuaib majored in information technology with a concentration in cybersecurity. As part of his IT senior capstone project, he led a team of five other GMU students to solve business challenges through the application of technology. One of the objectives of the capstone project was to prepare the technology and analytics needed to scale the Hubs for a significant influx of viewers and members.
What the media say
From RVA magazine by Zach Armstrong on January 24, 2020
Virginia onAir is working to ensure that young voters in the Commonwealth are able to stay informed about this year’s important election cycle.
Virginia onAir, a student run non-partisan non-profit organization, works by providing online hubs for elections and governance information, facilitating greater civic education, discussion, and engagement. Political candidates can also use their website to create a more easily accessible web presence.
“As young people, we make up one of the largest voting demographics in Virginia,” said Weiser. “Perhaps if more young people got involved with politics then our legislators might actually create policies to reflect our interests.”
US Senators
Mark Warner
Current Position: US Senator since 2009 Affiliation: Democrat Former Position(s): Governor from 2002 – 2006
Senator Warner was elected to the U.S. Senate in November 2008 and reelected to a second term in November 2014. He serves on the Senate Finance, Banking, Budget, and Rules Committees as well as the Select Committee on Intelligence, where he is the Vice Chairman.
During his time in the Senate, Senator Warner has established himself as a bipartisan leader who has worked with Republicans and Democrats alike to cut red tape, increase government performance and accountability, and promote private sector innovation and job creation. Senator Warner has been recognized as a national leader in fighting for our military men and women and veterans, and in working to find bipartisan, balanced solutions to address our country’s debt and deficit.
Current Position: US Senator since 2013 Affiliation: Democrat Former Position(s): Governor from 2006 – 2010; Lt. Governor from 2002 – 2006; Mayor from 1998 – 2001
“Tim has made boosting job opportunities for everyone a top priority. Tim is focused on crafting smart defense strategy and reducing the risk of unnecessary war. Tim believes that health care is a right … and has consistently pushed for reforms to expand access to quality care.”
Current Position: US Representative since 2008 Affiliation: Republican Former Position(s): State Delegate from 2006 – 2008; Montross Town Council from 1996 – 2005
Rob is committed to getting things done. From rebuilding our Navy to increasing access to broadband, to making sure our children have a 21st-century education, he is constantly working for the First District.
Current Position: US Representative since 2019 Affiliation: Democrat Candidate: 2020 US Representative
“Today, too many Americans are working hard and getting less. That’s because politicians in Washington aren’t looking out for them. That’s why I am running for Congress.
The core values of Security, Equality, and Prosperity will serve as my compass in representing the 2nd District.”
Current Position: US Representative since 1993 Affiliation: Democrat Candidate: 2020 US Representative for US House District 3
During his tenure in the Virginia General Assembly, Congressman Bobby Scott successfully sponsored laws critical to Virginians in education, employment, health care, social services, economic development, crime prevention and consumer protection.
His legislative successes included laws that increased Virginia’s minimum wage, created the Governor’s Employment and Training Council and improved health care benefits for women, infants and children. He also sponsored the Neighborhood Assistance Act, which provides tax credits to businesses for donations made to approved social service and crime prevention programs.
Current Position: US Representative for US House District 4 since 2017 Affiliation: Democrat Candidate: 2020 US Representative for US House District 4 Former Position(s): State Delegate from 1995 – 2007
Congressman A. Donald McEachin (VA-04) was first elected to represent the 4th Congressional District of Virginia in the United States House of Representatives on November 8, 2016.
Congressman McEachin has been selected by his colleagues to serve as a Regional Whip, co-chair of the House Democratic Environmental Message Team, Whip of the Congressional Black Caucus, co-chair of the Congressional Black Caucus’ Energy, Environment, and Agriculture Task Force, and vice-chair of the Sustainable Energy and Environment Coalition (SEEC). During his first term in Congress, Rep. McEachin co-founded the United for Climate and Environmental Justice Congressional Task Force and continues to lead the task force as a co-chair.
Current Position: US Representative since 2019 Affiliation: Republican
“As a political outsider, veteran, small business owner, and grassroots conservative, I will bring a fresh perspective to DC and help pass the President’s agenda. As we have all seen over the past few years, it takes a real outsider with real-world experience to drag the swamp monsters to dry land.”
Current Position: US Representative since 2019 Affiliation: Republican Former Position(s): State Delegate from 2002 – 2017
Ben Cline represents Virginia’s 6th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives, where he is a member of the House Judiciary Committee and the House Education and Labor Committee. He previously served as a Member of the Virginia House of Delegates, representing the 24th District from 2002-2018. In the Virginia House, Cline chaired the Committee on Militia, Police, and Public Safety.
Prior to his election to the House of Representatives in 2018, Ben was an attorney in private practice. From 2007 until 2013, he served as an Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney for Rockingham County and the City of Harrisonburg.
Ben also worked for Congressman Bob Goodlatte, beginning as a member of his legislative staff in 1994 and ultimately serving as the Congressman’s Chief of Staff
Current Position: US Representative for US House District 8 since 2015 Affiliation: Democrat Candidate: 2020 US Representative Former Position(s): Lt. Governor from 1990 – 1998
Congressman Don Beyer is serving his third term as the U.S. Representative from Virginia’s 8th District, representing Arlington, Alexandria, Falls Church, and parts of Fairfax County. He serves on the House Committees on Ways and Means and Science Space and Technology, and is a Co-Chair of the New Democrat Coalition’s Climate Change Task Force. He was the Lieutenant Governor of Virginia from 1990 to 1998, and was Ambassador to Switzerland and Liechtenstein under President Obama.
Rep. Beyer’s signature work as lieutenant governor included advocacy for Virginians with disabilities and ensuring protections for Virginia’s most vulnerable populations as the Commonwealth reformed its welfare system in the mid-1990s. Rep. Beyer was Virginia’s Democratic nominee for governor in 1997
Current Position: US Representative since 2019 Affiliation: Democrat Candidate: 2020 US Representative for US House District 10 Former Position(s): State Senator from 2013 – 2018
Congresswoman Jennifer Wexton has been serving the people of Northern Virginia and Shenandoah Valley for nearly two decades as a prosecutor, advocate for abused children, state Senator, and now a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Virginia’s 10th District.
Jennifer comes to Congress with experience in legislating and a deep understanding of Virginia’s 10th district and the issues that matter most to our region’s families. Rep. Wexton looks forward to working across the aisle in Congress to deliver positive results for the people of Northern Virginia and the United States.
Current Position: US Representative for US House District 11 since 2009 Affiliation: Democrat Candidate: 2020 US Representative for US House District 11 Former Position(s): Board of Supervisors – Fairfax County from 1995 – 2007
Congressman Connolly is a senior member of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform and serves as the Chairman of the Subcommittee on Government Operations. In this role, he is responsible for shaping government-wide policy for a broad range of issues, including federal workforce and federal agency oversight, federal procurement and information policy, national drug policy, regulatory reform, the United States Postal Service, the United States Census Bureau, and the District of Columbia. He also serves on the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. Using his extensive background in foreign policy, including as a senior staff member on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he has become a leading voice on foreign assistance reform, war powers, embassy security, and democracy promotion abroad.
Current Position: Governor since 2018 Affiliation: Democrat Former Position(s): Lt. Governor from 2014 – 2018; State Senator from 2008 – 2014
Governor Ralph Northam addresses the Virginia House of Delegates, January 20, 2020.
“Governor Northam approaches public service with the same passion he brought to his military and medical service. He is committed to working with leaders from both parties to build a Virginia that works better for every family, no matter who they are or where they live.”
Current Position: Lt. Governor since 2018 Affiliation: Democrat
Justin Farifax has been recognized as one of the top young attorneys in the nation and a rising star in American politics. He is a prominent and highly successful lawyer, political figure, philanthropist, and a proud husband, father, and community leader.
In 2013, at the age of 34, Justin was awarded the National Bar Association’s “Nation’s Best Advocates Award,” which recognizes 40 top attorneys nationwide under the age of 40. He most recently served as a top commercial and white-collar criminal litigator in the Northern Virginia office of the prestigious law firm, Venable, LLP, which he departed in January 2018 to focus on his duties as Lieutenant Governor during his first General Assembly session.
Current Position: Attorney General since 2014 Affiliation: Democrat Former Position(s): State Senator from 2007 – 2013
As Attorney General, Mark has assembled an elite team of prosecutors to crack down on heroin dealers, violent gang members, gun runners, human traffickers, and those who attempt to exploit our children online.
He is helping survivors of sexual assault pursue justice by eliminating a three-decade-old backlog of more than 2,000 untested rape kits to find and prosecute criminals.
He has made communities safer by cracking down on illegal guns and promoting commonsense gun safety laws, like universal background checks, that keep guns out of the hands of dangerous criminals. And he has worked to improve relations between police departments and the communities they serve with innovative training and recruiting initiatives.
Current Position: State Senator since 1980 Affiliation: Democrat
Dick Saslaw proudly serves Virginia’s 35th Senate District and as Democratic Leader in the Senate of Virginia. His distinguished public service has brought about real, positive results for families in Northern Virginia.
Throughout his tenure in the General Assembly, Dick has fought for investments in public K-12 and higher education, fought to improve the social safety net, maintain Virginia’s business-friendly climate, and find solutions for Northern Virginia’s transportation problems. In Richmond, he has distinguished himself for his ability to work across the aisle to get results.
Current Position: State Senator since 1992 Affiliation: Democrat
Louise Lucas is a Portsmouth native and product of the Portsmouth Public School System. She is President/CEO of Lucas Lodge, Lucas Transportation, Portsmouth Day Support Program and Southside Direct Care Provider organizations operating in The Lucas Professional Center located in Portsmouth.
Senator Lucas served in the position of Congressional Liaison for Sponsored Program at Old Dominion University from 1992 – 1994. She also served as Assistant Professor, Department of Academic Affairs and Special Assistant to the Vice President for University Advancement at Norfolk State University from 1994 – 1998.
Current Position: State Senator since 1992 Affiliation: Republican
Tommy Norment maintains an active role in the community. He is a member of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation’s Board of Trustees and the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation’s Board of Directors. He is on the Hampton Roads Board of Directors of TowneBank and he chairs the Williamsburg Board of TowneBank. Tommy is also a member of the Williamsburg Area Chamber of Commerce and the James City County Ruritan Club.
Professionally, Tommy is an attorney with Kaufman and Canoles, P.C., and a professor at the College of William and Mary.
Current Position: State Delegate Affiliation: Democrat
Eileen Filler-Corn has served in the Virginia House of Delegates, representing the 41st District, since 2010. The 41st District, located in Fairfax County, includes Burke and parts of Fairfax, Fairfax Station and West Springfield. Eileen has over two decades of experience in both the public and private sectors, working across party lines to make a difference in the lives of all Virginians. She currently is the 56th Speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates.
Previously, Eileen served in the Administrations of Governor Mark Warner and Governor Tim Kaine, advising on state and federal relations. For over 25 years, Eileen and her husband Bob have lived in Fairfax County, Virginia, along with their children, Jeremy and Alana.
Current Position: State Delegate since 2009 Affiliation: Democrat
Charniele has lived in Northern Virginia area for over 30 years, most of them in the West End of Alexandria. Charniele has a rich history of community involvement as a volunteer, a member of Rotary, and a past Chair of the West End Business Association. She has served on the Alexandria Commission for Women, including Chairing the organization.
She was also appointed by Governor Tim Kaine to the state’s Council on the Status of Women. She presently serves on the Board of the Parent Teacher Leadership Institute of Alexandria and as a Trustee of Hopkins House—advocating for strong pre-k education.
Current Position: State Delegate since 2006 Affiliation: Republican Former Position(s): Prosecutor from 1997 – 2006
Delegate Gilbert is a member of the Courts of Justice Committee, the Rules Committee, and serves as the Vice-Chairman of the House General Laws Committee. He also serves on the Virginia State Crime Commission, which helps to study and direct polices on public safety throughout Virginia and he is the Chairman of the House Criminal Law Subcommittee.
Prior to his election to the House of Delegates, Delegate Gilbert began his career as a full-time prosecutor. His first job was with the Office of the Commonwealth’s Attorney for the City of Lynchburg, where he was a member of the Violent Crime Prosecution Team.
Central US onAir Hub: us.onair.cc Model state Hub: va.onair.cc Current focus: US Senate races Launch date: September 22, 2020
Overview: To reinvigorate our imperiled democracy, US onAir is developing 50 curated, media rich online state governance and election Hubs and a central US Hub. We are supporting the US public to become more informed about and engaged in federal, state, and local politics while facilitating more civil and positive collaboration.
US onAir is a growing coalition of individuals and organizations creating a new kind of digital democracy network. Participation in US onAir is open to all US citizens and qualifying organizations. Democracy onAir, a nonpartisan 501c3 nonprofit, is providing the technology, curation, and organizational support needed to establish a dynamic, evolving network.
Summary
Central US onAir Hub: us.onair.cc Model state Hub: va.onair.cc Current focus: US Senate races Launch date: September 22, 2020
Overview: To reinvigorate our imperiled democracy, US onAir is developing 50 curated, media rich online state governance and election Hubs and a central US Hub. We are supporting the US public to become more informed about and engaged in federal, state, and local politics while facilitating more civil and positive collaboration.
US onAir is a growing coalition of individuals and organizations creating a new kind of digital democracy network. Participation in US onAir is open to all US citizens and qualifying organizations. Democracy onAir, a nonpartisan 501c3 nonprofit, is providing the technology, curation, and organizational support needed to establish a dynamic, evolving network.
About
The US onAir curators aggregate and organize the best publicly available information on governance and elections, interface with politicians and their staffs, moderate discussions, conduct online interviews, and coordinate and record online events such as debates, town halls, and forums.
Each state’s residents can:
LEARN more about their representatives, candidates, and the issues important to them;
DISCUSS their concerns and ideas with their representatives, candidates, and each other; and
ENGAGE with Democracy onAir and the democratic process through curating posts, forums, online interviews and events as well as donating to and sponsoring the US onAir network of state Hubs.
The Virginia onAir Hub has been the pilot and model for how to curate a state Hub. The George Mason University onAir Chapter has lead this effort. In collaboration with DC area university faculty and students, we will be focusing in the next two months on the US Senate races. The GMU onAir chapter will also be focusing on Virginia’s US House races.
All Hub content is under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial license which permits content sharing and adaptation by nonprofit organizations as long as proper attribution is given to its author(s) and is used for non-commercial purposes. Content and moderation guidelines reinforce our commitment to fact-based, comprehensive content and civil and honest discourse. See Terms of Service for more information.
Simply visiting a Hub does not expose your identity publicly. When you submit your email address to become a Hub member, it is your option to have your address displayed. All post curators are encouraged to use a free @onair.cc email address. The US onAir coalition will not sell your information. See our Privacy Policy for more information.
Learn
All US onAir Hubs US have posts on each state’s Governor, US Senators, and US House members as well as posts on how to register and vote in the upcoming elections. Curated stated Hubs like Virginia onAir also have posts on US House races, other state executives, state senators, and state House members and posts on issues. As a state enlists more curators, posts on city and county representatives and elections will also be started. Some special features of the US onAir network to assist the public in learning more about their representatives, candidates, and the issues are described below.
OnAir Media
What kind of livestreamed and recorded videos are on curated Hubs?
Each Hub has a special emphasis on “OnAir” media which can be livestreamed and recorded with members having an opportunity to ask questions and comment. Each Hub supports the same conferencing and streaming technology with up to 250 participants and 100,000 viewers.
OnAir livestreamed & recorded media are of three main types:: 1) Presentations– could be an update, speech, slide presentation
2) Interviews – organized by curators or a politician’s staff can include press, experts, students, and other Hub members.
3) Events such as
Debates between two or more politicians with 1 tor more moderators
Forums – with up to 9 people with 1 tor more moderators
Town Halls– with up to 250 members participating using conferencing technology
Become a Curator
How can students curate posts?
GMU was the first university onAir chapter established in the fall of 2018. The GMU onAir chapter is the lead chapter for the state of Virginia and a model of how students in onAir chapters at universities in other states can manage and curate their states Hub.
To oversee the interviewing of US Senate and House members as well as organizing debates, town halls, and debates, US onAir will be organizing a teams of students from universities in and near the District of Columbia.DC onAir university chapters.
Go to this post, to learn about how to become a curator of Hub posts.
Discuss
Every post has a feedback section where registered Hub members can, depending on the type of post:
Ask a post’s Curator questions about the post
Recommend edits and new content
Ask questions and make suggestions to politicians communicated by the post’s curator
All that is required to be a US onAir member is your first and last name, an email address, and your zip code.
Your real name and any other profile information will NOT be displayed unless you choose to do so. Your personal information is NOT shared with any other website or organization.
Hub membership will enable you to:
Ask questions, make suggestions, and give endorsements to your representatives and other politicians;
Interact directly with Post Authors and Curators giving them feedback, content suggestions, and asking questions,
Participate in online forums, research studies, and surveys,
Be able to ask questions during onAir livestreaming broadcasts via chat
There are five primary ways of engaging with a US onAir Hub:
Hub members can join for free and participate in live and asynchronous forum discussions and assemble their personalized own My onAir;
Students and members of democracy promoting organizations can become curators of information, moderators of discussions; and producers of video interviews and live shows;
Organizations can become sponsors of this Hub and individual posts on this Hub;
Individuals and organizations can donate to Democracy onAir and to specific state Hubs.
Individuals can become an advocate member and author new posts on issues
Become a Donor
How can individuals and help defray the costs of the US onAir network?
Donations can made by any individual or foundation that wishes to support the mission of US onAir. Donors can choose to support the entire organization or state Hub, as well as specific operations, such as a District and all the posts within it, an individual politician Post, or a specific Issue Post. Donations, at the donor’s request, can be displayed on a Hub with links to social networks and/or websites.. Anonymous donations are accepted as long as they are verified as US residents or US-based foundations with no foreign affiliations.
Go to this post, to learn about how to become a US onAir donor of the US onAir network and/or a specific state Hub.
Become a Sponsor
What are the ways your group can sponsor the US onAir network?
Any organization or business can become a sponsor of this Hub and/or any state Hub. Each Hub’s administrator has the option to deny and cancel any sponsor especially if they are not related in any way to a Hub’s focus. Sponsors can choose to support the entire organization or state Hub, as well as specific operations, such as a District and all the posts within it, an individual politician Post, or a specific Issue Post. We are particularly interested in sponsoring organizations that seek to support civic engagement, democratic and civil discourse, and the intersection of technology and government. Foreign owned or affiliated organizations are not permitted to be sponsors of any US onAir Hub.
Advocates of various issues important to US residents will have an opportunity to contribute position papers, reviews, videos, and other types of content related to an issue. As premium members, they will be able to author new posts on issues and co-author existing posts on issues.
Advocates can sign up through an existing organization or individually. Advocate memberships will be available after the November elections.
Open to all US residents
Any resident of a state can participate in a US onAir Hub. We are particularly interested n educating and engaging college and high school students as well as disenfranchised and non-participating citizens.
Each state Hub’s governance and elections content will be curated by university students, members of democracy supporting organizations, and concerned citizens affiliated with an onAir Chapter. The US onAir coalition with the support of Democracy onAir will be establishing onAir chapters at public colleges and universities in each state. Any state resident can participate in a university onAir chapter. Students can be majoring in any academic discipline although government, political science, communication, and multi-media/broadcasting are the most relevant areas of study. Students can participate via internships, experiential courses, research projects, student clubs, and their student governments. US onAir is committed to ensuring that all interested students and residents have the opportunity to engage in politics regardless of their time constraints or location.
Benefits for Curators
Young people will represent one of the major group of curators that help the US onAir coalition develop and enhance each state Hub. Curators will have the opportunity to update information about the politicians who represent them as well as other politicians they are interested in learning about and networking with. One key benefit is having the opportunity to conduct online and in person video interviews with these politicians.
While moderating discussions, curators will be able to learn about issues and communicate with the leading advocates of issues they are interested in. US onAir interns will receive a Hub post where they can include their resume, projects, video interviews, and other information about their interests, skills, and experience helpful to gaining employment and networking opportunities.
Benefits for Politicians
Twitter, Facebook, and other social media and online platforms provide an interface between candidates/representatives and voters/residents, though often those interactions are polarized and do little to promote quality communication. Voters and residents are not interest groups, are rarely concerned only about a single issue, and are not well represented by the brief and often detached interactions of social media. Politicians rarely have an opportunity to fully engage outside of in person events that tend to draw only the most engaged individuals.
USA onAir hubs will encourage and enable a wider range of participation and offer politicians an opportunity to listen to those constituents and talk about how their proposals and votes relate to their principles and needs of constituents. These interactions are mediated by curated forums and moderated live Q&A sessions.
This will clearly benefit politicians with limited resources and/or limited knowledge regarding social media, but it also benefits politicians and constituents who already have social media presence but are looking for a higher quality of discourse and engagement to understand their constituents and express their positions.
Benefits for Organizations
US onAir is a network for all US-based organizations who are nonpartisan nonprofits promoting democracy. These organizations will also have the opportunity to share their missions and activities with each other and the public as well as be sponsors of the posts they are most committed to advancing.
Qualifying organizations will be able to provide their members with the opportunity to be curators of posts at a federal, state, and/or local level.
Benefits for Advocates
Advocates of various issues important to US residentss will have an opportunity to contribute position papers, reviews, videos, and other types of content related to an issue. As premium members, they will be able to author new posts on issues and co-author existing posts on issues.
Advocates can sign up through an existing organization or individually. Advocate membership will be available by the end of this year.
The Schar School’s Power Lunch event series gathers some of the world’s top political leaders, journalists, and experts to discuss the prospects for the next four years of US public policy.
Each week, influential thinkers address some of the most pressing issues facing the United States and the world. Moderated by Professor Justin Gest, all events will stream live on the Schar School’s YouTube channel.
In this first “VA 2020 Election” show, we will review the recent US Senate and US House races in Virginia. Our review will be followed by a panel discussion with featured guests and later an open discussion with onAir Hub members. OnAir membership is free. Join here.
Subsequent VA 2020 election shows, starting on Nov. 16 at 7pm, will focus on individual races
What follows is a slideshow with short summaries of the candidates.
Fatally flawed or a ‘step in the right direction’?
“The Gerrymander: a New Species of Monster” Boston Gazette, March 26, 1812. (Library of Congress Newspaper, Serials and Government Publications Division)
By Bob Lewis
A lot of people worked decades for this: taking decennial reapportionment of Virginia’s legislative districts from the self-serving hands of partisan lawmakers, at least in part, and giving the job to a new commission.
Finally, they believed, voters could soon pick their representatives instead of the other way around. And they were close, they believed. So close.
Led mostly by Democrats who had been in the legislative minority since the end of the 20th century, redistricting reform advocates believed their moment was at hand in the 2019 General Assembly. A commission had found traction at a transitional legislative moment with a clearly ascendant Democratic Party on the cusp of seizing control and Republicans, fearing that very prospect, welcoming a new commission that would spare them from the gerrymandering in the 2021 redistricting that they had inflicted upon Democrats in 2001 and 2011.
But the good-government group that had pushed the state constitutional amendment was about to learn a hard lesson in transactional politics. When push comes to shove and their power is threatened, politicians will work across party lines to preserve their prerogatives. That’s why Proposed Constitutional Amendment 1 now on every Virginia ballot feels like it falls short of the mark for some.
First, however, some background.
The state Constitution gives sole authority to apportion Virginia’s 100 House of Delegates districts, its 40 state Senate districts and its 11 U.S. House districts to the General Assembly and, by extension, the party in charge. The work of reapportionment begins again in earnest in less than three months.
The U.S. Constitution compels every state to perform this exercise in demography and geography each year immediately following the Census to ensure that each U.S. House member represents roughly the same number of constituents in Congress. Virginia’s Constitution requires compact and contiguous districts of the same population, meaning that, to the greatest degree practical, boundaries should not split communities of interest such as neighborhoods or voting precincts. For generations, dominant parties have trashed those precepts with impunity to maximize the number of districts favorable to their candidates and minimize those favoring their rivals.
It’s called gerrymandering, a practice nearly as old as the republic. Advances in digital information and computer analysis allow legislators to marry election data with fresh, granular Census data to engineer bespoke and often meandering districts, cherry-picking constituencies with microscopic precision to achieve partisan performance objectives.
Partisan gerrymandering, though vexing to the party out of power, is legal, the U.S. Supreme Court has held. It turns illegal when gerrymandering is racial in nature, concentrating Black voters into the fewest possible districts and minimizing their opportunities to elect candidates of their choice. Sometimes, racial gerrymandering — intentional or not — is inherent in achieving a partisan goal.
In the 2001 redistricting, a Republican-led legislature sketched a serpentine congressional district that took in as many Democrat-friendly precincts with African American populations as high as possible. It crept its way from Hampton Roads through select Peninsula precincts — at one point no wider than a bridge where it crossed a creek — before coiling itself around part of Richmond at its westernmost terminus. Crafting that Democratic super-district for Democratic Rep. Bobby Scott, then the only Black member of Virginia’s congressional delegation, produced several adjacent congressional districts tailored for Republicans.
Federal courts have intervened to rectify egregiously gerrymandered Virginia constructs, including last year when judges redrew lines for 26 House of Delegates districts after finding that the Republican-controlled 2011 reapportionment shoe-horned too many Black voters into too few state House districts, much the way Scott’s district was drawn 10 years earlier. Republicans appealed the lower-court map that created six new Democratic majority districts all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, where they lost a 5-4 decision.
At the start of 2019, optimism was strong that, at last, the Virginia Constitution would be amended to give an all-citizen panel ultimate say on divvying up districts without regard to partisan aims. It explicitly prohibited segregating communities of color into a few districts to leave more White (and presumably more conservative) voters in other districts.
No plan that cut legislators out of picking their constituents was likely to live long once in the hands of legislators. The original plan was gutted and replaced with what appears now on every Virginia ballot. It would establish a 16-member panel, half of them legislators with four each from the House and Senate and equal numbers of Democrats and Republicans from each chamber. The other eight would be citizen members selected by retired judges from lists prepared by legislators.
It’s a legislative move that Del. Lashrecse Aird, D-Petersburg and a leading advocate against the amendment, called “the ultimate okey doke.”
“Although it is a commission and although it is half legislators and half citizens, at the core of the matter, legislators are ultimately picking the entire commission and controlling the entire process,” Aird said. “It’s not independent by any means.
“There is nothing in this amendment that says we should make sure it is racially and ethnically balanced, that it is geographically balanced, that it is gender balanced. There is no language whatsoever to make sure that the makeup of this commission is representative of the commonwealth, and particularly of Black and Brown representation,” she said.
The commission also has a potential pitfall. Supermajority requirements could make it tough for the commission to agree on new district lines. Dissent from just two legislative members of the same chamber and same party would derail the commission’s work and put the Virginia Supreme Court in charge of drawing the lines.
Aird and members of the Legislative Black Caucus voiced their concerns, yet the resolution won easy bipartisan passage with overwhelming Democratic backing in 2019 — the first of two enactments in years separated by a legislative election required for amendments to the state Constitution.
After last fall’s election gave Democrats legislative majorities — and the power to dictate redistricting for the first time since 1991 — their intraparty rift over Amendment 1 widened. This year, just nine House Democrats supported the amendment, joining 45 Republican delegates to narrowly secure the required second enactment and send the amendment to voters.
Now, with 2.2 million Virginians having already voted, Virginia Democrats present the conflicted and chaotic spectacle of party elders such as Sens. Mark Warner and Tim Kaine and U.S. Rep. Don Beyer endorsing Amendment 1 while the Democratic Party of Virginia campaigns to kill it.
Democrats also passed a new law that contains the explicit protections against racial and other forms of gerrymandering that were in earlier versions of amendment legislation. However, it would be up to the courts to hold lawmakers accountable for following that criteria, something they haven’t done in the past with compactness, for example.
A.E. Dick Howard, the University of Virginia law professor who superintended the state Constitution’s 1971 rewrite, says he shares some of Aird’s concerns and her preference for a fully independent commission.
“That would have been cleaner. It would have been a more effective way to prevent gerrymandering,” he said. But he said he will support the ballot amendment because “it’s an important step in the right direction.”
Howard said that while the text of Amendment 1 does not explicitly call out racial gerrymandering, it contains clear prohibitions against it.
Another essential improvement under Amendment 1 is transparency for a process historically done in strict secrecy behind locked doors, limited to only a handful of power brokers. The amendment would guarantee public access to commission meetings and records, he noted.
So seven days and a wakeup before voting on the amendment ends, the Democrats’ dilemma boils down to this: did they come this far and get so close to fall short, or will they make the perfect the enemy of the good?
Both say they’re working to end gerrymandering, and both say it’s the other guys who want to keep it around. They both use the same anti-gerrymandering talking points, like “Voters should choose their representatives, not the other way around.”
The Democratic Party of Virginia is officially against it. But two of its top figures, U.S. Sens. Mark Warner and Tim Kaine, voted for it on their own ballots already. It passed out of a Democratic-controlled General Assembly this year, but Republican leaders and conservative groups are urging their voters to support it.
Against that confusing backdrop, it’s understandable that many Virginia voters, particularly Democrats who for years have heard their party leaders talk up the urgent need for redistricting reform, don’t know what to make of ballot question 1. It asks if the state should create a 16-member, bipartisan redistricting commission to redraw Virginia’s congressional and legislative maps every decade starting in 2021 as new census data comes in.
For years, those who wanted to see redistricting power taken away from the General Assembly pushed for an independent, non-partisan commission, envisioned as a group of citizens who would draw fairer lines than self-interested politicians looking to juice their party’s numbers or protect their own seats.
The proposed constitutional amendment on the ballot this year doesn’t do that, giving half the commission seats to sitting legislators and half to citizens nominated by legislators and appointed by retired judges.
That’s one of the main shortcomings some Democratic lawmakers are highlighting to argue the plan wouldn’t really reform anything, instead allowing a smaller group of politicians and the politically connected to wield redistricting power. Rather than putting a flawed plan in the Constitution and maybe improving it in time for 2031, they say, it’s better to take the time to get it right.
“People across the board that think it ought to be a citizen-led process should all vote no on this,” said Del. Marcus Simon, D-Fairfax. “The amendment moves us in a direction that cements legislator involvement.”
That argument has been maddening for amendment supporters. If those insisting they want true independence from the General Assembly get their wish and the amendment is defeated, supporters point out, the General Assembly keeps its constitutional power to draw maps. That means no independence for the 2021 process, but a general promise to do something for 2031.
“Gerrymandering is cemented into the system now. Who do you think controls this?” said Brian Cannon, executive director of redistricting reform group OneVirginia2021. “It’s a false understanding of the status quo at best.”
OneVirginia2021 Executive Director Brian Cannon speaks at a news conference on Feb. 12 in support of a constitutional amendment on redistricting reform. (Ned Oliver/Virginia Mercury)
That point is reinforced by the state’s official text explaining the amendment to voters, which says a no vote “will leave the sole responsibility for drawing the districts with the General Assembly and the governor.” Opponents have quibbled with that explanation. But it’s legally required to be both neutral and factual, and the Supreme Court of Virginia refused to hear a challenge claiming it isn’t.
Some redistricting reformers say they’d like to see something similar to the California Citizens Redistricting Commission, 14-member, all-citizen panel made up of five Democrats, five Republicans and four people with no partisan affiliation. California’s application process is overseen by the state auditor, but partisan leaders have an opportunity to strike applicants they find objectionable.
Regardless of where legislators stand on how much independence from partisan players a good commission needs, there wasn’t enough support in the General Assembly to make a fully independent commission feasible for 2021.
The compromise plan that emerged was the product of a unique political moment, with control of the General Assembly up for grabs in 2019, when Republicans and Democrats weren’t sure which party was going to be in charge for the redistricting year.
Though some opponents have characterized the amendment as a scheme hatched by Republicans, the proposal for a commission with an equal number of legislators and citizens was introduced in early 2019 by Senate Democrats. That resolution became the amendment that passed a Republican-controlled legislature in 2019 and a Democratic-led one in 2020, despite the partisan power shift in between. Under Virginia’s system, it had to pass two years in a row before going to voters for a final up-or-down decision.
After passing with overwhelming bipartisan support in 2019 despite objections from about a dozen members of the Virginia Legislative Black Caucus in the House, the amendment was almost blocked in 2020 as House Democrats abandoned it in droves. Nine House Democrats joined with 45 Republicans to pass it 54-46.
Democratic House members abandoned the proposed redistricting amendment in big numbers during a floor vote earlier this year. Just nine Democratic delegates joined with Republicans to pass it. (Ned Oliver/ Virginia Mercury)
If Democrats had chosen to scrap the amendment this year and start over, it would’ve killed any chance for constitutional changes in time for the 2021 process.
Several senior lawmakers said allowing some legislative role was critical to drafting something with broad, bipartisan support, the idea being that elected officials are more familiar with how redistricting works and the geography of the areas they represent.
“If you just had straight citizens, who’s to say how that’s going to turn out?” said Senate Majority Leader Dick Saslaw, D-Fairfax, who supports the amendment and called arguments against it “pure bullsh**t” during the 2020 regular legislative session. “We did not put a provision in the bill, which some of the legislators wanted, that incumbency would be taken into effect.”
Under Republican control, the Senate passed several redistricting reform plans that routinely failed in the House. That changed in 2019, after a federal court ruled 11 majority-minority districts drawn in the Republican-led, 2011 redistricting had been unconstitutionally racially gerrymandered. That ended with the court redrawing the maps for the 2019 elections, signaling that Republicans were in serious jeopardy of losing their majority.
In an interview, Del. Kirk Cox, R-Colonial Heights, the House speaker in 2019, said that seeing a court-appointed expert from California redraw his district and others changed his thinking on redistricting reform. But he still felt legislators should be involved.
“They know the process,” Cox said. “It’s almost like having a commission that deals with police reform, a citizen commission, and not having anyone who’s actually been in a squad car or ever done it.”
The amendment’s critics say the bipartisan history of gerrymandering shows why they’re pushing for a stronger break from how things have been done in the past.
“To me, if you drew a map that they threw out as unconstitutional against Black people, you maybe shouldn’t be invited back to that table,” said Del. Marcia Price, D-Newport News.
Del. Cia Price, D-Newport News, speaks against the proposed redistricting amendment on the House floor in March. (Ned Oliver/Virginia Mercury)
During the 2020 session, Price pushed for an alternative, non-binding commission that would have included more prominent protections for minority communities. But she was forced to amend her proposal to include seats for legislators, commenting at the time that she was told she “did not have the votes” for a commission that banned legislators.
Her bill ultimately failed to pass, but many of the House Democrats now saying they can only support a truly independent commission voted for it, even with the seats for legislators added.
Simon acknowledged that a fully independent commission was a tough sell.
“It was impossible in 2019 because Republicans don’t believe in it,” he said. “It became really difficult to do in 2020 because Democrats in the Senate were wedded to their commission they had come up with.”
Others see a simple explanation for why some House Democrats are reluctant to vote for something that would force them to give up their power: They see a chance to use their hard-won majority to draw maps in their interest just like Republicans did in 2011.
“Once you come to that conclusion, you have to come up with some reasons why you’re opposed,” said Cox.
Other arguments against the amendment have centered on the perceived lack of attention to diversity and racial representation, as well as the potential role for the conservative-leaning Supreme Court of Virginia. Critics have suggested that, since either party can deadlock the commission and send the map-drawing process to the Supreme Court, Republicans might choose to take their chances with judges appointed under Republican legislatures.
Supporters have dismissed those concerns as overblown, noting the Supreme Court has recently upheld Democratic positions on major issues like a gun ban at the state Capitol and Gov. Ralph Northam’s COVID-19 shutdown orders. They also point out that the new proposed process will be public, unlike current redistricting, in which lawmakers hash out district lines behind closed doors.
Some Democrats claim they’ve already solved partisan gerrymandering by passing redistricting criteria legislation that says the statewide maps cannot “unduly favor or disfavor any political party.” But alleged violations of that broad standard may be difficult to prove or disprove, and would most likely require a ruling from the state Supreme Court, which tends to defer to legislative authority where laws are vague or ill-defined.
The amendment has been endorsed by numerous newspaper editorial pages, civic organizations and national good-government groups, including the League of Women Voters, the ACLU of Virginia, Common Cause, the Virginia Chamber of Commerce, the Princeton Gerrymandering Project and the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School.
“This is the best the Democrats could do in Virginia,” David Daley, a gerrymandering expert and author of the book “Ratf**ked: Why Your Vote Doesn’t Count,” said at a recent press event with redistricting reform supporters. “And if we’re going to have a process in Virginia in 2020 in which citizens have any seat at the table, this is the way to do it. If this does not happen, the Democrats will have complete control of the process.”
The amendment’s most prominent opponents include the Democratic Party of Virginia (which is officially urging Democrats to vote no on sample ballots and other literature), the Virginia conference of the NAACP and progressive advocacy groups like Progress Virginia and New Virginia Majority.
A recent poll conducted by Christopher Newport University’s Wason Center for Public Policy found significant public support for the amendment, with 48 percent of voters in favor, 28 percent opposed and 24 percent undecided.
Though some party leaders have flipped their positions on redistricting reform, the poll suggested rank-and-file voters may not be getting the message. It found 64 percent of likely Democratic voters in favor of the amendment, and Republicans more likely to oppose it.
Still, support for the amendment was weaker than what prior polls on redistricting reform have shown.
“Virginians are learning that Amendment 1 is not independent, nor is it non-partisan,” Del. Lashrecse Aird, D-Petersburg, said in a statement released by anti-amendment group Fair Districts VA.
Amendment supporters are cautiously optimistic that it will pass. Del. Sally Hudson, D-Charlottesville, a progressive, first-term lawmaker who was one of the nine House Democrats to vote for the amendment, said that’s what makes opposition a “safe play for progressives” who “get to say they were holding out for better without being on the hook if it fails.”
“If this amendment passes there will be nowhere to hide in the next round of reform,” Hudson said. “The only step forward will be full independence. Because that’s what’s hard about the politics right now. People who want more reform and people who want none can come together to oppose the amendment. But they can’t come together on an alternative.”
A voting sign at Pemberton Elementary School in Henrico,, November 5, 2019. (Parker Michels-Boyce/ for the Virginia Mercury)
Voting in Virginia was already changing even before COVID-19 arrived.
The combination of a global pandemic and some major shifts in state election laws — ushered in after Democrats took control of the General Assembly — means that when Virginians cast their ballots this year, they can expect things to be a little different.
Here’s what you need to know to make sure your vote counts in November.
When is the election and what’s on the ballot?
The election is Nov. 3.
In addition to the main event — the matchup between President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden — U.S. Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., is facing off against Republican challenger Daniel Gade and all 11 of Virginia’s seats in the U.S. House of Representatives are on the ballot.
Voters will also be asked to weigh in on a statewide referendum to create a bipartisan redistricting commission that, if approved, would redraw the state’s political maps every 10 years using new U.S. census data. Another state referendum question proposes to create a motor vehicle tax exemption for disabled military veterans.
There are numerous other local races and issues on the ballot depending on where you live, including a special election for vacant House of Delegates seat in the Winchester area and casino referendums in several cities.
Absentee voting
Early voting, which just got easier due to a change in state law that allows anyone to cast an absentee ballot without needing an excuse, began Sept. 18.
Officials are already seeing big spikes in absentee ballot requests as people seek safe alternatives allowing them to avoid any Election Day crowds, and asking voters to submit their ballot requests early to avoid any issues with a last-minute surge.
All polling places will be open on Election Day with social distancing protocols in place, so anyone who wants to go through the typical in-person voting process can do so. As usual, polls will be open from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m., and anyone in line at 7 p.m. will be allowed to vote. You can look up your polling place here.
If you choose to get an absentee ballot through the mail, there are multiple ways to return it.
You can mail it back using the provided envelope, which will include prepaid postage and a tracking code allowing you to keep tabs on your ballot through an online system called Ballot Scout.
Or you can take the ballot back yourself, dropping it off with an employee at your local election office or at one of the drop boxes the General Assembly recently approved.
If you don’t want to rely on the mail but still want to cast your ballot early, in-person absentee voting is going on now at your local elections office and satellite voting offices. You don’t have to fill out an application to cast an absentee ballot in person, you just have to verify your identity when you go.
There are some limitations on mail-in absentee ballots if it’s your first time voting in a particular locality and you registered to vote by mail. There are exemptions for people who might face particular difficulty voting in person, such as college students, military personnel and their spouses, the elderly and people with illnesses or disabilities. If it’s your first time voting in your city or county and you want to vote by mail, check with your local registrar to verify your eligibility.
What are the key deadlines?
The deadline to register to vote in November is Oct. 13.
The deadline to request an absentee ballot through the mail is Oct. 23.
The deadline to vote absentee in person is Oct. 31.
If I vote by mail, will my ballot arrive in time?
There can be complications if you wait until the last minute to mail your ballot back, and that’s a heightened concern for many this year due to slowdowns with the U.S. Postal Service.
If you want a mail-in ballot, the Postal Service recommends requesting one as early as possible and mailing it back before Election Day, preferably at least a week in advance.
In Virginia, election officials will count ballots that come in a few days after the polls close, as long as they’re postmarked by 7 p.m. on Election Day. Ballots received after noon on Nov. 6 will not be counted. Ballots with a missing or illegible postmark will be counted as long as they come in before the deadline.
Do I still need an ID to vote?
A change to state law this year means photo IDs are no longer strictly required. But if you have one, you should still bring it to streamline the process. Anyone who doesn’t have an ID can get a regular ballot, but only after they sign a statement affirming they are who they say they are.
Anyone who doesn’t have an ID and refuses to sign the statement can cast a provisional ballot, which will be set aside until election officials can determine whether the person is or isn’t a valid voter.
Other changes to state law expanded the types of identification documents that will be accepted, allowing voters to use expired driver’s licenses, bank statements, utility bills and paychecks to verify their identity. College students will also be able to use any higher education ID, regardless of whether it includes a photo or was issued by a non-Virginia school.
Three million dollars for public outreach. Nearly $2.5 million for refrigerators and thermometers. And more than $71 million for mass vaccination clinics, where hundreds of thousands of Virginians could be immunized against COVID-19.
Virginia’s plan, released to the Mercury Friday, shows the size and scale of a public health campaign designed to protect millions against a historic virus. The plan was submitted to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for review this week and remains “a living document as more information is understood, more vaccines are introduced, and any other considerations develop,” wrote Joseph Hilbert, the Virginia Department of Health’s deputy commissioner for governmental and regulatory affairs, in a Friday email.
But the plan also underscores many of the factors that health workers will contend with when it comes to distributing any future vaccine. While VDH is preparing for a potential Nov. 1 release — a date requested by the Trump administration after the president suggested a vaccine could be ready as early as this month — there’s “no absolute guarantee” of when any safe and effective immunization will be approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, said Christy Gray, the director of the department’s division of immunization.
Federal health officials have called a release before Election Day “very unlikely.”
What’s clear is that vaccination will be incremental and unprecedented compared to any previous disease outbreaks within the last decade. Virginia developed pandemic influenza planning more than a decade ago during the H1N1 swine flu outbreak — plans that have informed some of the state’s current coronavirus procedures.
But those mass vaccination efforts were still significantly different than what’s required for the COVID-19 pandemic — a potentially deadly virus that places certain types of people, including the elderly and infirm and those with other health conditions, most at risk. Virginia’s plans call for health experts to consider infection control measures at immunization sites, raising the possibility of drive-through clinics or events at large indoor venues that leave room for social distancing.
There are also significant outstanding questions about the vaccine itself, including how many doses will initially be available. While the federal government will determine how much of the vaccine is distributed to Virginia, according to the state’s planning document, health officials are planning a phased approach under the assumption that only limited amounts will be available when it’s first released.
The initial planning scenario tasks state officials with developing priority groups for the first distribution. Under the state’s plan, those include residents at long-term care facilities — which in Virginia account for nearly 50 percent of the state’s total COVID-19 deaths, according to VDH data — as well as health care workers and “people who play a key role in keeping essential functions of society running and cannot socially distance in the workplace.”
Those positions have yet to be determined, but could include first responders, teachers and childcare providers, according to the state’s planning document. Priority consideration will also be given to other high-risk groups, including Virginians aged 65 or older, people of color — who have also been disproportionately affected by the virus — and people living in congregate living facilities such as prisons, homeless shelters, or even college campuses.
“In the event that Virginia’s allocation during Phase 1 is insufficient to vaccinate all those included in the initial populations of focus, it is important for the Virginia Unified Command to identify and estimate the subset groups within these initial populations of focus to determine who will receive the first available doses of COVID-19 vaccine,” the plan reads.
More than 20 different divisions and agencies have a role in the 60-page document, including the Virginia Department of Education and the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia, which are expected to coordinate with local health departments on immunizing students and employees at K-12 schools and college campuses.
The plan calls for nearly $121 million in total spending for vaccination efforts, including more than $3.3 million for supplemental supplies such as Band-Aids, syringes and needles. The state anticipates paying nearly $40 million for a pharmacy benefits administrator to manage claims for un- and underinsured patients and distribute payments to pharmacies and other community providers for administering vaccines.
The vaccine itself will be supplied to the state free of charge, but the CDC says that administrative costs will likely be shouldered by state and local governments. Providers must vaccinate patients regardless of their insurance status or ability to pay.
VDH will distribute money to local health departments to assist with mass vaccination, according to the plan. But it’s still not entirely clear how the state will fund the effort. Virginia Finance Secretary Aubrey Layne recently said that roughly $700 million in remaining federal CARES Act money could go toward the state’s immunization campaign.
Gray said another complication could be the dosages for any future immunization. Many of the vaccines currently under trial will require two doses, “separated by 21 or 28 days,” according to the plan.
“Those vaccines are not interchangeable with each other, so that’s another consideration that wasn’t necessarily the case during any previous disease outbreaks,” she added. In other words, if patients receive an initial dose of a vaccine from a certain pharmaceutical company, their doctor, pharmacist or local health department will need to follow up with them to make sure they receive a second dose of the same vaccine within a certain timeframe.
It’s an effort that requires massive coordination and also the involvement of doctors across Virginia. The state’s planning document encourages patients to be immunized at their “medical home” whenever possible, and describes the early recruitment of doctors as one of the most important early factors in mass vaccination.
Earlier this month, Virginia Health Commissioner Dr. Norman Oliver sent a letter to providers asking them to register with the state if they planned on distributing a COVID-19 vaccine. Dr. Sandy Chung, a Northern Virginia-based pediatrician and president of the Virginia chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, said most primary care physicians already have experience in giving out vaccinations to large number of patients, but the state is likely hoping to recruit nontraditional providers such as school systems or large employers.
“I think that’s what they’re trying to assess — which health care providers are able to do this or willing to do this,” she added. “They need to know who’s ready.”
House of Delegates members walk past the south portico around at the end of the veto session at the Virginia State Capitol in Richmond, VA Wednesday, April 22, 2020. The House members were meeting outside in a tent instead of the House Chamber in order to practice social distancing due to the COVID-19 virus. (AP Photo/POOL, Bob Brown)
In the wee hours of an unseasonably balmy, humid Sunday in mid-March, legislative staff on the ninth and 10th floors of Capitol Square’s decrepit, old General Assembly Building had opened their windows wide to mitigate the swelter from unrelenting, clanking steam radiators. Beyond exhaustion from a week of late nights, many hours of work lay ahead for them.
Those top floors were rarefied real estate, home to the most powerful committees in state government — those with the final say over how the state spends tens of billions of dollars — and the expert staffs who did the heavy lifting. And on this last long night, days behind schedule and hours past the 2010 legislature’s scheduled final adjournment, a dozen delegates and senators cloistered behind closed doors, bickering and dickering over the fine print of what would be the $77 billion state government spending blueprint through June 2012.
It’s known as the budget conference, an innocuous-sounding insider term that means little or nothing to ordinary Virginians. But the agreement that rival House and Senate members sealed with a handshake around 2 a.m. on that warm, late-winter Sunday — and at the conclusion of budget conferences every year — was highly consequential to their daily lives from the taxes they pay to funding for their kids’ schools and everything in between. It’s no less true in the current special session as House and Senate budget negotiators try to square differing versions of a pandemic-ravaged proposed budget of $137 billion, 77 percent larger than that budget adopted 10 years earlier.
No other piece of legislation holds as much sway as state budget bills, which not only form the 24-month financial framework for the commonwealth but also supersedes other state law. That such critical legislating is done at the last minute in sometimes chaotic, often contentious late-night sessions well out of public view by sleep-starved people amid the intermingled odors of cold pizza and burned coffee did not — and should not — inspire confidence.
Nobody has seen the budget conference process from more different perspectives than Bill Leighty, an immensely accomplished senior state government veteran who cut his teeth in the 1980s with a seven-year stint on the Senate Finance Committee staff. From there, Leighty would direct the sprawling Virginia Retirement System before serving as chief of staff to two successive governors, Mark Warner and Tim Kaine.
“What makes them (budget conferences) so powerful is that what they agree on and put in the conference report goes directly to the floor and can only be voted up or down — no amendments,” said Leighty, now retired and an adviser to the L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs at Virginia Commonwealth University. “And, because they’re presented so late, everyone is loath to send it back to conference for a redo.”
How late? In 2010, the committee staffs had only 15 hours that Sunday to write the budget conferees’ agreement into its final form and have printed copies on all 140 legislators’ desks for that up-or-down floor vote, leaving them barely enough time to go home, change clothes and return to Capitol Square. The House and Senate convened at 5 p.m., agreed to the conferees’ work and adjourned sine die before 6.
That’s the lawmaking equivalent of driving down a twisting, one-lane mountain road on a moonless night with one working headlight and brakes that didn’t pass inspection. Yet somehow, mainly through the exacting work of highly professional staffs fighting off sleep with energy drinks and raw adrenalin, it has never jumped the guardrails and tumbled into the abyss.
Budget conferences don’t always bust their deadlines, and it’s not as though there aren’t weighty issues at play when they do. In 2010, like this year, the state was in the grips of a monstrous economic collapse that ravaged the official revenue estimates on which the budget is built. Both years forced significant cuts in state operating outlays.
In 2004, during a battle over reforms Warner proposed to fix what he called a structural imbalance in the state budget (Republicans labeled it a tax increase, and they weren’t wrong), the House and Senate deferred passage of a budget to an April special session. In the end, Warner got most of what he wanted from a GOP House and Senate through the budget bill.
Leighty recalls that budget battle as significant because of its use of the “repealer clause,” a provision in the budget that trumps statutory law. He said he authored dozens of them over his years on the Finance Committee and said the clauses can be spotted in any budget bill by looking for sections that begin with the words “Notwithstanding any other provision of law… .”
“We put all the tax changes in the (2004) budget bill so that it overrode tax law,” he said.
Opacity and even occasional sleight-of-hand is an old tradition of budget conferences. Reporters and their voice on Capitol Square — the Virginia Capitol Correspondents Association — have stormed and huffed about it many times over the decades (including two years when this writer was its president) to no avail.
Over the decades, conferees have gone to bizarre, almost zany lengths to shield the byzantine proceedings from public view. In his years as a cub Finance Committee staffer, Leighty was assigned by the committee chairman, the late Sen. Ed Willey, to walk conspicuously past the cramped press filing room in the musty bowels of the Capitol with a boxload of budget documents and calculators, luring reporters in the opposite direction of where the conferees would actually meet.
“Ed Willey had one hard-and-fast rule: that the conference committee had to meet in a public building. So we picked some wonderful places: the Science Museum, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, the budget offices, the Old Finance Building,” he said.
In one such cat-and-mouse adventure in the 1980s, the conferees had covertly gathered in an empty room in the then-mothballed Old Finance Building (since renovated to its former splendor and renamed the Oliver Hill Building) that sits just down the hill from the Capitol and nextdoor to the Executive Mansion. The tactic worked, Leighty recalled, until Joe Gatins, a sharp-eyed reporter for theRichmond Times-Dispatch, spotted a single room with lights blazing in a darkened, derelict building.
“He went through the system of tunnels that connect the buildings on Capitol Square and popped up right in the middle of the conference committee,” Leighty said with a chuckle. “When he did, they scattered.”
What does the public miss in those closed cabals? It’s hard to say.
We know the items that are in conflict between the House and Senate budget bills, we know there is argument — sometimes loud enough to penetrate the closed doors — and we know there is compromise. The biggest disputes were not partisan but between House and Senate members battling over conflicting provisions in their rival budget bills. Their final resolution on those disagreements was usually pretty clear when it was over.
This week, that process starts anew, but possibly with a wrinkle. It’s not clear whether the budget conferees will gather socially distanced in person (doubtful considering that floor sessions have been conducted virtually) or via Zoom conference. And if it’s the latter, will the press (and public) be able to watch?
That’s a prospect that would have been unimaginable when Joe Gatins was sleuthing for stealthy conferees.
The story of how the former Confederacy capital turned blue is one of demographic shifts, a Democratic political machine and Donald Trump.
The story of how Virginia went blue in presidential years is one of demographic shifts, a Democratic political machine and Trump. It’s the story of how a state’s voting patterns can change – and how politicians know all too well that they can change back again.
“Virginia is a blue state”, said Stephen Farnsworth, a political science professor at the University of Mary Washington.
Virginia’s economy is, compared to elsewhere in the country, “recession resistant. That makes it an appealing place for people to move when they’re thinking about their futures,” Farnsworth explained. People move from all over the country – and indeed all over the world – to live and work in Virginia.
After controlling both chambers of the state legislature and the executive mansion for the first time in a generation, hundreds of new laws passed by the Democratic controlled Virginia General Assembly and signed by Governor Ralph Northam (D) take effect July 1.
Northam signed more than 1,200 bills that cleared the General Assembly during the 2020 session.
Many of those bills are duplicates, commending resolutions, or technical tweaks to existing law. Although many Virginians might not see or know the direct impact, several bills will directly impact daily life and discussion in Virginia.
“We’re excited about what’s going to happen and what will become law at midnight,” said Del. Jeff Bourne (D-Richmond). “We are putting Virginia on the right side of history. Although, we may be getting on the right side of history a little late for some things.”
Virginia Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine is preparing for battle with President Donald Trump over renaming military facilities that honor Confederates — and he’s expecting to win.
In an interview with the Mercury, Kaine said he believes the GOP-controlled Senate would override a possible presidential veto of a defense policy bill that would begin a process to rename the facilities. Doing so would require support from two-thirds of those voting.
Republicans hold 53 seats — or 53% — in the U.S. Senate. Democrats hold 233 seats — about 54% — in the U.S. House.
“I think we need to put it on his desk,” Kaine said. “If he were to veto this bill, I think we would override it.”
If the bill becomes law, it would be a major victory for the movement for racial justice and equality, which has intensified in recent months.
Suburban voters like Schmiegelow represent an existential challenge for Virginia Republicans, who haven’t won a statewide election since 2009. They’ve lost control of the executive mansion, the state legislature, and a majority of the state’s congressional seats.
The latest blow came last week when almost 1,300 bills passed by the new Democratic majority in the General Assembly went into effect. Republican laws on everything from abortion to voter ID were wiped off the book.
Part of the problem for Virginia Republicans is the president, according to Shaun Kenney, the former executive director of the Republican Party of Virginia.
“The suburbs just do not react well to Donald Trump in the White House,” Kenney said. “There’s just no way of getting around that.”
Federal elections on the ballot: President, US Senator, and 11 US House members
Ballot measures: Redistricting Amendment
The State Board of Elections administers elections and campaign finance laws, including the preparation of ballots and implementation of state and federal election laws (such as the Help America Vote Act).
> The Virginia onAir Hub is currently focusing on this year’s US Senate and House races. After the federal elections are concluded, Virginia onAir will focus on governance.
>Select this link to view all the US House races in a slide show.
>Select this link to view the US House races in an interactive map (not viewable on phones).
WASHINGTON (ABC7) — The biggest political race in Virginia is for a seat in the U.S. Senate.
Incumbent Democrat Mark Warner is running for a third term. Republican challenger Daniel Gade is hoping to replace him.
ABC7 Northern Virginia Bureau Chief talked to both for one-on-one interviews.
“Why do you believe you deserve a third term,” Barber asked Warner.
“I spent 30 years in business before I went into public service and I went into public service because I wanted to get stuff done and I brought a bi-partisan approach,” said Sen. Warner who was a telecommunications executive before he became Virginia’s Governor and U.S. Senator.
“Your opponent has accused you of not wearing a mask at functions. What would you say to those criticisms — the way the Republicans have handled this pandemic,” asked Barber of Gade.
“Yeah neither, well first off it shouldn’t be a partisan issue, I mean this is a global pandemic,” said Gade. “As serious as the deaths are, in some sense, is the fact our economy has ground to a halt.”
At Wednesday’s debate, held virtually due to the coronavirus pandemic, Gade tried to gain ground by attacking Warner as a career politician who flip-flops on key issues.
“The same old stale ideas aren’t working for Virginians,” Gale said.
Warner pitched himself as a business and tech-savvy moderate who is well-known to Virginians. He dismissed Gade’s attacks as theater.
“President Trump has been shown by the Washington Post to have committed over 20,000 lies in his tenure. It appears my opponent is actually trying to catch up with him today,” Warner said.
The three debates will have the two candidates discuss various issues facing Virginians and other Americans, such as the COVID-19 pandemic and healthcare prices.
The first debate is slated for Sept. 23 and will be hosted by the Northern Virginia Chamber of Commerce and NBC4 Washington.
Warner and Gade are scheduled to debate again on Oct. 3 in Norfolk, where the event will be hosted by Norfolk State University and a yet undecided media partner. The Norfolk debate will be focused on issues surrounding race and justice
Richmond will be another location for a debate between Gade and Warner, where the event will be hosted by the AARP and WTVR on Oct. 13.
A poll released this week by the Virginia Commonwealth University L. Douglas Wilder School of Government shows presidential candidate Joe Biden and U.S. Sen. Mark Warner leading by double-digit margins in the commonwealth.
The Richmond-based university conducted a telephone poll of just over 800 adults from Aug. 28 to Sept. 7.
The results show Democratic nominee Biden ahead of President Donald Trump by 14 percentage points (53% to 39%).
Va. Sen. Mark Warner showed a 17-point lead over his GOP challenger Daniel Gade in a recent VCU poll.
Warner, a Democrat who has represented Virginia in Congress for more than a decade, is ahead of his Republican challenger Daniel Gade by 17 percentage points (55% to 38%). The poll had a margin of error of 5.17 percentage points for all adults sampled and 6.22 percentage points for likely voters.
Mark Warner’s favorable rating is 51%, up 14 points since May, while his unfavorable rating rose from 21% in May to 26% in August. Daniel Gade, his Republican challenger, is largely unknown with two-thirds of likely voters (67%) not knowing enough to have an opinion of him. Positively, his favorable rating of 20% doubles his unfavorable rating of 10%.
“Senator Warner has a comfortable margin at this point with a healthy lead, a positive favorable rating, and an opponent in Daniel Gade, who is largely unknown to most voters. Gade’s hope lies in his low unfavorable rating and the opportunity to define himself if he can reach the voters.”
U.S. Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) joined Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) in introducing comprehensive broadband infrastructure legislation to expand access to affordable high-speed internet for all Americans.
The Accessible, Affordable Internet for All Act will seek to address the digital divide by investing $100 billion to build high-speed broadband infrastructure in unserved and underserved communities. The legislation in the House of Representatives is led by House Majority Whip James E. Clyburn (D-SC) and members of the House Rural Broadband Task Force.
“The current health crisis has only underscored what we already know: that too many households across the country lack reliable access to broadband,” said Sen. Warner. “In Virginia alone, it’s estimated that more than 700,000 Virginians lack access to broadband, making it harder for families to access essential services during these unprecedented times. Access to broadband helps communities meaningfully participate in the digital economy. Individuals can apply for a job or submit a college application, families can connect with their health care providers without having to travel long distances, and teachers and students can advance and supplement their online learning. Accessibility to broadband is vital to increasing digital literacy, achieving economic stability, and advancing education, and this critical legislation will help bridge the gap for communities that still need access to this critical technology.”
Republican nominee for US Senate Daniel Gade is challenging Mark Warner to five debates. Virginians deserve to hear the difference between the tired ideas of a career politician and the new, fresh visions of a lifelong servant leader. Daniel Gade is demanding these 5 debates be spread throughout the entire Commonwealth, including Southwest, Tidewater, Richmond, Southside, and Northern VA.
“Virginians deserve to hear the difference between Mark Warner’s do-nothing career and a fighter who can actually get things done in the Senate for Virginians,” said Daniel Gade. “I am thrilled to challenge Warner to these 5 debates that will cover real issues such as affordable healthcare, quality education, well-paying jobs, individual liberty and much more. As a warfighter and a professor, I look forward to debating Warner on the battlefield of ideas.”
Incumbent Senator Mark Warner first won election in 2008 getting 65% of the vote over former governor Jim Gilmore. In 2014, during the Tea Party movement, Senator Warner won re-election with 49.1% of the vote defeating former chairman of the Republican National Committee Ed Gillespie by 0.8%. Warner is running for a third term.
Dr. Daniel Gade is a retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel, professor, and public policy leader running to serve the Commonwealth of Virginia in the U.S. Senate. Gade has served in President George W. Bush’s administration, working on veteran issues and military healthcare, and has since served on several national-level policy councils, including the National Council on Disability and the VA Advisory Committee on Disability Compensation.
A masked protester near the Virginia State Capitol during a “Reopen Virginia Rally” in Richmond, Va., April 22, 2020. (Parker Michels-Boyce/ For the Virginia Mercury)
Americans can be a selfish lot. Not everybody, of course. But too many people couldn’t care less about taking the necessary steps to keep deaths and infections from COVID-19 at bay.
It’s not that hard: Stay at home as much as possible. Wear a mask out in public and in buildings. Wash your hands. Avoid situations where you can’t stay at least 6 feet apart. Treat workers with respect and deference who must come into contact with consumers. Limit the number of people at social gatherings.
Folks, none of these are Herculean tasks. We’re not being asked to climb mountains, mine for ore or donate a kidney just to survive.
Yet several months into this raging pandemic, the “me-first” mentality is readily apparent, in the commonwealth and elsewhere:
• The Virginia Department of Health issued a news release last week noting COVID-19 cases were surging in Norton city and Lee, Scott and Wise counties. “Keep in mind that your behavior can help protect yourself and others — or put you and them at increased risk,” said Dr. Sue Cantrell, a director of health districts in the area. (I tried to interview Cantrell about whether resistance to mask-wearing contributed to the numbers, but I couldn’t reach her.)
• A mid-October wedding at Wintergreen Resort forced several employees to quarantine because of possible exposure to COVID-19, an official said. Some staffers tested positive. Weddings are special, but shouldn’t couples limit the number of guests because of the times we’re in? Even then, you don’t know if all the well-wishers had recent tests confirming they were free of the virus.
• Lynchburg General Hospital’s acute care facilities were “strained,” a top official said, because of an influx of coronavirus patients last week.
• Despite new restrictions imposed by Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker prohibiting indoor dining in specific communities, a throng of customers showed up and packed a restaurant in defiance of the guidelines, the Chicago Tribune reported. The restaurant’s social media post said it was opening “out of survival and to help our staff pay their bills.” Yet Pritzker this week warned “there seems to be a COVID storm coming.”
The United States has proved the days of exceptionalism are over — unless you’re talking about leading everybody else with more than 226,000 deaths. By mid-October, the United States had the highest numbers of COVID-19 infections and deaths, and officials said we’ve entered a third peak of cases in many states.
We don’t have a vaccine. So why is it so hard for Americans to do what medical experts advise to fight this thing?
University professors I interviewed and scholarly articles suggested several reasons: Partisanship, since many Republicans followed President Donald Trump’s lead in downplaying or even denying the coronavirus’ existence, and they resisted wearing masks. A rugged individualism — baked into the nation’s founding — over working for the common good. And pandemic fatigue, even as there’s no end in sight to the carnage.
“We are a country that values individualism, materialism and wealth over the well-being of our neighbors,” Tim Goler, assistant professor of sociology and urban affairs at Norfolk State University, told me. He’s one of the researchers overseeing a pandemic study of older adults.
Goler added that people are fed up with being at home, especially if they haven’t been directly affected by deaths or illnesses: “They’re willing to sacrifice people dying.” You saw indications of this even earlier this year, when protesters demanded states to reopen their economies — even as spikes of infections continued.
“The pandemic has exposed the extent to which we do not live in a ‘United States of America,’ ” said Ernestine Duncan, a psychology professor at NSU. She noted people in other nations have accepted strong restrictions on movements and behavior, and they’re faring better than the U.S.
Clearly, we’re an individualistic society, Duncan noted.
It made me wonder about the last time our sprawling, populous country really sacrificed as a whole for the common good. Historians might point to World War II, in which food, gasoline and clothes were rationed.
Officials and residents collected scrap metal and rubber for the war effort. Women entered defense plants to work because so many men had joined the military and people grew “Victory Gardens” in large numbers to supplement their meals.
The circumstances, though, aren’t totally analogous. Back then, Americans were forced into rationing because of governmental mandates; that hasn’t always been the case this time. Trump has hesitated to restrict the movements and actions of citizens in spite of the way the coronavirus is transmitted.
In the 21st century, our rugged, go-it-alone mentality has horrific consequences. We shouldn’t be surprised by the ever-rising COVID-19 death toll if we continue to be more concerned about individual comfort rather than our collective safety.
Virginia Health Officials are warning about small gatherings. It’s part of the concern over rising numbers in southwest Virginia but the message goes to the entire state as we head into the holidays.
“Coming together as an extended family as if you are in one household does present risk,” said Dr. Daniel Carey, Virginia Secretary of Health and Human Resources.
During a COVID-19 briefing Wednesday, Governor Ralph Northam said those gatherings are the reason behind a percent positivity climb from 5% to 8% in southwest Virginia.
“I know that many people are tired of COVID restrictions. We are all tired of not having social get togethers, not going to see sports or shows, not having the regular interactions that we count on in our lives,” said Northam.
To understand the mind of a teacher, those of us who do other things for a living must attempt some mental gymnastics.
Let’s imagine a professional passion so acute that when the coronavirus shuttered classrooms, they pivoted with little warning or rehearsal to digitally link dozens of children from home and continue daily instruction remotely.
Close your eyes and comprehend a devotion to students so strong that you spend your personal money to supplement classroom supplies as eclectic as sanitizing wipes and Elmer’s glue, crepe paper and whiteboard markers.
Now, as days start shortening and summer bends toward autumn and a new academic calendar, imagine balancing your innate yearning for the classroom with a well-reasoned fear of a monstrously contagious, potentially deadly virus that medicine still can’t control and science doesn’t fully understand.
Finally, overlay that against the backdrop of political conflict and chaos that multiplies by the day.
The Virginia Department of Corrections says it’s down to 22 active cases of COVID-19 among inmates in the 40 prisons it operates around the state.
Gov. Ralph Northam’s secretary of public safety, Brian Moran, touted the figures Friday, which include six hospitalized prisoners and 16 still being held at various correctional facilities. He emphasized the latter number in a presentation to lawmakers.
“We have 16, let me repeat, 16 active cases in all of our correctional facilities,” he said during a joint meeting of the Senate’s judiciary and social services committees. “That’s out of 28,000 inmates, 40 correctional facilities. Sixteen — one six — active cases.”
Virginia is refusing to release information on COVID-19 outbreaks at poultry processing plants on the grounds of privacy concerns, despite a June decision to provide such data for long-term care facilities.
In response to a Freedom of Information Act request filed by the Mercury in June after Gov. Ralph Northam’s administration began releasing facility-specific data for nursing homes, the Virginia Department of Health said it would not provide the same information for poultry processing plants “in order to ensure that VDH is able to preserve the anonymity of individuals whose medical records have been examined during the investigation of COVID-19.”
“VDH is considering how to make the information you have requested available at the health district and/or regional level,” wrote VDH Deputy Commissioner for Governmental and Regulatory Affairs Joseph Hilbert in an email.
Neither a followup request to Hilbert nor an inquiry to the governor’s office about the justification for releasing such information for nursing homes but not poultry plants were answered.
Virginia onAir curators have recorded and produced a number of video interviews on Virginia representatives and candidates for state Senate and House to help Virginia voters learn more about each politician.
Inside this post are some of the interviews conducted mostly by George Mason University students.
Virginia onAir is US onAir’s model of a curated state Hub. Over the past two years, George Mason University alumni, faculty, students, and staff through their GMU onAir chapter have led the development and testing of this Hub.
Virginia is located in the Southern region of the USA with Richmond as its capital. The Virginia General Assembly has 40 Senate members and 100 House of Delegate members. Ralph Northam is the current governor. Mark Warner and Tim Kaine are its senators.
> To view Virginia’s current political leaders, select the feature image or the post title above. To view leaders by position, select the three dots in the post title.
> Select this link to view all US House members in a slide show.
>Select this link to view all US House members in a map format (only in big screens).
Central US onAir Hub: us.onair.cc Model state Hub: va.onair.cc Current focus: US Senate races Launch date: September 22, 2020
Overview: To reinvigorate our imperiled democracy, US onAir is developing 50 curated, media rich online state governance and election Hubs and a central US Hub. We are supporting the US public to become more informed about and engaged in federal, state, and local politics while facilitating more civil and positive collaboration.
US onAir is a growing coalition of individuals and organizations creating a new kind of digital democracy network. Participation in US onAir is open to all US citizens and qualifying organizations. Democracy onAir, a nonpartisan 501c3 nonprofit, is providing the technology, curation, and organizational support needed to establish a dynamic, evolving network.
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Our lead onAir chapter to be started with George Mason University students, faculty, and staff will coordinate student curators from Virginia colleges, universities, and high schools.
I am currently the Curation Director for Virginia onAir. I am a recent graduate of George Mason University. I majored in Global Affairs and was a Global Political Fellow where I interned with Democracy onAir. I am also a founding member of the GMU onAir chapter.
Senator Warner was elected to the U.S. Senate in November 2008 and reelected to a second term in November 2014. He serves on the Senate Finance, Banking, Budget, and Rules Committees as well as the Select Committee on Intelligence, where he is the Vice Chairman.
“Tim has made boosting job opportunities for everyone a top priority. Tim is focused on crafting smart defense strategy and reducing the risk of unnecessary war. Tim believes that health care is a right … and has consistently pushed for reforms to expand access to quality care.”
