Top VaNews Stories of 2016!
VaNews aggregated more than 10,800 articles about Virginia politics in 2016. Here are the ones that generated the most reader interest:
The 5 Most-Clicked Stories of 2016
1. Editorial: More changes to Va's Constitution (Smithfield Times)
2. McAuliffe administration official accepts Redskins' invite for playoff game luxury box (Associated Press)
3. Here's what happens when Miley Cyrus door knocks for Clinton at a college dorm (Washington Post)
4. Visualization: Map of court-imposed congressional districts (vpap.org)
5. Va's ethics chief forced out as Supreme Court takes up McDonnell case (Washington Post)
Most-Clicked Stories -- by Category
Executive Branch
By ALAN SUDERMAN, Associated Press
A top official of Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe's administration accepted an invitation from the Washington Redskins to watch a playoff game from one of the team's luxury boxes, the kind of gift top lawmakers said shouldn't be allowed under a new ethics aw the General Assembly passed to great fanfare last year.
VaNews January 22, 2016
General Assembly
By MICHAEL MARTZ, Richmond Times-Dispatch (Metered Paywall - 20 articles a month)
Members of the House of Delegates and Senate have talked about what they need or want in a new building for the General Assembly. So have their legislative aides. But the planning that legislators contributed to this week doesn’t address an old obstacle that remains in the path of replacing the deteriorating General Assembly Building at North Ninth and East Broad streets — the bonds to pay for it remain unsigned on the desk of Gov. Terry McAuliffe.
VaNews March 9, 2016
McDonnell Case
By PATRICK WILSON , Virginian-Pilot (Metered Paywall - 15 articles a month)
Maureen McDonnell smiled softly as she touched her husband’s face during Palm Sunday Mass. Worshippers at that point of the service were invited to offer one another a sign of peace. Bob and Maureen McDonnell kissed. Attending services at The Basilica of Saint Mary of the Immaculate Conception in Norfolk highlighted the former governor’s attempt to live a normal life while facing the uncertainty of a possible two-year stay in federal prison. The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday will hear oral arguments in McDonnell’s appeal of public corruption convictions.
VaNews April 26, 2016
State Elections
By TRAVIS FAIN, Daily Press (Metered Paywall - 10 articles a month)
The 2016 elections are more than five months away, but the 2017 state races started long ago. This is Virginia. Election season is an interminable phenomenon, thanks to the state's unusual off-year elections filling holes between even-year local and federal races. Three statewide government slots will be on the ballot next year: governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general. Democrats are largely falling into line behind unopposed front-runners for two of those jobs, though there's bound to be some jostling in their primary for lieutenant governor. Republicans have a more robust slate set to duke it out.
VaNews May 30, 2016
Federal Elections
By IAN SHAPIRA, Washington Post
Miley Cyrus — the celebrity wrecking ball, twerking machine, chart topper, Instagrammer and former Bernie Sanders supporter — added a move to her repertoire Saturday: door-knocker for Hillary Clinton. “Hello? How are you? I’m Miley,” Cyrus said after knocking on the George Mason University dormitory room door of Jake Zartman, 18, a freshman from Ohio.
VaNews October 24, 2016
State Government
By LAURA VOZZELLA, Washington Post
The head of the state’s ethics council announced that he had been forced out of his position, just as the Supreme Court on Wednesday takes up the gubernatorial corruption case that spawned creation of the panel in the first place. Executive Director Chris Piper disclosed his dismissal Tuesday at a council meeting that underscored how much Richmond continues to struggle with ethics reform.
VaNews April 27, 2016
Congress
By RACHEL WEINER, Washington Post
When Rep. Scott Rigell (R-Va.) announced last month that he would leave Congress at the end of his term, it came as such a shock that Sen. Timothy M. Kaine (D-Va.) called to ask if he was sick. He wasn’t. Both he and Rep. Robert Hurt (R-Va.) are young (for congressmen), healthy, popular and perched on powerful committees. Both were expected to win reelection easily this fall. Instead, both are stepping down.
VaNews February 9, 2016
Economy/Business
By CAROL HAZARD, Richmond Times-Dispatch (Metered Paywall - 20 articles a month)
Virginia continues to slip in a prominent ranking of the best states for doing business. The state came in at No. 13 on this year’s list of America’s Top States for Business, released late Tuesday afternoon by business-focused news channel CNBC. It was ranked the third-best place for business in 2012.
VaNews July 13, 2016
Transportation
By JEFF HAMPTON , Virginian-Pilot (Metered Paywall - 15 articles a month)
A new, $1 billion interstate highway planned to connect Norfolk and Raleigh will open a high-speed, unobstructed route between a Virginia port and the Research Triangle. The road, to be called Interstate 87, could take as long as two decades to complete. It has the support of elected officials, business leaders and agencies in Virginia and North Carolina, including both highway departments, chambers of commerce and all four senators.
VaNews June 10, 2016
Higher Education
By THOMAS WHEATLEY, Washington Post
The ridiculous smear campaign against my law school’s recent name change to “The Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University” and its subsequent acceptance of a $30 million donation has taken yet another disappointing turn — one that has prompted me to supplement my previous commentary on the subject.
VaNews May 5, 2016
Virginia Other
By CRAIG MACHO, Fauquier Times
They might or might not have been from the National Enquirer, but two men flying a drone over the home of Fauquier County resident and Hollywood icon Robert Duvall learned a quick lesson in property rights when the drone drifted over the home of Duvall's neighbor, Jennifer Youngman, a few weeks ago. “I was cleaning my .410 gauge and .20 gauge on my front porch when I noticed them,” she recalled of the mid-June incident.
VaNews August 23, 2016
Local
By ALISSA SKELTON , Virginian-Pilot (Metered Paywall - 15 articles a month)
The future of Virginia Beach is likely to dominate the conversation over the next five months as nine candidates compete for positions on the City Council and four run for mayor. Tuesday marked the filing deadline to register as a candidate in those races. The election will be held Nov. 8. All races are nonpartisan and the terms last four years.
VaNews June 16, 2016
TV/Radio
By MALLORY NOE-PAYNE, WVTF
Virginia’s lawmakers will descend on Richmond in the New Year, gathering to tackle some of the state’s biggest challenges like education and healthcare. But for 10-percent of Virginians those challenges are starker, and steeper. Now one former lobbyist is hoping to call attention to parts of the state that he says, continually go unnoticed by lawmakers.
VaNews December 22, 2016
Online News
By JIM STINSON , PoliZette
More than 1,000 aliens, or residents who are not U.S. citizens, have been free to vote illegally in Virginia. The bombshell disclosure was made in a report released by the Virginia Voters Alliance based on findings from the Public Interest Legal Foundation.
VaNews October 3, 2016
Editorials
Smithfield Times Editorial (Paywall)
Virginia amends its Constitution every few years, whether the document needs it or not. There have been more at least 45 amendments tacked onto the current Constitution (it’s hard to keep track) since it was enacted in 1971. Nor do Virginians shy away from tossing out the whole document and starting over. That is essentially what has happened when the present Constitution was adopted in 1971 — and four other times since the first one was adopted in 1776.
VaNews October 13, 2016
Columnists
By WARREN FISKE , Richmond Times-Dispatch (Metered Paywall - 20 articles a month)
South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley came to Richmond recently and torched Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe’s management of the state’s economy. Haley came to endorse and raise money for fellow Republican Ed Gillespie, who plans to run for governor in 2017. ... At a forum arranged by Gillespie’s PAC, Haley hearkened to the days of Gov. Bob McDonnell, McAuliffe’s Republican predecessor. "Virginia was a tough guy to beat," she said, adding, "... and then, to turn it around and find out what no state ever wants: More people today are leaving Virginia than moving in."
VaNews May 31, 2016
Op-Ed
By JENNIFER RUBIN, Washington Post
The Post reports, “The Hillary Clinton campaign has begun checking into the positions, backgrounds and financial dealings of at least three potential vice presidential candidates, Democrats familiar with the process said Tuesday: Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro, Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Sen. Timothy M. Kaine of Virginia.” There may be a longer list as well. It’s hard to imagine these three are the top contenders.
VaNews June 23, 2016
The Friday Read
By JON GERTNER, New York Times
It was a few minutes before noon on Tangier Island in Virginia, just about high tide, when David Schulte pushed the toe of his red sneaker into Marilyn Pruitt’s soggy backyard. Schulte, a marine biologist with the United States Army Corps of Engineers, frowned, withdrew his foot, found another spot nearby and pressed his toe down again. His sneaker sank into the ground, and water pooled around it. “It’s like that all the time,” Pruitt called out from her back porch. “It doesn’t dry out anymore.”
VaNews July 8, 2016
From VPAP.org
VPAP shows how yesterday's court ruling would alter the political calibration in five of the state's 11 congressional districts. Click through to any district for details on demographics and political performance.
VaNews January 8, 2016
Dec. 29, 2016