Most Read Articles May 14, 2024
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Virginia lawmakers approve bipartisan spending plan
Weeks of Virginia state budget drama ended Monday with pledges of bipartisan goodwill as the General Assembly passed a compromise two-year spending plan that boosts funding for education and other priorities without increasing taxes. Votes in both the Senate and the House of Delegates were nearly unanimous. Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R), who had raised the specter of an unprecedented state government shutdown by vowing not to sign the budget the legislature passed in March, rushed Monday to sign the new document after a special one-day legislative budget session.
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Yancey: You can’t say this word in some movies. But you can put it in a sign for all to see.
A year ago, my home county of Botetourt — like many others — was roiled by a controversy over library books. The specific concern was that children could walk into any county library and, with no supervision, find books that some considered obscene — and which certainly had some sexual content. The group BRACE — Botetourt Residents Against Child Exploitation — said it was not advocating book banning. “What we ARE proposing,” the group says on its website, “is the establishment of sensible and reasonable community standards. … And this is not about free speech. The Supreme Court has ruled that the First Amendment does not protect obscenity.” People can differ about whether the books in question — the group listed 26 on its website, many with LGBTQ+ themes — are, indeed, obscene. However, we as a society have generally agreed that not everything is appropriate for all age groups.
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Virginia’s skill game debate could stretch into the summer
After finishing work on almost everything else taken up during the 2024 session, the Virginia General Assembly and Gov. Glenn Youngkin have decided to keep talking about skill games. The governor and several lawmakers said Monday that they’ll continue seeking a way to get the slot machine lookalikes taxed and regulated in response to a major lobbying push by business owners and the companies that make and distribute the games. “What we decided was that we would pick that up at another day,” Youngkin said Monday as he signed a bipartisan budget deal that didn’t address the legality of skill games. “That’s a commitment that we’ve made.”
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State budget includes $50M for broadband deployment
Virginia’s recently passed law to speed broadband deployment to rural areas now has a financial component. Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s signature on the General Assembly’s budget bill will move $50 million over two years from the general fund to the Virginia Telecommunication Initiative, or VATI. The money, earmarked to help cover construction costs for private sector broadband service providers, follows the so-called make-ready bill passed in April to solve disputes and speed work toward getting internet to the commonwealth’s rural residents.
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An inside look at how AP African American Studies is taught at one Va. high school
Standing in the front of his Lorton, Virginia, classroom in October, Sean Miller told his students that food would be a topic of conversation during the class period. He also said they would talk about the types of goods that emerged in ancient East and West Africa. Part of that would involve how the influence of gold shaped the development of certain African empires. But first, Miller advised the class to pay attention to the video he was about to play. As part of a conversation about the cultural implications of food, he asked the class the types of food they’d expect to see at a Black family reunion.
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Republican group takes rare step of targeting GOP incumbent who voted to oust McCarthy
A political action committee that helps Republicans get elected to Congress is doing the unusual — spending more than $450,000 to defeat a GOP incumbent. That incumbent, conservative two-term Rep. Bob Good, R-Va., voted to remove former Rep. Kevin McCarthy as House speaker last fall. It’s just the latest example of how money is flowing into races involving some of the eight Republican lawmakers who voted along with Democrats to oust McCarthy. About $3.3 million has been spent on ads in the Virginia race going into Friday, according to the media tracking firm AdImpact.
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EDITORIAL: Hutchins: Mr. Jefferson’s Tears, or how to quell a student rebellion
It’s been days now since dozens of unruly masked students were cleared from University of Virginia Grounds. The school and the surrounding Charlottesville community are still coming to terms with what happened, how and why. Partisan newspapers across the country have blown the story out of proportion, claiming without evidence there was more violence and destruction than eyewitnesses remember. Politicians in Richmond and Washington have openly questioned the university’s direction. Some blame a weak-willed administration, others blame professors instructing students in thoroughly un-American studies and others blame the students themselves, too young, too spoiled, too choleric to control their baser instincts.
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Virginia lawmakers to study campus safety policies after series of protests
The Virginia House of Delegates has formed a select committee on maintaining campus safety and allowing students to exercise their First Amendment rights, after more than 125 arrests at four of Virginia’s college campuses. According to Sen. Ghazala Hashmi, D-Richmond, the Senate will announce its plans to form a similar committee on Tuesday. “I’ve heard very different scenarios from those who were on the ground and in encampments either as students or as community members that were part of those protests,” Hashmi said. “I think it’s important to get a very clear picture of what’s happened.”
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General Assembly passes budget with funds for priorities, no tax hike
The General Assembly found a way to compromise with Gov. Glenn Youngkin on tax policy while paying for such priorities as raises for teachers and state employees in a $188 billion two-year budget that the legislature adopted on Monday. The House of Delegates voted 94-6 to pass the spending plan for July 1, 2024, through June 30, 2026. In the Senate, the vote was 39-1. The budget compromise avoids a showdown with Youngkin over modernizing Virginia’s tax code and returning the state to a multistate compact for reducing the greenhouse gases that scientists link to global warming and climate change. It also sidesteps — for now — an unresolved debate over whether to allow electronic “skill” games in convenience stores ...
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Virginia lawmakers pass bipartisan budget that leaves tax policy unchanged
After months of partisan combat over different priorities, Virginia lawmakers approved a bipartisan budget deal Monday with no major tax changes, funding boosts for education and mental health and salary increases for teachers and state employees. Both chambers of the General Assembly approved the new two-year budget plan by wide margins. In the House of Delegates, the vote was 94-6. The state Senate approved it 39-1.