Search
‘We are seeing real momentum’: Republicans think Virginia could be in play this year
Republicans are openly floating that this will finally be the year that Virginia shifts from the Democratic column it’s been in for several presidential elections and back into the battleground category where Donald Trump could win. The prospect of turning the state red was the topic of discussion between the former president and Virginia GOP Gov. Glenn Youngkin when they met last week, according to a source with knowledge of the meeting.
Now’s your chance to spend the city of Richmond’s money
If you’ve ever thought you could do a better job at spending taxpayer money than your elected officials, now’s your chance to prove it. Richmond set aside $3 million in the next fiscal cycle for residents to decide how to spend. Seriously. The process, called participatory budgeting and dubbed “the people’s budget,” can be traced back to a successful experiment in Brazil in 1989. It started gaining traction in U.S. cities in 2019, Hollie Russon Gilman reported for Axios.
Pentagon shoots down Youngkin concerns over Chinese solar panels
The Department of Defense is rejecting recent concerns that a project to install solar panels on the roof of the Pentagon and other installations would use Chinese materials. The Pentagon pushback came after Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin penned a letter to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin last week expressing concerns that a $104 million, taxpayer-funded plan to add solar panels to the Pentagon and other installations would make use of Chinese materials, which the governor warned would have “significant implications for U.S. national security.”
In Virginia, Bob Good’s Republican Primary Has Split the MAGA Movement
Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia stepped off a tour bus wrapped in “Trump 2024” decals one afternoon last week in the south-central Virginia with a simple message: Representative Bob Good of Virginia, the chairman of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus, was a traitor to former President Donald J. Trump. “We need loyalists,” Ms. Greene barked at about a dozen voters gathered on the baking cement of a parking lot in Goochland. Mr. Good, she said, had “kicked Trump when he was down, and went and endorsed another candidate.”
Bristol Casino reports second-highest revenue month
The Bristol Casino, future home of Hard Rock, just recorded its second highest month for adjusted gaming revenues since opening. For the month of May, the temporary Bristol Casino reported $12.4 million in adjusted gaming revenue — wagers minus winnings — from its 891 slot machines and $3.05 million from table games, for a total of $15.46 million, according to a new report from the Virginia Lottery, which oversees casino gaming in the Commonwealth.
Bob Good’s Investments Are a Mystery. His Explanations Are Even More Mysterious.
When Bob Good first ran for Congress, he made no secret of what stocks he owned: They were all listed in personal financial disclosure reports. Valued between $200,000 and $1.7 million — there are wide ranges allowed in the reports for each asset — Good divulged that he owned over 100 different stocks and mutual funds on his first disclosure as a congressional candidate in 2020. But just a few years later, as a member of Congress and candidate in a highly competitive primary, the details of Good’s finances had disappeared. Government ethics experts told NOTUS his lack of disclosure appears to be a violation of the House Ethics Committee rules for candidates and members of Congress.
Norfolk judge rejects police Flock camera evidence
A Norfolk Circuit Court granted a defendant’s motion to suppress evidence obtained by the city’s Flock license plate reader cameras without a search warrant, ruling the Fourth Amendment protects the right to privacy. “Installing a global positioning system (GPS) device on a vehicle to track a citizen’s whereabouts is a search and requires a warrant,” Judge Jamilah LeCruise wrote in a five-page ruling. “The Court finds that due to the breadth of FLOCK cameras covering the entire City of Norfolk and the storage component is also akin to a GPS device and requires a warrant.”
A school board reinstated Confederate names. It split the community again.
A.D. Carter V worries about the pressure he’ll feel next year when he walks through the doors of the newly renamed Stonewall Jackson High School — a Black student forced to pay homage, every day, to a Confederate icon of the Lost Cause. “It’s not going to be the happiest place,” he said. “I’m walking in there knowing that this name signifies that I wasn’t originally intended to go there nor allowed to go there.” Carter is one of five high-schoolers who joined a lawsuit filed recently by the Virginia NAACP against the Shenandoah County School Board over its decision last month to restore the names of Confederate leaders at two schools after they were removed in 2020.
With so many choices in primary races, will Virginia consider ranked choice voting?
Virginians will not lack choices when they go to the polls on Tuesday to vote in Republican and Democratic primaries for U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. But in many races, they may end up with party nominees who win without a majority of votes cast or even much of a plurality. ... So is it time for Virginia to broaden use of ranked choice voting to ensure that winners receive at least 50% of the vote? "The 2024 primaries are about the best case you'll ever see for ranked choice voting," said Stephen Farnsworth, director of the Center for Leadership and Media Studies at the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg ...
Evictors in Richmond often are local
Monay Leon grew accustomed to seeing the “pay or quit” notice taped to her apartment door whenever she was late on her rent. Her complex was sold in 2022. Its new owner, John B. Levy and Co., hoped to convert 129 units in the complex into condos. In the process, John B. Levy became one of the most prolific eviction filers in the city — bringing 128 cases to Richmond General District Court in 2023. A sliver shy of filing one case for every unit, Leon’s new landlords notched one of the highest filing rates in the city, according to an analysis of public records data by the Richmond Times-Dispatch.