Politics/Elections

Virginia lawmakers punt on bills aimed at limiting partisan election oversight

June 30, 2022

BY GRAHAM MOOMAW Voters cast ballots at Main Street Station in Richmond in 2020. (Ned Oliver/Virginia Mercury)(VM) – Despite getting several extra months to negotiate, Virginia lawmakers went home for the summer without a deal on proposals to limit partisan influence in the state’s election bureaucracy. Legislation that would have removed the governor’s power to […]

Bill to boost economic growth in low-income communities

June 17, 2022

~ Bipartisan legislation will create a new tax credit to promote private investment in community lenders ~ WASHINGTON – This week, U.S. Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-VA) led senators Roger Wicker (R-MS), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), and Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-MS) in introducing bipartisan legislation to promote lasting economic prosperity in Black, brown and low-income communities. […]

‘Completely bogus and silly’: Trump spread claims of election fraud debunked by his own legal team

June 14, 2022

Former President Donald J. Trump disembarks Marine One at Valley International Airport in Harlingen, Texas Tuesday, Jan. 12, 2021, and boards Air Force One en route to Joint Base Andrews, Md. (Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead) BY JACOB FISCHLER Former President Donald Trump planted the seeds for the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. […]

Va. House Democrats pick Scott as new minority leader

June 7, 2022

Del. Don Scott, D-Portsmouth. BY GRAHAM MOOMAW (VM) – Speaking to reporters after his successful bid to become the new Democratic leader in the Virginia House of Delegates, Del. Don Scott, D-Portsmouth, said he upgraded his TV room during the pandemic so it’d be easy to “go home and relax.” “But there are too many people […]

Virginia bans private funds for election offices after grants from Zuckerberg-allied group

May 24, 2022

BY GRAHAM MOOMAW (VM) – Election offices in Virginia will no longer be able to accept private grant money under a new law passed in response to a $3.7 million infusion local election administrators got in 2020 from a nonprofit funded partly by Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg. The grants from the Center for Tech and Civic Life, which says […]

From embrace to ‘replace’

May 20, 2022

By Susan Milligan(USN) – No one was harder on Republicans’ lack of outreach to minority communities, and the party’s accompanying losses at the polls, than the GOP itself. In a brutally frank self-examination, the party concluded in a 100-page “autopsy” of the 2012 election that it was focusing too much attention on white, Christian, straight […]

Paris Perspective: A Push for More Black Republicans

February 24, 2022

By Maria Paula Republicans are riding high these days, in Virginia, and elsewhere. Virginia, which had become a reliably blue in the last decade or so, just elected its first Republican governor in a decade last November (Glenn Youngkin), its first black woman lieutenant governor (Winsome Sears), and its first Latino attorney general (Jason Miyares). […]

The Two Faces of Glenn Youngkin

February 21, 2022

By Susan Milligan (USN) – In an environment of Big Lie-telling, hate-tweeting and celebration of all things partisan, Glenn Youngkin looked like a relic from the Republican past as he campaigned successfully last year to be Virginia’s governor. With his fleece vests and affable manner, Youngkin cast himself as a determined conservative eager to unite […]

Thousands of incarcerated people in Virginia who cannot legally vote will no longer be counted in their prison’s district as if they can, thanks to a new law.

February 3, 2022

By Charlotte Woods (CT) – In Virginia, incarcerated people lose their constitutional right to vote while they are serving their sentences. And yet, those people have previously been counted where they are incarcerated — skewing population data, which affects how voting districts are drawn. The idea of people being counted in places where they don’t […]

McEachin condemns McConnell over comments on African American voters

January 31, 2022

By Maria-Paula Senate Minority Leader and Kentucky Republican Mitch McConnell is facing fire over his recent comments in response to a question about voters of color. McConnell made his remarks during a press conference after a senate session where Republicans halted consideration of the Freedom to Vote: John R. Lewis Act, legislation targeted to implement […]

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