A cohort of Virginia lawmakers are seeking an investigation into whether or not Attorney General Jason Miyares used confidential information provided by the state Department of Corrections in his reelection campaign advertising this year. The lawmakers’ request, sent in a letter to the Virginia Office of the State Inspector General Sept. 29, stems from campaign ads for Miyares and public events that seek to tie specific reoffenders to Democratic opponent Jay Jones’ past vote in favor of a law that allows inmates to trim their time behind bars. The inclusion of a particular offender’s status, “coupled with the Attorney General’s claims regarding earned sentence credits, suggest information not otherwise available to the public,” the lawmakers wrote. “This position clearly indicated that the information could not be disclosed under the Virginia Freedom of Information Act.” Records requested by The Richmond Times-Dispatch — which prompted lawmakers’ letter to OSIG — yielded a response from VADOC that qualification for EESC was a “protected record” and that a list of recipients’ names “does not exist.”

We Virginians are about to elect our 75th governor, the first woman to hold the office. For those not yet up to speed, you can learn quite a lot about Democrat Abigail Spanberger or Republican Winsome Earle-Sears in very short order. For instance, in two or three clicks — less than five seconds — you can see how many millions of dollars their campaigns have raised, who gave each the most and how they’ve spent it. We take that knowledge for granted now. “Just VPAP it,” we say, using the acronym for the Virginia Public Access Project as a verb just as off-handedly as we’d say, “Google it.” What’s amazing to folks of my advancing years is how relatively new all of this is and the unlikely way VPAP evolved out of a journalistic aspiration to democratize essential information about who runs our state and local governments, and the money (and influence) behind them.