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Friday
December 22, 2017
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We're taking a few days off next week. We'll return on the 28th.
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state & local news stories
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"This is where I might include a pull quote or a . . . ?"
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SB 131 - Edwards: Provides that voter registration conducted in a high school and voter registration events sponsored or conducted by an entity or organization which the general registrar or an assistant registrar attends as an invitee are not required to be open to the public. Currently, opportunities for voter registration are required to be provided at sites open to the public. The bill also provides that notice is not required for voter registration that is not open to the public.
VCOG's annual legislative chart
Virginia elections officials on Thursday began recounting ballots in a House of Delegates race scrutinized because more than 100 voters were given ballots for the wrong district. Stafford County Chief Circuit Court Judge Overton Harris, who oversees the recount court in the 28th District race, initially restricted the proceedings to elections officials and lawyers and observers for the two candidates and barred the media. But after an appeal by an attorney for the The Washington Post, the chief judge granted a petition for public access to the recount.
Washington Post
The Peninsula Airport Commission has agreed to accept $2 million from a local bank and law firm to settle a monthslong dispute over a 2014 loan to a startup airline at Newport News/Williamsburg International Airport. The six-member board voted unanimously Thursday to sign off on the deal with TowneBank and Jones, Blechman, Woltz & Kelly over a $5 million loan guarantee to People Express Airlines. That agreement means the three sides won’t be going to court over the issue — a possibility that had hung over negotiations for months. “It’s not a perfect situation, but it’s one we can live with, and one we think the community can be satisfied with,” said Peninsula Airport Commission Chairman George Wallace, the former Hampton mayor and a member of the board’s negotiating team.
Daily Press
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stories of national interest
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A federal appeals court has ruled against rushing to force Metro into placing Christmas ads on D.C. buses, upholding a ban against the Archdiocese of Washington’s “Find the Perfect Gift” campaign. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia denied an emergency motion Wednesday that would’ve compelled Metro to immediately place the Christmas ads on city buses, which the transit agency said violate its policies against touting anything “issue-oriented, including political, religious and/or advocacy in nature.”
The Washington Times
At least $600,000 in public money has been spent over the past 20 years to settle 13 workplace misconduct claims against senators' offices, including $14,260 for a single settlement alleging sex discrimination, according to data released late Thursday. The information on workplace harassment payouts from a fund maintained by Capitol Hill's Office of Compliance, divulged by the Senate Rules and Appropriations Committees, does not include any details on which offices the payments correspond to. Its release came as the Rules panel, led by Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), faced pressure from both sides of the aisle to join the House in opening the Senate's taxpayer-funded settlement books amid a national outcry over sexual harassment.
Politico
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The Senate is facing pressure to open its sex discrimination settlement books.
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editorials & coloumns
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VCOG board member Paul Fletcher asks, in VLW editorial, "A sledgehammer or a scalpel?"
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Students at several of the commonwealth’s public universities got a surprise on their cell phones last fall: A text message urged them to register to vote, and to support the local Democrat running for the House of Delegates. The students’ cell phone numbers were obtained through a Freedom of Information request made by NextGen Virginia, a group of left-leaning political operatives. What NextGen did was entirely legal within the Freedom of Information Act. And use of student information to sell something has been a long-standing practice. The data usually came from a printed student directory; the company seeking to use the info merely had to rekey it to create a usable database. If the General Assembly wants to address this issue, it has two starkly different ways to solve the problem of access to student information. It can take the sledgehammer that is Del. Tony Wilt’s HB 1, with likely unintended consequences. Or it can take the scalpel that is Del.-elect Chris Hurst’s HB 147, targeting the problem specifically and removing it.
This is an easy call: Advantage Hurst.
Virginia Lawyers Weekly
According to the most famous words of the First Amendment, “Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech.” But what did the Founders understand those words to mean? A remarkable answer comes from Jud Campbell, a University of Richmond law professor, who has just produced what might well be the most illuminating work on the original understanding of free speech in a generation. In a November article in the Yale Law Journal, Campbell argues that the Founders meant to protect a lot less speech than most of us think.
Case Sunstein, Richmond Times-Dispatch
A nonprofit organization that is not required to identify its backers raised more than a half-million dollars last year and spent much of that money to influence voters to support extending light rail to Town Center in a referendum. It is uncertain where most of Light Rail Now’s money came from, though The Independent News has identified two contributions from business-friendly political action committees. A 990 form released last week by the nonprofit shows sums given by unnamed contributors. That return and a version obtained from the U.S. Internal Revenue Service show what was raised and how it was spent, though not in the detail required by campaign financial disclosure forms. No names are named in forms citizens can request either from the government or the organization itself. Influencing policy through ballot initiatives while avoiding disclosure has wider implications than advocacy by one nonprofit in a Virginia Beach ballot question. The use of certain nonprofits as vehicles for “dark money,” as the practice is known, could happen again here or elsewhere in the commonwealth.
Princess Anne Independent
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