Former House of Delegates Democratic
Leader David Toscano’s
new book seeks “to show why states matter in this great nation of ours,” he writes. Photo: John Robinson.
Some of our states are up to no good. Texas just passed a comprehensive and dangerous abortion ban. Florida has banned mask mandates in schools, even as the delta variant sweeps across the nation. At press time, California voters are standing in line for a bizarre recall election that could see a candidate currently polling at 28 percent take the governorship.
Of course, since the founding of this country, states have always had control over their citizens’ lives in material ways. But the Trump era accelerated “a trend that has been apparent for years—states increasingly acting to fill the policy void,” writes longtime Charlottesville lawmaker David Toscano in his new book, Fighting Political Gridlock: How States Shape Our Nation and Our Lives. Reading the news the last few weeks, it’s hard to argue with his thesis. The challenge now is pushing back.
Toscano knows a thing or two about the powers of states: He spent 14 years as Charlottesville’s representative in the Virginia House of Delegates, and served as the Democratic leader from 2011 to 2018. (Republicans controlled the chamber for that entire stretch.) He retired from the House in 2020, though he’s still practicing law. He’s as eager as ever to gab about local and state politics, and writes regularly on his blog.
Fighting Political Gridlock, which was published by UVA Press and hit stands on September 7, isn’t a memoir. You won’t find Toscano waxing poetic about the halls of the state capitol or spilling juicy secrets about his former co-workers. Nor is it a polemic, in which he argues on behalf of the issues he spent so long fighting for in the legislature. Fighting Political Gridlock is more of a civics lesson than anything, an effort “to show why states matter in this great nation of ours,” he writes in the acknowledgments.
The book’s second chapter opens with a well-known quote from Supreme Court justice Louis Brandeis: “A single courageous State may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country.”
Brandeis’ optimistic notion of our states is borne out in some ways, Toscano tells C-VILLE. “Look around at a place like Virginia, that’s been leading the way on the transformation towards a renewable energy economy,” he says. “We can do it a lot faster than the feds can, because they’re bogged down. It’s very difficult for the Congress to make decisions.” And in other areas, like election laws and criminal justice reform, Virginia has made real progress in the last few years.
As recent events show, however, state autonomy is a two-sided coin. To return to Brandeis’ laboratory metaphor: “Some scientists are geniuses,” Toscano says, “and some are evil geniuses. The things you produce in a lab can have really, dramatically bad consequences for people if you let them out.”
In theory, one major check on the worst impulses of the states is the body on which Brandeis sat—the Supreme Court. But in recent years, the court has repeatedly abdicated its duty to moderate the states’ laboratory experiments, Toscano argues.
“Although there are some places where the courts will rein in the excesses of the states, if you look at what’s happening in the Supreme Court, you can’t be particularly confident that they’re going to do the right thing,” he says.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott recently signed off on the Texas Heartbeat Act, which bans abortion after six weeks. Earlier this month, the Supreme Court allowed the legislation to stand. Photo: Gage Skidmore.
So if the court won’t watch over the states, who will?
First and foremost, “the way to control the excesses is through citizen participation,” Toscano says. “It’s going to be citizen engagement—voting, pressuring, organizing at the state level—that’s going to hold people to account.”
For an illustration, Toscano turns to Georgia. In 2013, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority gutted the Voting Rights Act of 1965, removing a provision that required the federal government to sign off on new voting laws from states with a history of discrimination. That “unleashed a wave of voter suppression efforts,” writes the Brennan Center for Justice, and gave places like Georgia free rein to pass new, restrictive voting laws.
In the years since, Georgia has become “a really good example” of citizens pushing back on state recklessness, says Toscano.
“They have been working at the grass roots on voter rights for some time,” says the former delegate. “And they are having an impact. They’ve been able to make voting easier for people even though the state legislature tries to make it more difficult.” As a result, Joe Biden was victorious in Georgia, and two Democrats won in the state’s U.S. Senate runoff election.
In some circumstances, Toscano says, it’s also possible to push back on new state laws in state-level courts. State constitutions, crucially, often contain clearer language than the federal constitution. For example, the right to vote is not actually enshrined in the U.S. Constitution, but many state constitutions include “the right to fair and equal elections,” or a phrase to that effect. That allows for challenges to voting laws at the state level, and such challenges are underway around the nation. “At least 30 lawsuits are aimed at laws in 11 states that opponents say restrict voting access,” reported The Wall Street Journal this summer.
Is that recipe—grassroots organizing combined with legal action—enough to secure voter rights for all in a place like Georgia? “We’ll have to see, over the next few years, how this plays out,” Toscano says.
In the meantime, he hopes everyone in the country will pay attention to state politics more consistently. A politically supercharged Supreme Court case with national implications for abortion law draws plenty of eyes to the Texas legislature, but the day-to-day function of state government remains under-discussed, Toscano argues.
The book includes some horrifying figures about state-level political participation: Just one in three Americans can name their governor, and less than a quarter of Americans aged 18 to 34 can name a single one of their senators, according to two studies conducted in the last four years.
The state has a tremendous amount of control in education policy, Toscano says. Redistricting fights take place at the state level, and ultimately determine the makeup of the U.S. Congress. These and other issues often don’t break through in our ever-more-nationalized political discourse.
“For some time I have been concerned that people focused so much on the national government that they lose track of really important decisions that are being made at the state level,” Toscano says. “I hope this book will contribute to the dialogue about how we can fix it.”
Protesters at a Richmond rally hold signs demanding the removal of Confederate statues. Photo: Eze Amos
“No pipeline.” “Climate action now.” “That awkward moment when you burn your own planet.” On December 6, a crowd of about 70 sign-carrying protesters gathered at Charlottesville’s Free Speech wall to demand the city and state government take immediate action against climate change. Carrying their handmade posters, musical instruments, and reusable water bottles, the activists took turns delivering passionate calls to action.
Then Sally Hudson stepped on stage. “For the next three months, turn your eyes to Richmond,” said Charlottesville’s newly elected member of the Virginia House of Delegates. “We have such a special opportunity here, in the year 2020, to finally make progress on climate change.”
Hudson is a member of the Democratic Party’s brand-new “trifecta” government. After the November 2019 elections, the Democrats have a 21-19 majority in the State Senate, a 55-45 majority in the House of Delegates, and a blue—if embattled—governor still in place. The election saw record voter turnout across the state, and handed the Democrats their first trifecta in nearly 30 years.
“All the energy’s on the Democratic side right now,” says David Toscano, the recently-retired House of Delegates minority leader and Hudson’s predecessor as the representative for Virginia’s 57th district.
The Republicans are “discouraged and despondent,” says Toscano, while the Democrats are “really fired up.”
“They have a chance to do some really good things,” the veteran lawmaker says. “Hopefully they’ll avail themselves of that chance.”
Climate change is only one item on the Democrats’ long to-do list. The new lawmakers campaigned on a host of issues including gun reform, voting rights, and—in Charlottesville especially—Confederate statue removal. But even with total control of the government, Democrats and their supporters can take nothing for granted during this 2020 legislative session, which began on January 8.
In front of the enraptured crowd at the climate rally, Hudson echoed Toscano’s message.
“The turnover in the majority makes some real progress possible,” Hudson said. “Possible, but by no means guaranteed.”
Del. Sally Hudson
A brave new party
Democrats last held all three branches of Virginia government in 1993—and the party has changed greatly since then. Creigh Deeds, the veteran state senator who represents Charlottesville and a swath of rural area northwest of town, has been a member of the assembly since 1992. This year, he’ll become the only sitting member to have served in a majority and a minority in both the House and Senate.
“When I first got there…there were a lot of rural Democrats, there were a lot more conservative Democrats,” he says.
Today, the party is more liberal than ever before. That last trifecta was “such a different membership,” says George Gilliam, a UVA history professor and a veteran of Virginia politics. Gilliam served on Charlottesville City Council and ran for Congress in the ’70s. Even up through the ’90s, Gilliam says, the party was organized through “that good ol’ boy network.”
“The progression was, you serve on the PTA or on the school board, then you serve in the local government, then you move up to state government,” Gilliam says. “That was pretty rigorously observed.”
“Most of the members of the General Assembly were elite white males,” Gilliam says. “Overwhelmingly lawyers. That pattern has been pretty well broken. We’re seeing a much larger number of women, much larger number of people who are not lawyers, and a generally more diverse membership.”
The Democrats elected Eileen Filler-Corn as speaker of the House of Delegates. She is the first woman and first Jewish person to hold the office in the history of the assembly. Charniele Herring is the first woman and the first black person to serve as House majority leader. The new legislature includes Virginia’s first two Indian American legislators and first Muslim senator.
Tim Kaine’s 2005 gubernatorial campaign marked a shift for the party, according to Deeds. Kaine focused less on rural areas than northern Virginia and the Richmond suburbs, where he performed well. That success reflected the changing demographics and priorities of the party.
In some cases, the shift is literally generational. Deeds fondly recalls serving with Jerrauld Jones, a Norfolk Democrat, in the 1990s. Jones left the House in 2002, but in 2017, his son Jay Jones won the race for his dad’s old seat.
Charlottesville’s delegation is a proxy for the wide range of voices in the majority. Deeds is a career politician who speaks with a Southern twang, and Hudson is a 31-year-old economist with no previous political experience.
“Sally Hudson is going to be an articulate spokesperson for the more liberal side of the Democratic party,” says Gilliam. “Creigh Deeds, I think, presents excellent balance.”
“It would be unfair to say the people I served with weren’t progressive, they certainly were,” Deeds says, but times have changed. “We’ve got a new generation of leaders and a different sort of Democratic party.”
_______________
Remapping Virginia
The above maps show the Virginia Senate makeup in 2020 and in 1993, the last time Democrats had a trifecta. With the exception of a few long-standing rural members, Virginia Democrats won their 2020 majority by dominating in northern Virginia, Richmond, and Hampton Roads. By contrast, the Democratic majority of the ’90s was a much more rural party, with control in southwestern areas that have since become deep red. Dramatic population growth in northern Virginia over the last decade has helped facilitate this change.
The maps also show the shifting sands of redistricting–the borders of these senate districts have moved meaningfully in the last 30 years, and will continue to move as redistricting gets underway following the 2020 census.
_______________
Balancing act
“The first question out of the box will be, ‘How do Democrats want to conduct themselves?’” Toscano says. In his mind, they have two options: pass everything they’ve been denied for the last decade, or focus on a narrower set of more moderate reforms.
“Some people got elected because of Trump, and no other reason,” Toscano says. “Too far, too fast” remains a concern for the party, even though many Democratic voters are hungry for change. Voters who came to the polls to sound off on Washington might be alienated if the party moves left, says the longtime lawmaker.
“People don’t always march in lockstep,” Toscano says. “There will be push and pull within the Democratic party.”
In addition to wrangling their own party, Democrats will also have to contend with a savvy group of opponents.
“The Republicans have the advantage at this point, even though they’re in the minority, because they’ve got legislative leadership experience,” Deeds says. “They can set traps, because they’ve been in charge for 20 years.”
That experience gap could prove especially significant in the House, says Deeds. “Mistakes can happen. They’re smart, they’ve got good leadership, it’s just going to take a little while.”
Democrats will have just 60 days to figure all of this out. The session convened on January 8 and ends March 7.
“The process itself is kind of a barrier,” says Deeds, “You have to move the legislation forward, balance the budget, get it all done in the span of eight and a half weeks.”
Hudson, though she represents the party’s new guard, seems to understand the challenges of the process of lawmaking.
“The number one constraint is time,” she says. “We’re a little bit less empowered than other trifectas might be. The General Assembly is not like Congress, it’s not a slow deliberative body.”
“If the bill of your dreams doesn’t pass by mid-March, it doesn’t mean that we forgot about it,” Hudson says.
Sen. Creigh Deeds, Del. Rob Bell, former Del. David Toscano
In the minority
Rob Bell has represented Fluvanna, Greene, and northern Albemarle as a Republican since 2002. This will be his first session in the minority.
“You end up with the same tools you always have,” Bell says of his new role. “A surprising amount is: Can you craft policy that everybody agrees is a good idea?”
Often, upwards of 600 bills are passed in a session, and Bell emphasizes that the vast majority of those are bipartisan bills that have been vetted by commissions and panels year-round.
“There’s nothing glamorous about most of the work we do,” Bell says. For example, these days he’s working on a project to bring school bus drivers in his district out of retirement, to make up for some shortages.
Every now and then, a high-profile bill comes along. But after the discussion, “everyone in the room empties out, except for the committee,” Bell says, “and then the committee goes, ‘Alright, so now we’ve got 15 more bills to look at today.’”
Even so, the new majority means uncertainty for Bell and his Republican colleagues. Bell says his group isn’t despondent so much as unsure what to expect. “I don’t even know what my committees are going to be,” he said before the session. (Bell wound up on Courts of Justice, where he’s served in the past, though he will no longer be the committee’s chair.)
In the Virginia House of Delegates, committee assignments matter a lot. Bills must pass through a committee before making it to the House or Senate floor, where the whole chamber can then vote. Speaker Filler-Corn will determine the composition of committees and also determine which committees vote on which bills.
“In many ways, Speaker Filler-Corn has more power than the Governor over what gets out of the next session,” Hudson says.
“Most bills that are supported by a committee then pass the floor,” Bell says. “Where [Filler-Corn] assigns the bills will impact the reception they receive.”
Matt Fariss and Chris Runion, the two other Republican delegates whose districts include pieces of Albemarle County, did not respond to request for comment.
Toscano knows a thing or two about serving in the minority—he was House minority leader from 2011 to 2018.
The Republicans “really don’t know what’s going to happen,” Toscano says, which might be a humbling change. “They’re actually going to have to go to Democrats to get anything passed. In the past they didn’t have to do that at all.”
“I can only imagine how frustrating it must have been,” Hudson says of her colleagues who spent so long in the minority. “Imagine you’re a hard-working, talented legislator going back to Richmond every year and seeing good ideas die. That’s gotta be heart wrenching.”
“It’s a little bittersweet not being there,” Toscano says. “At the same time, I’ll be able to watch my colleagues and know that I played a role in helping a lot of these folks get elected, to make the change that I think ought to be made.”
_______________
Taking the lead
Del. Eileen Filler-Corn, Del. Charniele Herring, Del. Todd Gilbert
Eileen Filler-Corn – Speaker of the House of Delegates
Filler-Corn has represented Fairfax in the House since 2010, and now she’ll have a chance to guide the whole caucus. Filler-Corn, a D.C.-insider lobbyist and consultant, won the internal election for speaker against Lashrecse Aird, D-Petersburg, who represented the more progressive wing of the party.
Charniele Herring – House Majority Leader
In 2009, Herring became the first African American woman from northern Virginia to be elected to the General Assembly, and she’ll now be the first African American and first woman majority leader. Herring has advocated for expanding voting rights and access to abortion while remaining more moderate on economic matters.
Todd Gilbert – House Minority Leader
Gilbert took over as House majority leader in 2018, but now he’ll be in the minority. The experienced Shenandoah Valley delegate has a reputation as a GOP hardliner, and has taken strong stances against reproductive rights and Medicaid expansion.
_______________
On the agenda
Climate
As the scene at the climate rally shows, voters are eager to see environmental reform and legislators are eager to work on it. This new crop of lawmakers campaigned on climate. Cassady Craighill, the communications director at energy nonprofit Clean Virginia, points out that every flipped seat went to a candidate endorsed by her group.
Hudson identifies joining the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, an interstate coalition to limit CO2 emissions, and preparing infrastructure to meet Northam’s emissions targets as short- and medium-term climate priorities.
In Virginia, making change in the energy sector means doing battle with our powerful energy overlord, Dominion Energy. Craighill says her group is excited about bills like the Fair Energy Act, which would help regulate the amount that Dominion can charge customers, and the Virginia Energy Reform Act, which would seek to regulate the monopoly system on a broader level.
“Every year we have this major problem, where we have Dominion giving way too much money,” Craighill says. The energy company donated $1.8 million to a variety of candidates during the 2019 state election cycle and has long been among the highest-spending donors in the state, giving large sums to both parties. Hudson was among a spate of candidates who refused to accept contributions from Dominion during her campaign. Deeds has received more than $100,000 from Dominion since 2001, but stopped accepting the corporation’s donations in 2016.
Governor Northam still has deep ties to the energy giant. He’s accepted more than a quarter million from the energy company over the course of his career, and recently hired a former Dominion public relations director as his communications chief.
Dominion’s dominance is bad for the planet and for Virginians’ pocketbooks, Craighill says. “Not only is there a climate crisis nationally, but in Virginia there’s also an energy burden crisis,” she says. “Our electricity bills are too high, and we pay the seventh highest in the country…Even large retail customers are really limited, both for cost and for clean energy.”
Legislation like the Virginia Energy Reform Act, which has sponsors from both parties, seeks to curb Dominion’s influence. “The General Assembly has allowed Dominion to write their own regulatory process in the last few years,” Craighill says. “These bills are a response to that.”
Legislators looking to bolster renewable resources will have limited resources to work with.
“One of the challenges to confronting climate change at a state and local level is the revenue required for serious infrastructure upgrades,” says Hudson. The Virginia General Assembly is constitutionally required to balance the budget each year, which hampers its ability to make moves that environmentalists might hope for, like an overhaul of the public transportation system.
Still, there’s reason for optimism in a state with a poor environmental record. “Among the 50 states, we’re 49th in per capita expenditure on natural resources,” Deeds says. “We have an opportunity to change our whole focus with respect to environmental policy.”
Guns
Since the November election, more than 110 localities across Virginia have declared themselves “Second Amendment sanctuaries.” Hundreds of people have attended town halls to express concern that the new Democratic legislature will mean harsh restrictions on gun ownership in the commonwealth.
Mike Fox is the legislative head for the Crozet chapter of Moms Demand Action, a nationwide organization advocating for common-sense gun reforms. “We certainly expect the reforms that have been stonewalled and blocked and rejected for so long to finally become the law of the land,” Fox says, especially given that many of the incoming legislators campaigned hard on tightening gun laws.
Moms Demand says its top legislative priorities are bills that expand background checks and enact “red flag laws,” which temporarily disarm those who might pose a threat to themselves or others.
Northam plans to reintroduce a package of gun legislation that failed in the last session. The reforms include limiting the purchase of handguns to one per month and a ban on the sale and possession of assault weapons. The bill does have a grandfather clause for existing firearms, stopping just short of Beto O’Rourke’s famous debate-stage promise that “hell yes, we are going to take your AR-15.”
“The background check legislation is, based on polling, the most popular legislation that the Democrats have on their agenda,” Fox says.
The gun debate shows the effect of subcommittee assignments on the legislature. Gun reform has been a central issue in Virginia since the 2007 Virginia Tech shooting. But, for the last decade-plus, many of these popular, common-sense reforms have been nixed by subcommittees full of pro-NRA legislators. That dynamic has shifted, according to Fox.
“We have made it a winning issue,” Fox says. “I’m confident that, in this past session, if some of that legislation had made it to the house floor, it may have even passed. There was such a narrow majority for the Republicans.”
Moms Demand isn’t phased by the outpouring of feeling in the second amendment sanctuaries. “Our organization believes that every community in Virginia should be a sanctuary free from gun violence,” Fox says. “Even the folks who don’t agree with us.”
Elections
“From day one, my top priority has been election reform,” Hudson says. “I think that’s work that is actually destined to move in this session.”
How people vote, who gets to vote, and where people vote could all change in the next two years.
Deeds is the chief patron of three election law bills that were filed before the session even began—same-day voter registration, removal of the photo ID requirement at the polls, and restoring voting rights to felons. These measures were unthinkable under the previous majority. “We just didn’t have the numbers before. Even if we got things passed in the Senate, the House was a dead end,” Deeds says.
Everything is a process, though. Hudson says that Virginia’s election infrastructure isn’t strong enough to support these reforms right away. Allocating funds for things like improved ballot boxes and voting systems will make those reforms more feasible down the road. “Some of the more ambitious projects, like same-day registration, are going to have to wait for that IT upgrade,” Hudson says.
On the other hand, some election projects have a hard deadline. “I know we’re going to do redistricting reform in this session,” Hudson says. “The census is this year and the maps will be drawn in 2021, so that puts a clear clock on it.”
Every 10 years, following each census, Virginia’s voting districts at the state and federal level are redrawn.
“When redistricting went on in 2011, the Republicans really were in the driver’s seat in the majority of states,” says J. Miles Coleman, who writes about elections at UVA’s Center for Politics. “So on the Democratic side, non-partisan, fair redistricting became one of their biggest issues.”
Last June, the United States Supreme Court supported a lower court’s decision that the 2011 Republican maps included illegal racial gerrymanders in the Richmond suburbs. In the 2016 congressional elections, Republicans won seven of Virginia’s 11 congressional seats, despite losing the total popular vote across the state.
Now, Virginia Democrats will have a chance to draw their own maps. This leaves the caucus with an important question to answer. Dems could “stick with their principles and still talk about non-partisan redistricting,” Coleman says—but on the other hand, “There are some Democrats also who are like, ‘we have to fight fire with fire.’”
On the federal level, fighting fire with fire could mean a new congressional representative for Charlottesville. Coleman says the Democrats might move Charlottesville into the 7th district, where Abigail Spanberger won a narrow victory over a Republican incumbent in 2018. The switch would turn the 5th and 7th districts, which both historically lean red, into a solidly red and a solidly blue district, respectively. Election adjustments like that—as well as the reforms proposed by Hudson and Deeds—could shape the course of Virginia politics for the next decade.
Some Democrats hope to pass legislation allowing Charlottesville to finally remove our Confederate statues.
Statues
“If our General Assembly cannot act now to remove these beacons of hate, I don’t know when we will have the courage to do so,” said former city councilor Wes Bellamy at a December 26 rally for Monumental Justice Virginia, a new campaign advocating for the removal of Confederate monuments across the state.
With a blue General Assembly in place, there’s now a glimmer of hope that Charlottesville’s Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson statues might finally come down. Hudson has promised to introduce a bill to give localities control over their own monuments, which would allow Charlottesville to move the statues, which are currently protected as “war memorials.”
Will the legislation actually pass? “That’s one of the more interesting questions of the whole session,” Toscano says.
“Even though the Democrats are in the majority,” Toscano says, “the polling data around the state indicate that a majority of Virginians don’t want to give the localities authority on statues.”
That means that Democrats in swing districts might not be able to support the controversial measure. “It’s got to be done in a very sensitive way,” Toscano says. “There’s going to be a lot of behind-the-scenes maneuvering.”
Republicans like Bell plan to stand firm. “I have voted against that,” Bell says of local control of statues. “I don’t support that measure. It’s going to go to a committee with a different makeup, and we’ll just have to see how the new members vote. It did not pass the last couple of years.”
Hudson thinks the success of the bill will depend on elevating the issue beyond its local significance. “My hope is that we see this as a statewide project, and not the hashtag-Charlottesville bill,” Hudson says. “There are patrons from the Hampton Roads area, and the Richmond area, hopefully from NoVa as well.”
“Our community lived through a particularly painful and acute conflict over the statues and everything they symbolize,” Hudson says, “But the public reckoning with our history is a broader Virginia project.”
_______________
Bills to watch
HB1: Absentee Voting
The first bill submitted in each session is understood to represent one of the top priorities for the new leadership. This session, the Democrats kicked things off with a bill that would “Permit any registered voter to vote by absentee ballot in any election in which he is qualified to vote,” with no exceptions. Currently, voting absentee requires submitting an application in advance with a justification of the need to vote absentee. Expanding ballot access has long been a priority of progressive groups around the country, and this bill represents a solid first step.
SJ1/HJ1: Equal Rights Amendment
The passage of this joint resolution would make Virginia the 38th state to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment, an addition to the U.S. Constitution that would formally outlaw discrimination on the basis of sex. Thirty-eight states makes an amendment official, but the legal history of this particular amendment is complicated, and the ERA will face a long legal battle even after Virginia’s ratification. The bill was passed through the Privileges and Elections Committee, chaired by Sen. Deeds, on the second day of the session.
SB2: Marijuana Decriminalization
This bill would decriminalize simple possession of marijuana, limit the fines for a civil offense to $50, and increase the amount of marijuana required for an “intent to distribute” arrest. Northam and Attorney General Mark Herring have both spoken in favor of decriminalizing simple possession as well as expunging misdemeanors from existing criminal records. Virginia-based Altria, one of the world’s biggest tobacco companies, has been heavily investing in Canadian marijuana companies in anticipation of loosening rules in Virginia.
_______________
In it for the long haul
The Virginia General Assembly is entering its 401st year. It’s the oldest continuously operating lawmaking body in the Western Hemisphere. Virginia is a historic state with a historic government—and historic problems. Legislators agree that change doesn’t happen overnight. For all the excitement over the blue wave, the greatest challenge now may be tempering liberal voters’ expectations.
“There’s an awful lot of good we can do that will make a real difference in real people’s lives,” Hudson says. “I hope the people will get excited about that work, celebrate it, and come out of the session reinvigorated to invest in that work for the long haul.”
Winning the 2019 election was important. But the real work is just beginning.
Since its creation, Gilliam says, “the story of the Virginia General Assembly has been, not steady, but persistent growth towards a more liberal approach to solving problems. With the election this past November, we’re seeing another stage of that generally more liberal approach.”
This session will be a short chapter in a long story.
“Instant gratification is not going to cut it,” says Deeds. “You have to be invested in the long game.”
Correction: This article was corrected on 1/20 to reflect that Abigail Spanberger represents Virginia’s 7th district, not Elaine Luria.
Virginia Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax presides over the state's senate in Richmond, Virginia, U.S., February 11, 2019. REUTERS/Jonathan Drake (Newscom TagID: rtrlten858176.jpg) [Photo via Newscom]
Scandal marred
It was the most eventful—and scandal-plagued— session of the General Assembly in recent memory. Over in the executive branch, Governor Ralph Northam and Attorney General Mark Herring’s past blackface antics were revealed and drew calls for Northam to resign. Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax faced accusations of sexual assault, which he denied and called a “political lynching.” Both the Northam and Fairfax scandals were initially publicized by a right-wing website owned by Reilly O’Neal, a North Carolina political operative whose clients have included Roy Moore and Corey Stewart.
Local Delegate Rob Bell plans to hold a hearing on the Fairfax allegations in the Courts of Justice Committee, which he chairs, although it’s unclear if Vivian Tyson, who says Fairfax forced her to perform oral sex in 2004, will attend, amid her concerns of being “embroiled in a highly charged political environment,” according to her lawyers.
And Delegate David Toscano, 68, who served as House minority leader for seven years, announced on the last day of the session he will not seek reelection to an eighth term representing the 57th District.
Amid the scandals, legislators, all of whose seats are up for grabs in November, also passed some new laws.
Laying down the laws
Gerrymandering: Long an issue for legislators like state Senator Creigh Deeds, a redistricting bill finally got the nod from both houses. The constitutional amendment, which would establish an independent commission to draw state and congressional lines, still has to pass the General Assembly next year and then go to voters before it’s official.
Felony DUI: Drunk driving that results in serious injury, as was the case with an 8-year-old Palmyra girl who was almost killed in a 2017 crash, will now be a felony with passage of a Rob Bell bill.
Jamycheal Mitchell’s law: Another Bell bill requires the Board of Corrections to establish standards for mental health care after Mitchell, 24, stole $5 worth of snacks and languished in a Hampton Roads jail for months before dying of heart failure and severe weight loss.
Tommie’s law: Penalty for animal torture is upped from misdemeanor to a Class 6 felony. The bill passed both houses unanimously after Tommie, the Richmond dog tied to a pole, doused with accelerant and set on fire, died.
No-excuses voting: Citizens can cast absentee ballots in person one week before an election, starting in 2020.
Wage discrimination: A Jim Crow-era law that allowed employers to pay less for jobs once frequently held by African Americans—such as newsboys, shoe-shine boys, and doormen—passed both houses, with Delegate Matt Fariss one of the 14 “no” votes.
Keep talking: The General Assembly was poised to ban driving while using a hand-held cellphone, but at the last minute voted to allow talking, but no texting or web surfing.
No spoofing: Displaying Virginia area codes if not in the commonwealth is prohibited, but whether the toothless Class 3 misdemeanor will deter robo-callers remains to be seen.
Public notice: Before state universities hike tuition, they must hold public hearings—if Northam signs the bill into law.
Quote of the week
“This was their chance to actually take a vote on ratifying the ERA, and they blew it.”—Delegate David Toscano on House Republican leadership redirecting a vote on the Equal Rights Amendment back to committee
In brief
More to C
A revised tourism campaign, which features a “more to C” theme, wins points with the Charlottesville Albemarle Convention & Visitors Bureau after an earlier campaign touting “C’villeization” bombed.
Rumor mill
Several people have contacted us to ask if Fashion Square Mall is for sale—and one said UVA had purchased it. Not true, says UVA spokesman Anthony de Bruyn, who adds the university has no interest in doing so. And Washington Prime Group, the parentcompany of Fashion Square, “has no plans to close or sell the mall at this time,” says spokeswoman Kimberly Green.
Can’t get a date
Charlottesville for Reasonable Health Insurance, which called out Sentara-owned Optima’s 2018 tripling of health insurance premiums here, says it wasn’t invited to Congressman Denver Riggleman’s February 19 meeting with Sentara Martha Jefferson to find ways to make health care affordable, nor, says the group, can it get on Riggleman’s calendar.
Back where he came from
Former Trump staffer Marc Short, who drew controversy—and two resignations—when he joined UVA’s Miller Center of Public Affairs as a senior fellow in August, is stepping down and headed back to the White House, where he’ll serve as chief of staff to Mike Pence. Tweeted UVA professor of religious studies Jalane Schmidt, “Don’t let the door hit you on the way out!”
wikimedia
Bare-breasted Virtus
ERA activist Michelle Renay Sutherland was arrested February 18 for enacting the Virginia state seal, which features Virtus with an exposed left breast. A judge initially ordered her held without bond for the misdemeanor charge, but she was finally released three days later.
CVille Smoke Shop’s Jim Carlson says if you’re old enough to go to war or vote, you should be able to buy a cigar. Photo by Eze Amos
By Shrey Dua
Daniel Devlin is a 20-year-old UVA student who’s been vaping since he was 18. If Virginia lawmakers get their way, he could soon face civil penalties for pursuing his habit.
Last week, a bill that would raise the age to buy tobacco and vape products from 18 to 21 was passed by both houses of the General Assembly. It’s the latest attempt to curb the vaping trend that has become a mainstay amongst college, high school, and middle school students.
A number of states and more than 400 localities have already raised the vaping age to 21. Last year, the FDA declared the underage use of e-cigarettes an epidemic, and in November it banned sales from convenience stores, as well as fruity flavors. The administration says from 2017 to 2018, there was a 78 percent increase in e-cigarette use among high school students, and a 48 percent increase among middle school students.
People between the ages of 18 and 20 who are currently able to legally purchase vapor and tobacco products would once again be considered underage, and face a $100 fine or community service for the first offense. UVA students in particular would immediately feel the effects of the new law because college students often make up a large proportion of the vaping population.
Devlin believes the legislation is an impractical method for keeping vapes out of underage hands. “If middle schoolers are vaping and addicted to nicotine when the age is 18, then raising the minimum age would only expand the black market for nicotine products,” he says. “The only thing that would change is that people would stop going to 7-Elevens and go to the black market instead.”
But not all students agree. Karim Alkhoja, who is 20 and a third-year at UVA, says there hasn’t been enough research into the effects of vaping, and “if the argument is that at 21 people are more likely to make more evidence-based and common sense decisions, why would we continue to allow the purchasing age for these products to be 18 and not 21?”
Jim Carlson co-owner of the CVille Smoke Shop, which sells a variety of cigars but no vaping products, says he totally disagrees with the proposed legislation. “I don’t think the government should be a babysitter,” he says. “If you’re old enough to vote or go to war, you should be able to buy a cigar. What’s really the difference between being 18 and being 21?”
Dawn Morris, owner of local smoke shop Higher Education, is more open to the change: “Unfortunately I do understand why it’s necessary to raise the age to 21 with all these vape companies and vape juices that are specifically flavored for children,” she says. “No adult is vaping Fruit Loops. Someone needs to protect that situation, and until we can change that, it’s probably a good idea.”
Delegates Rob Bell and Matt Fariss voted against the measure in the House, where it passed 67-41, with the support of delegates Steve Landes and David Toscano. State Senator Bryce Reeves was a co-sponsor of the bill in the Senate, which passed its own bill 32-89 with the support of Senator Creigh Deeds.
If approved by Governor Ralph Northam, the law could go into effect July 1.
Supporters of Confederate statues line up to speak at a House of Delegates subcommittee January 30.
Staff photo
Ultimately, no one was surprised that a House of Delegates subcommittee, made up of eight white men, killed a bill that would let Virginia localities decide what to do with Confederate monuments–not even the bill’s sponsor, Delegate David Toscano.
“They knew when we walked in what they would do with that bill,” said Toscano following the January 30 meeting. The subcommittee has five Republican and three Democrats, and one of the Dems joined in the 6-2 vote against the bill.
About a dozen Charlottesville supporters of the bill, including two elected officials, came for the 7:30am meeting of Counties, Cities and Towns Subcommittee #1. Some held signs during the proceeding: “Local authority for war memorials,” “Truthful history heals,” and “Lose the Lost Cause.”
And five opponents of the bill, none of whom were from Charlottesville, spoke against local control of Confederate monuments in public places.
Following the August 12, 2017, Unite the Right rally that brought hundreds of white supremacists to Charlottesville, ostensibly to protest City Council’s vote to remove the statue of General Robert E. Lee in what’s now called Market Street Park, Toscano carried a bill to give localities control over their own war monuments. Current state law makes it illegal for anyone to remove a memorial commemorating any war. That bill died a quick death in subcommittee in 2018, and this year’s version specified Confederate monuments only.
“It’s about local control,” Toscano told the subcommittee. “We give localities control of the cutting of weeds, but we haven’t yet given them control of monuments that might have a detrimental effect on the atmosphere and feelings of this community.”
The 1902 statute protecting war memorials “popped up just at the time of Jim Crow,” said Toscano, at the “height of the so-called Lost Cause celebration of the Confederate contribution to the Civil War.”
Subcommittee chair Charles Poindexter asked about the monuments, “Weren’t they also concurrent with the dying out of Confederate veterans?”
Toscano rejected the notion that Virginia was involved in a “heroic battle” during the Civil War. “This was an effort to destroy the Union.”
Justin Greenlee, who studies art and architectural history at UVA, told the subcommittee Confederate statues are “a monument to white supremacy,” and portray a “false story of history. They continue to intimidate.”
Lisa Draine, whose daughter was injured when self-proclaimed neo-Nazi James Fields accelerated into a crowd, killing Heather Heyer, said, “I couldn’t imagine that the statues brought this to our town.”
And Don Gathers, who served on the city’s Blue Ridge Commission on Race, Memorials and Public Spaces, implored the subcommittee: “Please recognize the hatred these statues brought to descend upon our city.”
Ned Gallaway, Albemarle Board of Supervisors chair, and City Councilor Kathy Galvin both stressed the importance of local control over Confederate monuments.
Richmond native Ed Willis said a bill to allow localities to remove Civil War monuments discriminated against his “Confederate national origin.” staff photo
Among the bill’s opponents was Chesterfield resident Ed Willis, who said the bill was unconstitutional. “It’s painfully clear that discrimination based on national origin—on Confederate national origin—is the purpose of this bill.” He also said the legislature couldn’t do anything that would affect the ongoing lawsuit against the city and City Council for its vote to remove both the Lee and General Stonewall Jackson monuments.
Virginia Beach resident Frank Earnest, who is a plaintiff in the lawsuit and “heritage defense coordinator” for Virginia’s Sons of Confederate Veterans, warned that like “other socialist takeovers, it’ll be Confederate statues today, but don’t think they won’t be back next year to expand it to another war, another time in history.”
He said it was the “improper actions of the city government of Charlottesville” that caused the events of August 12, and that he resented anyone saying Confederates were there. “They were not.” He presented the officials with what he said were 2,000 signatures of Virginians opposed to removing Confederate monuments.
One of the three Democrats on the subcommittee made a motion to move the bill forward, to no avail.
Toscano called the vote “disappointing but not surprising.” He said the “discrimination” objection was “unbelievable,” and joked about whether people would be checking a Confederate national origin box on their census forms.
A bill that would allow localities like Charlottesville to relocate Confederate statues failed in a House of Delegates subcommittee January 30. staff photo
UVA professor Frank Dukes, who also served on the Blue Ribbon Commission, said he was surprised the vote “wasn’t even close. I think it’s so hypocritical from people who constantly talk about local control.”
Nor was Gathers surprised, except for the one Democrat—Portsmouth Delegate Stephen Heretick—joining in with Republicans to vote against the measure.
UVA prof and activist Jalane Schmidt pointed out that it took 10 years to get the “Johnny Reb” statue erected in front of the Albemarle courthouse, and that it could take 10 years to remove Confederate monuments.
“It’s about changing hearts and minds,” she said. “It’s about changing representation.”
The General Assembly is held by a slim Republican majority in both houses, and all legislators are up for reelection this year.
For the moment, however, Confederate supporters had a victory they could savor. As they headed to the elevators, one expressed his thoughts: “Those people in Charlottesville are crazy.”
Niko has been behind bars for about four years and it doesn’t look good for him to get out.
Courtesy Prayers for Niko
Dead or alive
The General Assembly has been in session two weeks, and it is whittling down the more than 2,000 bills legislators filed. Here are some bills that have survived so far—and others that were DOA.
Alive
An in-state tuition bill for undocumented students made it out of the Senate Education Committee January 8 on an 8-7 vote, with one Republican senator joining the ayes.
The General Assembly doesn’t often consider freedom of the press, and this year it will look at two bills. Delegate Chris Hurst, a former reporter and anchor for WDBJ in Roanoke, carries a bill that protects student journalists from censorship and their faculty advisers from punishment. Former print journalist Delegate Danica Roem’s bill shields reporters from revealing sources in most cases.
A bipartisan group in both houses of the General Assembly want to raise the minimum age to buy cigarettes and vapes from 18 to 21.
Dead
The Save Niko bill, which allows dogs found dangerous to be transferred to another owner or shipped to a state that doesn’t border Virginia, made it out of an agriculture subcommittee last week, only to have members change their minds this week. The bill could have freed cat-killer Niko, who has been on doggie death row at the SPCA for about four years.
The ’70s-era Equal Rights Amendment passed the Senate 26-14 January 15 and headed to the House of Delegates, where it traditionally dies in committee. This year was no exception—the amendment was tabled by a Republican-led Privileges and Elections subcommittee January 22.
More than a dozen gun safety bills, including universal background checks, temporary removal of firearms from the home of someone deemed a risk to himself or others, and Delegate David Toscano’s bill restricting open carry at permitted events like the Unite the Right rally, were swiftly dispatched January 17 in the rural Republican-controlled subcommittee of the House Committee on Militia, Police, and Public Safety, chaired by southern Albemarle’s Delegate Matt Fariss.
Several bills that would decriminalize or even legalize pot died January 16 in a Courts of Justice subcommittee, with Delegate Rob Bell voting to prevent Virginia from going soft on personal marijuana use.
A bill that would raise the state’s minimum wage from $7.25 an hour to $15 made a rare appearance on the Senate floor January 21, where it died on party lines 19 to 21.
Quote of the week
“I believe there are certain people in history we should honor that way in the Senate . . . and I don’t believe that [Robert E. Lee] is one of them.”—Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax, a descendant of slaves, tells the Washington Post after ceding the dais and gavel during a tribute to Lee January 18
In brief
Shutdown scams
Attorney General Mark Herring warned about scams that target furloughed employees. Don’t accept an employment offer for a job you didn’t apply for, he says, and be cautious of predatory lending, including payday, auto title, open-end, and online loans. And those seeking to help should be cautious too—Herring says to avoid cash donations and only give if you can confirm the charity or fundraiser is legit.
Sally Hudson announces run. Eze Amos
Biggest donations in local races
Local philanthropist Sonjia Smith wrote a $100,000 check to UVA prof Sally Hudson, who wants the seat now held by Delegate David Toscano, according to the Virginia Public Access Project. Smith also gave $10,000 to Sena Magill for City Council, $5,000 to Albemarle sheriff candidate Chan Bryant, and $20,000 to an Andrew Sneathern for Albemarle commonwealth’s attorney committee, which donated $9,635 to Jim Hingeley, who will announce his run January 23.
Government heavy
The Charlottesville Albemarle Convention & Visitors Bureau came closer to being stacked with elected and government officials when county supes voted 5-1 for a 15-member tourism board in which industry experts would be outnumbered 9 to 6 by government people. City Council had its first reading of the changes January 22.
$2.3 million roof
Carr’s Hill’s $7.9 million renovation went up another couple of mil when workers discovered the 14,000-square-foot manse’s roof needed to be replaced, not repaired. It’s the first major overhaul of the 1909 Stanford White-designed home of UVA presidents, and Jim Ryan is temporarily housed in Pavilion VIII on the Lawn while the work goes on.
Activists in Buckingham have been fighting the pipeline since 2014. On Sunday, they won.
PC: Friends of Buckingham
All is quiet along the proposed path of the 600-mile Atlantic Coast Pipeline, now that five federal permits have either been thrown out or put on hold.
A vote on a permit that would allow a 54,000-horsepower pipeline compressor station to be built in Buckingham’s historic African American community of Union Hill, on a former slave plantation, has now been deferred twice by the Air Pollution Control Board.
“If they had voted in favor of the permit the other week, it would have been a riot up in there,” says Pastor Paul Wilson, who leads the Union Hill and Union Grove Baptist churches.
Anti-pipeline activists in Buckingham have called Dominion’s plans to build one of three ACP compressors in that community a stark example of environmental injustice and racism, and have alleged that when looking for a sparsely populated place to build, the energy giant intentionally erased a large percentage of the Buckingham population in its application to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
The number FERC used in its final environmental impact statement on the ACP was 29.6 people per square mile in the area surrounding the pipeline’s path in Buckingham. Dominion asserts that number was provided by the U.S. Census Bureau, but residents say it was off by about 500 percent.
At a December 19 meeting, the State Air Pollution Control Board again kicked the can down the road by rescheduling the compressor station vote for January 8, when it has declared that public comment from attendees—like the 150 concerned citizens who showed up last month—won’t be accepted.
“From what I’m seeing, unless the [previous] comments changed peoples’ minds on the board, it appears that Dominion will probably get that air permit,” says Wilson. After this story went to press, the board voted unanimously to approve the permit, but Wilson says, “the pipeline can still be stopped.”
In fact, construction—which never started in Virginia—has been halted along the entire 600-mile route from West Virginia into North Carolina as other legal battles play out.
The Southern Environmental Law Center is involved in several of the cases and represents a small coalition of local conservation groups.
SELC attorney Greg Buppert notes a December 13 decision handed down by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit that threw out a U.S. Forest Service permit that would have allowed the ACP to cross two national forests and the Appalachian Trail.
Buppert says, “Dominion doubled down” by proposing a route—and nearly all of its alternatives—that went through the same point on the trail because it thought it could get around requirements that apply to national parks.
“It gambled the project on this one location,” says Buppert. “I think the decision sends the route and the company back to the drawing board.”
Dominion spokesperson Aaron Ruby says 56 other oil or gas pipelines already cross the trail. Dominion is appealing the ruling—and he’s confident it will prevail.
“Opponents’ tactics in the courts are not doing anything to provide additional protection of the environment,” he said in a December 13 statement. “They are only driving up consumer energy costs, delaying access to cleaner energy, and making it harder for public utilities to reliably serve consumers and businesses.”
While Forest Service employees were initially very skeptical of that permit, they decided to approve it, and the court called their decision “mysterious.”
“Part of the story in that case was several years of concern about the Atlantic Coast Pipeline from the Forest Service, and then political pressure from Washington caused the agency to back down on its concerns,” says Buppert. “Dominion went to political appointees to bend the rules for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline. With that kind of gamesmanship, the company shouldn’t be surprised that a federal court has thrown out its permit.”
As Pastor Wilson puts it, “Dominion is trying to beat out the clock.” He adds, “This thing is costing more money each day.”
Dominion’s Ruby told the Washington Post that the once-$6.5 billion project is now looking like $7 billion. His company has had to lay off or delay hiring 4,500 construction workers, and the pipeline that was once scheduled to be fully built by the end of the year is now looking at a mid-2020 completion. Ruby did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
The SELC also has plans to challenge the pipeline’s entire approval permit because of what Buppert calls “mounting evidence” that it isn’t necessary to meet future energy needs.
“That evidence is significant enough that it’s getting the attention of important elected officials,” says Buppert. He mentions a January 2 newsletter from Delegate David Toscano, in which the legislator compares the ACP to an old automobile in need of a valve job: “It is leaking serious oil, suffers by comparison to newer, more advanced models, and even if it can be made roadworthy, you and I will pay the bill for decades.”
Toscano also notes in his letter that a recent filing from the State Corporation Commission said Dominion’s projections of demand for electricity and gas “have been consistently overstated,” and that existing pipelines are sufficient to meet future needs.
“It’s hard to justify a load forecast prediction that shows aggressive energy demand growth when the actual numbers for the last 10 years are flat,” says Buppert. “It’s an issue that we’ve worked on for a long time, and I think the data and the facts have caught up with Dominion.”
"Crying Nazi" Chris Cantwell weighs in, Denise Lunsford defends, Rick Moore judges
Awkward moments: Fields trial edition
When we crammed more than two weeks of trial proceedings into a 4,000-word story, some of the finer details didn’t make the cut. So we’d like to take this opportunity to share a few of the not-so-fun facts of the James Alex Fields, Jr. trial, in which he was found guilty of 10 counts, including first-degree murder.
Defense attorney Denise Lunsford and ex-husband John Hill took on the case together.
Lunsford argued her case in front of Judge Rick Moore, whom she fired as a county prosecutor when she took office as Albemarle commonwealth’s attorney in 2008.
When it was time for final defense witness Josh Matthews to take the stand, he was nowhere to be found. Judge Moore entered a capias and directed the Augusta County Sheriff’s Office to find him. Matthews arrived hours later, and after his testimony he was arrested for failure to appear.
“Crying Nazi” Chris Cantwell, who got that moniker after his visit to Charlottesville for the Unite the Right rally, just couldn’t stay out of the spotlight. Online news source Mic reported November 28 that he threatened independent reporter and activist Molly Conger, better known on Twitter as @socialistdogmom, who was covering the trial. “You will pay for your lies,” Cantwell wrote on Gab, a popular social media site among white supremacists.
Former Richard Spencer bodyguard Gregory Conte, who previously came to town to protect the Crying Nazi during some of Cantwell’s earlier court proceedings, was spotted jotting notes on a legal pad in the courtroom. He now has multiple bylines for stories related to the Fields trial in Russia Insider—whatever that is.
Because of limited seating in the courtroom and bad acoustics, more than a dozen reporters each day watched a livestream of the trial from the Levy Opera House. Technical issues left them in the dark several times.
Speaking of bad acoustics, the Charlottesville Circuit Court is a nightmare for documenting trials. None of the many videos and exhibits were visible to the gallery because the monitor faced the jury, not the public. Local media organizations have offered to donate equipment to bring the courtroom into the 21st century, to no avail.
On the 11th day of trial proceedings, after Fields was convicted and before he was sentenced, he sported a fresh high-and-tight haircut—the alt-right’s signature fashy style.
Quote of the week
“Please know that the world is not a safe place with Mr. Fields in it.”—Al Bowie, a car attack victim, in a victim impact statement to the jury.
Heavy weather
Snow was expected on December 9, but the volume was not. Charlottesville picked up from eight to 12 inches, while Wintergreen reported a whopping 21 inches, according to the National Weather Service.
Facebook strikes again
Local company WillowTree tried to run a Facebook ad promoting equal pay for female engineers, but the ad, which featured a photo of a woman wearing a hijab, was rejected. The reason? WillowTree does not have Facebook’s special authorization to run ads “related to politics and issues of national importance.”
Pipeline blues
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit stayed a crucial U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service permit for the heavily opposed, $6 billion Atlantic Coast Pipeline, causing Dominion to suspend all construction along its 600-mile route. And Attorney General Mark Herring and the Department of Environmental Quality are suing the folks building the other gas pipeline approved in the state—the Mountain Valley Pipeline—for repeated violations of state water laws.
House challengers
UVA professor Sally Hudson is challenging David Toscano for his 57th District seat. eze amos
David Toscano, the House of Delegates minority leader, has a challenger for his 57th District seat, which he’s held since 2005. UVA Batten School professor Sally Hudson announced a run last week on Twitter, and will face Toscano in the Democratic primary. And Tim Hickey, who works as a Greene County educator, has thrown down a challenge—also on Twitter—to Delegate Matt Fariss, R-Rustburg, who represents southern Albemarle.
Machete murderer
Walter Amaya was sentenced to 30 years active jail time for the July murder of Marvin Joel Rivera Guevara, who was hacked 144 times before being dumped in a creek at Woolen Mills. Three other men have pleaded guilty in the MS-13 gang-related slaying.
Tony will soon be cruising the streets of Crozet.
Courtesy Albemarle County
Tony the self-driving shuttle
Perrone Robotics cranked up the driverless vehicle heat last week with the awkwardly acronymed Tony—TO Navigate You—which will soon be autonomously tooling around Crozet.
In a partnership with Albemarle County and JAUNT—Jefferson Area UNited Transportation, another awkward acronym—Perrone will test drive the shuttle near its facility in Crozet before it begins an official route in March, and JAUNT will lend its transit expertise.
Albemarle is ponying up $238,000 for the vehicle, Perrone $271,000 and JAUNT $108,000 for insurance and a trained operator, who will be onboard as an “ambassador,” but be prepared to step in if the six-seater needs a real driver.
The fixed route in Crozet has not yet been determined. May we suggest a pub crawl route from Starr Hill Brewery to Crozet Pizza to Pro Re Nata?
Quote of the week
“Quite honestly, if people don’t want a successful governor and a good representative of his constituents to come to speak at the University of Virginia, I don’t give a damn.”—Robert Andrews, chair of UVA’s College Republicans, on hosting George Allen, whose past racial insensitivity—including the infamous 2006 “macaca” moment—drew concern from minority student leadership, the Cav Daily reports
In brief
Councilors want raise
Mayor Nikuyah Walker wants to ask the General Assembly to allow City Council to change its charter and determine its own salaries. Currently councilors make $18,000, and the mayor gets $20,000, which limits who can afford to serve. Council will hold a public hearing at its December 3 meeting.
Toscano not Pelosi-ing
Delegate David Toscano, the Virginia House minority leader, says he’ll resign the leadership position after the 2019 session because it takes too much time. Toscano, 68, has led the Dems since 2011, and says he’ll still seek reelection to the 57th District.
Uninviting Johnny Reb
After a petition to remove another local Confederate monument from Court Square—one that this time falls on county property and is dubbed Johnny Reb—the Albemarle Board of Supervisors has asked for legislation that would allow it to move the statue.
Uninviting Mike Signer
Members of the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission want City Councilor Mike Signer off its board after they say he missed their past four meetings. In an email to the Daily Progress, Signer said his 4-year-old twins and other family members have kept him busy, and that councilors frequently miss their engagements. Wrote Signer, “Mayor Walker, for instance, has missed several council meetings this year.”
More Bigfoot jokes
“Saturday Night Live” actor Mikey Day threw on a taupe jacket and colored his hair gray November 17 as he took on the persona of 5th District Representative Denver Riggleman, who’s gotten plenty of national attention for being an alleged “devotee to Bigfoot erotica.” Said Day as Riggleman, “As I’ve said 500 times before, that picture was a joke between buds, and I’m not into that stuff.”
Caregiver con
Former caretaker Tia Daniels will serve three years in jail for stealing over $12,000 worth of heirloom jewelry and money from 98-year-old Albemarle woman Evelyn Goodman. Daniels also duped the elderly woman’s daughter into giving her money for a Habitat for Humanity house by creating fake correspondence with the charity, according to Albemarle Commonwealth’s Attorney Robert Tracci.
Deadly Thanksgiving
The Charlottesville Fire Department is hoping to keep holiday cooks across the city from burning their houses down while preparing their turkey and pumpkin pies.
“Thanksgiving is the peak day for home cooking fires,” when nearly four times as many occur than on any other day, according to a press release sent by Battalion Chief Joe Phillips.
Fire crews across the nation respond to an estimated 172,100 cooking-related fires per year, for an average of 471 per day. These easily avoided incinerations have caused an average number of 530 deaths, 5,270 injuries, and $1 billion in property damage each year, according to Phillips.
City firefighters encouraging holiday cooks to keep flammable items like oven mitts and towels away from the stovetop, wear short sleeves or roll up their sleeves while in the kitchen, always have a properly fitting lid nearby to smother flames coming from a pot or pan, and, in the case of an oven fire, turn the heat off and keep the oven door closed so flames don’t spread.
And deep-fried turkeys can be deadly as well. The National Fire Protection Safety Association discourages the use of the hot-oil devices, which it says kills five people, injures 60, and destroys 900 homes a year.
A Trump-coifed inflatable chicken caused Albemarle County to say a state of emergency is still in effect for the city.
Staff photo
County boots Trump chicken
Albemarle County said the state of emergency declared for the August 11-12 weekend was still in effect after Indivisible Charlottesville brought an inflatable chicken with a Trump-like coif to its August 28 Flip the 5th demonstration in front of the County Office Building. Police declared the lawn off limits and parking restricted. No word on when the supes plan to lift the emergency orders used against protesters.
Pro bono council defense
National law firm Jones Day will represent city councilors Wes Bellamy, Kathy Galvin, Mike Signer, and former councilor Kristin Szakos after Judge Rick Moore ruled they did not have immunity for their votes to remove two Confederate statues. Jones Day has assigned 15 attorneys to represent the councilors pro bono, according to a release from plaintiff Buddy Weber.
Rent-a-cop
Confederate monument-loving Virginia Flaggers posted an appeal for donations to hire off-duty cops from a private security firm to patrol Market Street and Court Square parks to keep an eye on the Lee and Jackson statues over the Labor Day weekend after protesters in Chapel Hill toppled Silent Sam.
Golf cart sentence
Peter Parrish and Tyler Sewell on the beach at Bald Head Island. Photo Pete Clay
Ivy resident Tyler Sewell, 52, pleaded guilty to one count of felony death by motor vehicle August 27 for the August 3, 2017, golf cart accident on Bald Head Island that killed his friend Peter Parrish six days later. Sewell was given a 51- to 74-month suspended sentence and placed on supervised probation, according to Brunswick County, North Carolina, Assistant District Attorney Jason Minnicozzi.
Labor Day issue
Albemarle’s Chris Greene Lake was closed on the September 3 holiday because of an “unforeseen staffing shortage,” the county announced after C-VILLE tweeted the closing.
UVA settles
Former assistant vice provost Betsy Ackerman’s gender and pay discrimination lawsuit against the university was dismissed August 24 and UVA declined to disclose the settlement, according to the Cav Daily.
Quote of the week
“There is no way to describe this, except to call it what it is—a legislative impasse.”—House Democratic Leader David Toscano on the futile August 30 General Assembly special session to redraw 11 district lines a federal court has deemed unconstitutional.
5th District mudslinging
Clergy members and Congregation Beth Israel’s Rabbi Daniel Alexander have refuted claims that 5th District congressional candidate Leslie Cockburn has spread anti-Semitic propaganda.
A month after 5th District congressional candidate Leslie Cockburn accused opponent Denver Riggleman of being a “devotee of Bigfoot erotica,” the Republican Party of Virginia has fired back at her with an image much more sensitive to the folks in the district it’s vying to represent.
A mailer sent out last week superimposed an image of Cockburn above one of the angry white men who marched with lit torches across the University of Virginia on August 11, 2017, chanting “Jews will not replace us” along the way.
The mailer accuses Cockburn of spreading anti-Semitic propaganda in her 1991 book Dangerous Liaison: The Inside Story of the U.S.-Israeli Covert Relationship, and says it has been “praised by white supremacist groups.”
Her supporters, including many clergy members and Rabbi Daniel Alexander of Congregation Beth Israel, quickly rushed to combat the claims against Cockburn.
“It is deeply dismaying to see Virginia’s Republican party follow the debased example of the current occupant of the White House by engaging in ad hominem attacks and appeals to fear,” Alexander said in an August 26 statement posted to Democratic news site Blue Virginia. “Leslie Cockburn stands against all of that and that is why I enthusiastically stand with her.”
On Twitter, Cockburn called the attack “disgusting and ludicrous,” and says, “I am deeply grateful to members of the clergy who stand with me against the abhorrent use of the Unite the Right Rally to fling mud. Virginia Democrats are not fooled by dirty tricks.”
However, Democrats used similar images in last year’s gubernatorial race, affixing Republican candidate Ed Gillespie’s photo to those of the torch-carrying mob.
And Cockburn’s campaign continues to call former Jason Kessler associate Isaac Smith, who attended a Riggleman event, a white supremacist, despite Smith’s disavowal of Kessler and the alt-right.
Chris Long defends Nike campaign
Charlottesville native and now Philadelphia Eagles defensive end Chris Long weighs in on the campaign Nike launched over the weekend, which stars football free agent Colin Kaepernick.
If you don’t watch football—or read the news—Kaepernick has been in the spotlight since 2016 for kneeling during the national anthem on NFL sidelines for games in which he played for the San Francisco 49ers. He took a knee to protest police brutality, and now some people who criticized Kaepernick are protesting the mega sportswear brand.
“Nike is a huge business,” said Long on Twitter on September 3. “They’ve calculated risk. They may even have reason to believe this will make the brand more popular which means the guy burning his white Air Monarchs is in the minority. Bitter pill to swallow, I’m sure. Good luck with the protest. Bet they anticipated it.”
