"Over a year ago, I argued here at NDP that Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli’s lawsuit against the Affordable Care Act (ACA) should fail because it lacked standing through subject matter jurisdiction. Last fall, the Fourth Circuit struck down Cuccinelli’s lawsuit on exactly these grounds. Today's Supreme Court decision upholding the ACA further rejects Cuccinelli's approach. "Cuccinelli has always seemed more interested in serving special interests and the radical right than Virginia’s hard-working families. This was poor, ideological lawyering that did not befit Virginia’s fine legal traditions. While Cuccinelli has refused to reveal exactly how much money he wasted suing over the ACA, we know one thing for certain: his costly, heavy-handed, and ineffective lawyering belongs in the dustbin of history.” Read More »

There is great news today that the UVA Board of Visitors has reversed its awful decision from two weeks ago and reinstated President Sullivan. Thomas Jefferson founded the University of Virginia when he was almost 80 years old. In a report to the UVA's Commissioners in 1819, he said that among his primary goals in founding the University was “to form the statesmen, legislators and judges, on whom public prosperity and individual happiness are so much to depend.” A broader, almost spiritual ambition arcs arced over Jefferson's very practical goals. Jefferson told a friend in 1820 that UVA would help America achieve its own potential: “This institution of my native state, the hobby of my old age,” he said, “will be based on the illimitable freedom of the human mind, to explore and to expose every subject susceptible of its contemplation.” Pursuing the "illimitable freedom of the human mind" is still the University's goal, and so it was a great step forward that a narrow-minded, opaque, and short-sighted coup was overturned today, in favor of a President who has demonstrated nothing but a deep and profound commitment toward this historic university's most true design. Read More »

Virginia is above what just happened this week in Richmond, where an openly gay prosecutor who used his freedom of speech to challenge a federal law that ultimately was struck down by Congress was penalized by a legislative body for those facts. Add to this the fact that Tracy Thorne-Beglund was a former Navy fighter pilot, and insult becomes injury. Let's get this straight: a combat veteran and successful prosecutor wanted to be a judge. He had broad bipartisan support. Virginia is the birthplace of the freedom of speech and the freedom of association -- absolute freedoms that go to the heart of our God-given liberties and our stature as a land of limitless potential. Read More »

In my very first post on this site I spoke about the Governor’s short-term solutions on transportation and how inadequate those solutions were with the needs of the Commonwealth. The General Assembly was still in the middle of its session then and I was hopeful that, despite poor appearances, the Administration would eventually come around and see the necessity of providing for the transportation needs of northern Virginia, which benefit the entire state when all is said and done. The General Assembly has wrapped up its special session on the budget now and by all appearances we’re in exactly the same place as where we started. If anything, we’ve even moved a little in the opposite direction. Read More »

With apologies to my Massachusetts-born wife, Virginia is the birthplace of American democracy. We are also the birthplace of American democracy's greatest abuses, such as Massive Resistance. That's why it's so fitting that we have become, in a year when America will decide whether to re-elect out first African-American president, the most "swingy" state, in the words of a recent CNN article. Nothing is easy here, but I've always felt that's why Democratic victories in Virginia usually offer the most robust path forward for Democrats nationally. The same is true for the opposite side as well. Bob McDonnell is actively positioning himself for the Republican vice-presidential nomination. Perhaps with a little too much saliva -- I really have never seen anything like his expensive new TV commercials that seek to re-brand himself before his own constituents as a successful governor. Usually, for governors, actions speak for themselves -- not advertising and PR campaigns paid for by your donors. But actions are louder than words, none more so than the decision McDonnell faces soon about whether to veto the bill passed by the farthest-right of his legislative colleagues to require IDs from anyone voting. Read More »

It’s time for Virginia Beach to get with the Tide. Since the 1970s, the City of Virginia Beach has repeatedly talked about getting a light rail. However, year after year, the City’s residents have said no (most recently in 1999). But, now, given the City’s current transportation infrastructure and our economic climate, is the time for a change. With consistently clogged roads, gas at over $4 a gallon, and a growing population, a light rail that extends beyond Norfolk (the current rail system ends at the western border of Virginia Beach) and into the Beach is both reasonable and economically sound. Read More »

The Dulles Rail project has been on the minds of planners in this area since the late 1990s, if not before. Now that the project is finally under construction, the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors and the McDonnell Administration are threatening the completion of the project. This is not to say that any mass-transit project should automatically be funded without and observation and analysis of the costs and benefits. The Loudoun board is well within their rights to ask for more time to do just that. However, the McDonnell Administration has shown no interest in conducting any kind of measured analysis and instead has jeopardized the state government’s portion of the funding over a dispute over unionized labor. This is hardly an example of the pro-business, pro-growth attitude the Governor claims to have. Indeed, every major business in northern Virginia, as well as the local Chamber of Commerce, supports the project. What surreal world have we entered where the Republican Party and the Chamber of Commerce are at odds on an issue? Read More »

Anyone who's run for office or been involved in campaigns knows that campaign emails usually don't feature the most original or adventurous prose, much less arguments. Yet in the many years that I've known him, Tim Kaine has always been a politician impatient with received wisdom. Just as he's comfortable challenging audiences to rethink basic assumptions (rather than simply play to them) and a person who, even as DNC Chair returned to Richmond to teach classes at the University of Richmond, he also wants to raise the bar when it comes to basic aspects of how his campaign communicates with his (hopeful) new Senate constituents. Hence the extraordinary email he sent yesterday. Read More »

It should come as little surprise that the National Resource Defense Council (NRDC) has rated the Commonwealth of Virginia among the nation’s least-prepared states for water-related climate change threats. After all, Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli has adamantly denied that climate change is seriously affecting our state’s environment. In their report entitled “Ready or Not”, the NRDC evaluated whether states were prepared for and cognizant of climate change based on a combination of state action and actual state climate conditions. The report focused specifically on water supply levels, precipitation levels, sea level concerns, saltwater intrusion, species impact, and erosion. In their analysis, the study divided states into four categories. Sadly, Virginia, along with 17 other states, was graded into category three. And it appears little will change until the current state government considers the environment a substantive issue. Read More »

Devolution was a word people thought they were finished hearing from Richmond for a while, but it turns out it was just biding its time to re-enter the picture. The current budget deadlock in Richmond has brought the issue back into the discussion, if not front-and-center. On its face, the proposal seems to be perfectly sensible: give localities in Northern Virginia direct control over the maintenance of the secondary roads which are currently owned by the county but maintained by the state Department of Transportation. Redundancies would be removed and process for improving and maintaining roads would be simplified, thus leading to an increase in overall quality of the road system in an area which desperately needs it. However, as is so often the case, the issue has been oversimplified. Turning over control of the secondary road system to the counties is not merely an issue of jurisdiction. Were that the case the issue would have been decided a long time ago (and it would still remain with the state; counties, by Virginia law, are political subdivisions of the state and not independent entities). Read More »