Arlington -
A week from today the first Northern Virginia challenge to the state's controversial and costly bad-driving fees will be heard in Arlington General District Court. Although the judge's ruling will only be valid in Arlington County, the lawyer who filed the constitutional challenge thinks the case will affect judges throughout the state. "I am not saying we are special up here, but Northern Virginia has a very sophisticated bar," defense attorney Kyle Courtnall said. "We have a lot of lawyers in Northern Virginia and a lot of brain power. It is significant that this is the first challenge to come from Northern Virginia. I think it will be an influential decision."
DEMOCRAT INSPIRED VIRGINIA GOP CHAIRMAN
By Hugh Lessig
Daily Press
This is difficult to imagine today, but John Hager's first political inspiration came from a Democrat. It was January 1961, and Hager was an Army officer in the Washington area. He had the day off and decided to attend the inauguration of John F. Kennedy. The day had turned bitterly cold, and the VIP section had a number of empty seats. "I just saluted a couple of times and kept moving up, and ended up about 50 feet from the podium when JFK made his famous remarks," he said. "I was very inspired by being there in person in a moment in history." Later on, Virginia Republicans propelled him into politics.
DAVIS FIGHTING CANCER PRIVATELY
Mostly absent from Capitol Hill of late, there is no talk of replacing the Gloucester congresswoman.
By David Lerman
Daily Press
The first time she faced breast cancer, Virginia Rep. Jo Ann Davis waged a very public battle for recovery. "It's something that hits people every day," she said at the time. "That's why I think it's important to tell people." Two years later, with the cancer back, her struggle has been a strictly private affair. Davis, Virginia's first female Republican member of Congress, has not spoken publicly about her disease and treatment since announcing she was diagnosed with recurrent breast cancer in March.
POLICE AGENCIES SHUN PROGRAM
Training in immigration law enforcement has not been well-received
By Jim Nolan
Times-Dispatch Staff Writer
On paper, it sounds like a good opportunity -- the federal government, through U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, will train and authorize state and local officers to enforce immigration laws. The program, enacted under Section 287 (g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, has been around for more than 10 years. But in practice, the initiative -- one of many attempts by the government to address the hotly debated issue of illegal immigration -- has not been well-received. Fewer than two dozen law-enforcement agencies across the country have opted to partner with ICE to train officers to enforce immigration laws.
CIVIL RIGHTS LAWYER'S LIFE CELEBRATED
By Valerie Strauss
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, August 13, 2007; B01
RICHMOND, Aug. 12 -- This wasn't a funeral service for tears. The 100-year-old civil rights champion, Oliver White Hill Sr., was bidden farewell with laughter and applause, singing and a jazz band, by more than 600 people Sunday afternoon at the Greater Richmond Convention Center. Friends, family, business partners and Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine (D) all celebrated the life of a man said to have left "gigantic footprints" through his tireless efforts to achieve equal protection for all under the law and to transform the United States into a more just society.
PHONES RING UP DEADBEAT PARENTS
By Amy Flowers Umble
Free Lance-Star
Just about everybody has a cell phone these days. Even deadbeat parents. Two years ago, the director of Virginia Department of Social Services' Child Support Enforcement Division decided to use the popularity of mobile phones to find parents hiding from making court-ordered child support payments. Nick Young asked cell phone companies for addresses of their users. They said no. Young got subpoenas--5,000 of them. At any time now, he said, the state searches for 250,000 people. "This isn't some Third World country where they have stumbled off into the forest or the jungle," Young said.
STUDENTS PUSH FOR GUNS ON CAMPUS
Those with permits ought to be allowed to carry, they say
By Zinie Chen Sampson
The Associated Press
Some college students are pushing for their schools to allow them to carry guns on campus. They say they should have the right to protect themselves in the event of a shooting such as the one that left 33 people dead at Virginia Tech. Andrew Dysart, a George Mason University senior, has organized a chapter of Students for Concealed Carry on Campus, which hopes to persuade legislators to overturn a Virginia law that allows universities to prohibit students, faculty and staff members with gun permits from carrying their weapons on campus.
REGENT UNIVERSITY SET TO DOUBLE ENROLLMENT
School is hoping this move will help balance its budget
The Associated Press
VIRGINIA BEACH -- Regent University plans to more than double its undergraduate enrollment this year as a first step toward balancing its budget. The university founded by the Rev. Pat Robertson is aiming for 2,500 undergraduates, up from 1,046 last year and 236 in 2004-05. The goal is 10,000 undergraduates within five years, said Tracy Stewart, the university's undergraduate program director. The school had 3,220 graduate students last year.
CLASS DISMISSED
Richmond Times Dispatch Editorial
On August 3 we took our annual poke at Virginia's Labor Day law -- i.e., the law preventing public schools from opening prior to the holiday. The editorial, "Hypocrisy," noted that while high school football players already were reporting for training sessions, the classrooms remained closed. The situation implicitly suggests sports and other extracurriculars come before academics, and never mind political assertions that education rates as the state's top priority. Today we take a second shot: Throughout the commonwealth students are preparing to return to college, on public campuses as well as private ones. The General Assembly passed the Labor Day law to boost the tourism industry -- by (1) keeping a supply of young labor available until the season's close, and (2) ensuring that families with teens can vacation until the last possible moment.
ENGLISH, S+ì?
A common language takes more than a resolution.
Washington Post Editorial
Monday, August 13, 2007; A10
Latinos forman una mayor parte de la populacion en Manassas Park. IF YOU COULD not read that sentence, you probably aren't one of the many Latinos who helped make that Virginia suburb a place where minorities now outnumber non-Hispanic whites. And if you're anything like many of the good people of Culpeper County, also in Northern Virginia, you might feel the impulse to pass a resolution making English the official language.
CARBON CHALLENGE
To do something real about climate change, a price on emissions is a must.
Washington Post Editorial
Monday, August 13, 2007; A10
HOUSE ENERGY Committee Chairman John D. Dingell (D-Mich.) has taken a lot of heat from us. After all, he body-blocked efforts to include an increase in the corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) standards that would have made the huge House energy bill something to be proud of. But the fierce defender of Detroit automakers deserves a tip of our hat for demanding that the nation have a serious debate about a carbon tax or a cap-and-trade system to curb greenhouse gas emissions.
JOB ASSIGNMENT
Illegal immigration is a federal, not local, responsibility
Daily Press Editorial
The federal government plans to unleash new measures to crack down on illegal immigration. James City County plans to do nothing. That makes for an entirely sensible and practical arrangement. Not only is there no appreciable immigrant problem in James City, but the county has far better things to do with the tax money it collects. Fortunately, practical sense, common sense, seems to have prevailed over well-fanned fears about immigration. Americans pay a substantial portion of their earnings to fund the national government. A responsibility of that government - a primary responsibility - is to provide security. At last look, there was something in the Constitution about that.
WETLANDS DEBATE FLIPS MEANS AND ENDS
Virginian Pilot Editorial
Without rules and regulations protecting wetlands, the Lynnhaven River might be in even worse shape than it is now - choked with nutrients and bacteria, cloudy and oxygen-starved, too nasty to meet shellfish standards - a B- even in the words of its advocates. Nobody argues that the watershed is pristine, few say it is clean enough, and almost everybody would admit far more needs to be done - and spent - to repair man's damage. The question, as raised in a pair of recent developments, is how best to fix what people and their building have very nearly spoiled. In the case of Indigo Dunes near Shore Drive, and now in the case of a proposal from the city itself for the area around Pembroke Mall, the issue comes down to wetlands, and whether all wetlands deserve the same protection.
RAISE THE GAS TAX FOR BRIDGE REPAIRS
Congress should raise the federal tax, but crack down on the pet project spending that produced fiscal irresponsibility like the "Bridge to Nowhere."
Roanoke Times Editorial
President Bush has a point when he says that Congress doesn't spend the transportation money now in the budget very wisely. Who can forget how lawmakers stuffed a recent transportation bill with such high-dollar, pork-barrel projects as the $230 million "Bridge to Nowhere" in Alaska? That symbol of out-of-control federal spending did nothing to assure taxpayers that the money entrusted to Congress was being spent responsibly.
PLOWS AND POLLUTION
Free Lance-Star Editorial
"EXCITING" AND "farm bill" are terms not often used together, but the fact that the U.S. House of Representatives has approved a farm bill with an allocation for the Chesapeake Bay cleanup has allowed those terms to be linked. That's because the lack of federal commitment to the bay has not only limited progress on the project, it has left the watershed states feeling abandoned and overburdened. Depending on what happens as the bill winds through the Senate and across the president's desk, the House version earmarks $212 million over five years for the bay's restoration. The bill also provides access to another $292 million over the same period through other conservation programs.
DAVID S. KERR: VIRGINIA POLITICS ARE ALL LOCAL FOR THIS YEAR'S STATE SENATE RACES
David S. Kerr
The Examiner
WASHINGTON -
After gaining modest majorities in the Virginia legislature in 1999 to work with an incumbent GOP governor, the Republican Party had what it needed to redistrict itself a big majority. And that's what the GOP got in 2001. Democrats were good at redistricting when they ran the state legislature, too. But they knew that even when the district boundaries are optimized, changes in demographics, changes in voter priorities and good campaigning can eat away at whatever edge one party or the other can create for itself. That's what's happening today in the Virginia Senate. It's a 40-member body with 17 Democrats and 23 Republicans. That's a lot closer than it used to be. Bit by bit, during the regular election cycle and in special elections, Democrats have gained a seat here and there and are now within only four seats of regaining a majority. That's a big but not impossible order.
SUPERVISORS DECLARE DROUGHT EMERGENCY
By Rebecca Blanton
Register & Bee staff writer
DANVILLE - Pittsylvania County farmers have known for weeks what the rest of the county only suspected: There's a significant drought problem in the area. The county is almost 8 inches below the normal amount of rainfall for the area, said National Weather Bureau meteorologist Phil Hysell. "As of Saturday the county had 21 inches of precipitation. You should have 28.72 inches this time of year," he said. "It looks like for the next two weeks you'll have below normal precipitation with above normal temperatures," Hysell said. Depressing as that may sound, there's some small comfort in the fact that the entire county is in the same boat, as high and dry as that boat might be.
CRANEY ISLAND DUMPING GROUND DEBATE HEATS UP
By Janie Bryant
The Virginian-Pilot
There's a line in the sand, a soggy river bottom in this case. On one side is the giant, about 34 feet tall, growing and fed by the Army Corps of Engineers. On the other side is a small citizen-advisory group trying to shut down the Craney Island dredge disposal site. The residents want the Army Corps of Engineers to start dumping the dredge spoils into the ocean. The Virginia Port Authority sees the use of Craney Island as an economic advantage. And the citizen's group isn't sure where the city leaders who appointed them stand.
FAIRFAX COUNTY SCHOOL ENROLLMENT CONTINUES FLAT AS NEIGHBORS BOOM
William C. Flook
The Examiner
Fairfax -
Enrollment in Fairfax County schools this fall is expected to see only a small increase over the last year, part of a years-long trend of flattening growth in student population that contrasts sharply with the booms of the county's outlying neighbors. Fairfax expects to have 164,490 students in its system this school year, a fewer than 1 percent increase over last year's 163,593. In fact, Fairfax's enrollment has been essentially flat since 2003. Officials say the trend is, in large part, due to a shrinking supply of buildable land that is constraining large-scale residential growth in Virginia's most populous county, which is also by far the commonwealth's largest school district.