State and National Government
One of Virginia’s U.S. Senators took to Fox News to discuss his new bipartisan legislation aimed at tackling a rising problem in the Commonwealth. WFIR’s Emma Thomas has details:
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — A coalition that includes influential business and advocacy groups wrote this week to Virginia lawmakers and Gov. Glenn Youngkin, asking them to take action to fill two long-running vacancies on the state’s powerful regulatory panel that oversees interests ranging from utilities to insurance.
Members of the Virginia Ratepayer Protection Alliance, including Google, Shell Energy, Kroger and Amazon Web Services, wrote Wednesday that the General Assembly’s failure to fill two of the three spots on the State Corporation Commission is “short-changing” Virginia’s citizens.
“These Commissioner seats have been vacant for too long,” the group wrote in the letter, which was shared with The Associated Press. “While the SCC’s highly professional staff is ensuring the Commission continues to fulfill its statutory and constitutional responsibilities, the General Assembly is short-changing the citizens of the Commonwealth by not electing judges for two successive sessions. This is unacceptable and must come to an end with an election of two qualified professionals to the Commission.”
The SCC’s purview includes the regulation of utilities, insurance, state-chartered financial institutions, railroads, business filings and other matters. It typically generates the most headlines for its decisions in electric utility cases, like its ongoing oversight of the implementation of the Virginia Clean Economy Act, a sweeping 2020 law that mandates a transition by electric utilities over several decades to renewable energy.
Jadrian Wooten. VT photo
President Biden was scheduled to meet yesterday with Republican Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy to discuss the debt ceiling vote impasse over the budget cuts the GOP wants to link to that vote. An update on that tug-of-war and its global implications from WFIR’s Gene Marrano:
A gun violence activist group made waves on social media this weekend. WFIR’s Emma Thomas has more from the Deputy co-lead of a Virginia chapter on the Mother’s Day of Action:
White House photo
A jury has found former President Donald Trump liable for battery and defamation in the E. Jean Carroll case. Carroll, who brought the lawsuit in November, alleged that Trump defamed her in his 2022 Truth Social post by calling her allegations “a Hoax and a lie” and saying “This woman is not my type!” when he denied her claim that Trump raped her in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room in the 1990s. The former Elle magazine columnist added a charge of battery under a recently adopted New York law that allows adult survivors of sexual abuse to sue their alleged attacker regardless of the statute of limitations. Trump has denied all allegations that he raped Carroll or defamed her.
The jury found that Trump did not rape Carroll but sexually abused her, and awarded damages of $2 million in compensatory damages and $20,000 in punitive damages for battery. The jury awarded $1 million in damages, $1.7 million for reputation repair, and $280,000 in punitive damages
Trump has been accused of sexual misconduct by about two dozen women. Carroll’s battery allegation was the first to make it before a jury. Carroll was seated between two of her attorneys, Roberta Kaplan and Shawn Crowley, as the verdict was read. At one point Crowley put her arm around Carroll, who held hands with Kaplan. Defense attorney Joe Tacopina was seen conferring with co-counsel Chad Siegel and Perry Brandt.
Before deliberations started, Trump posted on social media, “Waiting for a jury decision on a False Accusation where I, despite being a current political candidate and leading all others in both parties, am not allowed to speak or defend myself, even as hard nosed reporters scream questions about this case at me. In the meantime, the other side has a book falsely accusing me of Rape, & is working with the press. I will therefore not speak until after the trial, but will appeal the Unconstitutional silencing of me, as a candidate, no matter the outcome.”
