Across Virginia
(Ron Agnir/The Journal via AP)
West Virginia’s governor is encouraging Virginia cities and counties unhappy with recent changes in state government to join the Mountain State. And Liberty University’s president says localities should at least consider the idea. More from WFIR’s Evan Jones:
CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — In what they acknowledged is a long-shot bid, West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice and Liberty University President Jerry Falwell Jr. urged unhappy Virginia counties Tuesday to secede and join a neighboring state where Democrats aren’t in charge.
Both Justice, a Republican in a state where the GOP dominates the legislature, and Falwell, whose university is in Lynchburg, Virginia, said the invitation to join West Virginia sends a valid message.
“If you’re not truly happy where you are, we stand with open arms to take you from Virginia or anywhere where you may be,” said Justice, who’s running for reelection. “We stand strongly behind the Second Amendment and we stand strongly for the unborn.”
Democrats took full control of the Virginia statehouse in November for the first time in a generation and pledged to enact gun-control measures, roll back abortion restrictions and prohibit discrimination against LGBTQ people. Their agenda sparked a conservative backlash. This month tens of thousands of guns-rights activists flooded the Capitol and surrounding area in protest, some donning tactical gear and military rifles.
“What’s happening in Virginia right now is a tragedy in the making,” Falwell said. “Democratic leaders in Richmond, through their elitism and radicalism, have left a nearly unrecognizable state in their wake.”
Lawmakers in West Virginia have introduced formal resolutions inviting parts of Virginia to join their state.
One resolution targets Virginia’s Frederick County, but was met with a shrug from the county’s leader. The other casts a wider net to all Virginia’s counties, saying the “government at Richmond now seeks to place intolerable restraints upon the rights guaranteed under the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution.”
“We saw their way of life under attack and we wanted to offer assistance,” said Del. Gary Howell, a West Virginia Republican who sponsored one of the resolutions.
The announcement from Falwell and Justice drew laughs from both sides of the aisle in Virginia.
“What are they doing, a comedy routine?” said Republican Sen. Emmett Hanger.
“Preposterous,” said Senate Majority Leader Dick Saslaw, a Democrat. Saslaw added that Justice should be focused on solving West Virginia’s high poverty rate and “not screw around in Virginia.”
A spokeswoman for Virginia’s Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam dismissed the idea, saying “As always, Jerry Falwell’s words speak for themselves.”
The process by which such a breakup could occur is murky, but Falwell said lawyers have told him counties in Virginia would first need to conduct petition drives. Then a referendum would be held, and if successful, the proposal would go before Virginia’s General Assembly.
Rick Boyer, a Virginia conservative activist attorney and former local elected official, is helping with the so-called “Vexit” push. He said a growing movement of conservative Virginians is serious about leaving a state that he said doesn’t respect their rights.
“This isn’t street theater, we fully intend to do everything we can to see it through,” Boyer said.
University of Virginia law professor Richard Schragger, whose work includes a focus on the intersection of constitutional law and local government law, said the move would require the consent of both states and Congress.
“It’s certainly a long shot,” he said, laughing.
Liberty is the nation’s highest-profile evangelical college. It has expanded from a tiny Baptist school into a touchstone institution for evangelicals. Both Falwell and Justice are ardent supporters of President Donald Trump.
Ever since Virginia’s speed limit was raised to 70, the state’s reckless driving law has remained unchanged, keeping the threshold at 80. That may change this year, as WFIR’s Evan Jones reports:
State Senator David Suetterlein has introduced bills for five years in a row that would raise the reckless driving to anyone ticketed above 85. He says it’s hard to find anyone who really thinks it should kick in if you’re stopped for doing 81 where the speed limit is 70.
Opponents include Senator David Marsden, who says higher speed limits — and higher reckless driving thresholds — make highways more dangerous:
As it has done in recent years, the Senate approved the bill, which always then died in a House committee. But there is a different makeup now in the General Assembly, and a companion measure is advancing in the House.
Photo: RCMP
GREENBELT, Md. (AP) — A former Canadian Armed Forces reservist plotted with other members of a white supremacist group to carry out “essentially a paramilitary strike” at a Virginia gun rights rally, a federal prosecutor said Wednesday.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Timothy Sullivan agreed to keep Patrik Mathews, 27, detained in federal custody pending a Jan. 30 preliminary hearing.
Mathews leaned back in his chair and quietly laughed when the magistrate read aloud a transcript of a video in which the Canadian national advocated for killing people, poisoning water supplies and derailing trains.
“This is a very dangerous person,” the magistrate said during Mathews’ detention hearing in Maryland. “He espouses very dangerous beliefs.”
Mathews and two other men were arrested last Thursday on federal felony charges in Maryland and Delaware, just days before they were believed to be headed to a pro-gun rally in Virginia’s capital. Federal prosecutors said in a court filing Tuesday that a hidden camera captured the men discussing “the planning of violence” at the rally and expressed hope that bloodshed could start a civil war. Monday’s event had attracted tens of thousands of people and ended peacefully.
“This is a domestic terrorist investigation,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas Windom said Wednesday.
Defense attorney Joseph Balter said Mathews may have used “alarming” and “outrageous” language in conversations captured on video at a Delaware home in the days leading up to the rally. But Balter said his client’s statements are protected by the First Amendment as free speech and did not reflect any specific plans for violence.
“One man’s domestic terrorist can be another man’s exercise of his First Amendment rights,” Balter said.
Windom said the men were preparing for a civil war when they packed up food and other supplies that they apparently intended to use during and after the Virginia rally.
“Mr. Mathews was not arrested for violating the First Amendment of the Constitution,” Windom said.
Another man who was arrested, Brian Mark Lemley Jr., waived his right to a detention hearing. A third defendant, William Garfield Bilbrough IV, is expected to appear in court at separate detention hearing Wednesday.
A closed-circuit television camera and microphone installed by investigators in a Delaware home captured Mathews talking about the Virginia rally as a “boundless” opportunity, prosecutors said.
“And the thing is you’ve got tons of guys who … should be radicalized enough to know that all you gotta do is start making things go wrong and if Virginia can spiral out to … full blown civil war,” he said.
Lemley talked about using a thermal imaging scope affixed to his rifle to ambush unsuspecting civilians and police officers, prosecutors said.
“I need to claim my first victim,” Lemley said on Dec. 23, according to Tuesday’s detention memo.
“We could essentially like be literally hunting people,” Mathews said, according to prosecutors. “You could provide overwatch while I get close to do what needs to be done to certain things.”
FBI agents arrested Mathews, Lemley and Bilbrough as part of a broader investigation of The Base. Authorities in Georgia and Wisconsin also arrested four other men linked to the group.
Mathews and Lemley are charged with transporting a firearm and ammunition with intent to commit a felony. Bilbrough is charged with “transporting and harboring aliens.”
Bilbrough’s attorney, Robert Bonsib, said last Thursday that he was “underwhelmed” by a prosecutor’s arguments for keeping his client detained. Bilbrough was the only one of the three men not facing a firearms-related charge.
COLLEGE PARK, Md. (AP) — FBI agents on Thursday arrested a former Canadian Armed Forces reservist and two other men who are linked to a violent white supremacist group and were believed to be heading to a pro-gun rally next week in Virginia’s capital.
The three men are members of The Base and were arrested on federal charges in a criminal complaint unsealed in Maryland, according to a Justice Department news release.
Tuesday’s complaint charges Canadian national Patrik Jordan Mathews, 27, and Brian Mark Lemley Jr., 33, of Elkton, Maryland, with transporting a firearm and ammunition with intent to commit a felony. William Garfield Bilbrough IV, 19, of Denton, Maryland, is charged with transporting and harboring aliens.
The three men were believed to be planning to attend the pro-gun rally planned for Monday in Richmond, according to a law enforcement official who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to discuss an active investigation.
Mathews and Lemley were arrested in Delaware and Bilbrough was arrested in Maryland, according to Marcia Murphy, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney’s office in Maryland. All three men were scheduled to make their initial court appearances Thursday afternoon in Greenbelt, Maryland.
Court papers say Mathews illegally crossed the U.S. border near Minnesota in August and investigators allege Lemley and Bilbrough then drove from Maryland to Michigan to pick up Mathews before the three headed to Maryland in late August.
U.S. and Canadian authorities had been searching for Mathews after his truck was found in September near the border between the two countries. He was last seen by family members in Beausejour, northeast of Winnipeg, on Aug. 24, according to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. The Canadian military’s intelligence unit was investigating Mathews for “possible racist extremist activities” for several months, according to the Canadian Department of National Defence.
Authorities say Lemley and Mathews built an assault rifle using several parts, including an upper-receiver that Lemley had ordered and shipped to a Maryland home. In December, the three men gathered at an apartment that Lemley and Mathews rented in Delaware, where they discussed The Base and its activities and members, passed around the assault file and tried to make the drug DMT, a hallucinogen, according to court papers.
A few days later, Lemley and Mathews bought 150 rounds of ammunition and paper shooting targets and Lemley was spotted by an FBI agent at a gun range in Maryland. Court papers say federal agents heard the gun firing in rapid succession and authorities allege that Lemley later told Mathews: “Oh oops, it looks like I accidentally made a machine gun.”
Federal agents appeared to be tracking the men’s movements and set up a stationary camera near the gun range, which captured video of Mathews shooting the gun there on Jan. 5. Court documents say Lemley had also ordered 1,500 rounds of ammunition and he and Mathews visited the gun range as recently as Saturday.
Lemley also is charged with transporting a machine gun and “disposing of a firearm and ammunition to an alien unlawfully present in the United States.”
The Anti-Defamation League said members of The Base and other white supremacist groups have frequently posted online messages advocating for “accelerationism,” a fringe philosophy in which far-right extremist s “have assigned to their desire to hasten the collapse of society as we know it.”
“The term is widely used by those on the fringes of the movement, who employ it openly and enthusiastically on mainstream platforms, as well as in the shadows of private, encrypted chat rooms,” the ADL says.
ASHBURN, Va. (AP) — Officials in a northern Virginia school district are pushing back against a campaign by conservative parents to withdraw books with LGBTQ characters from elementary schools.
The Washington Post reports that a subcommittee of the Loudoun school board voted Wednesday to prevent the removal of two books. They are “Prince & Knight” and “Heather Has Two Mommies.”
The subcommittee’s decision will stand for at least a year.
The vote follows the removal of at least five other books after conservative parents launched an effort against LGBTQ literature in elementary schools. Those books included one that details a romance between two girls and another that features a transgender boy.
Loudoun County is an increasingly diverse suburb where the median household income is about $140,000. Observers say the battle playing out there is also playing out across the country.
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Virginia moved to the brink of becoming the crucial 38th state to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment on Wednesday, a momentous victory for many women’s rights advocates even though it is far from certain the measure will ever be added to the U.S. Constitution.
The affirmative votes in both chambers of the Virginia legislature came decades after Congress sent the ERA to the states in 1972, passing it with bipartisan support.
ERA advocates say hitting the 38 mark means the amendment will have surpassed the three-quarters of states the amendment needs to be added to the Constitution.
Opponents disagree. Court battles are expected to unfold over a long-passed 1982 ratification deadline set by Congress as well as moves by five states that ratified it in the 1970s to rescind their support.
Still, the votes in the House and Senate carried enormous symbolic weight and showed how much once solidly conservative Virginia has changed.
“We’re euphoric,” Lisa Sales, a member of the grassroots VAratifyERA group that’s worked for passage, said ahead of the vote.
The state has undergone seismic political shifts due to increasing diversity and the growing activism and political power of women. Democrats who retook control of the legislature in November’s elections made passing the ERA a top priority after Republicans blocked it for years.
The measure has passed the Virginia Senate before with bipartisan support but has never made it to the House for a floor vote. ERA supporters, some of whom have been advocates for decades, lined up hours in advance of the vote Wednesday to get a seat in the gallery.
The House vote was presided over by Del. Eileen Filler-Corn, the first female House speaker in the chamber’s 400-year history.
ERA advocates say the measure would enshrine equality for women in the Constitution, offering stronger protections in sex discrimination cases. They also argue the ERA would give Congress firmer ground to pass anti-discrimination laws.
Opponents warn it would erode commonsense protections for women, such as workplace accommodations during pregnancies. They also worry it would be used by abortion-rights supporters to quash abortion restrictions on the grounds that they specifically discriminate against women.
Advocates, opponents and legal experts largely agree that with the 38th state’s ratification, lawsuits are likely to unfold. At least two have already been filed.
Last week, the Justice Department issued an opinion concluding that because the deadline has expired, the ERA is no longer legally pending before the states.
The National Archives and Records Administration, which has a ministerial role in certifying the ratification of constitutional amendments, said in a statement that it would abide by that legal opinion “unless otherwise directed by a final court order.”
Congressional Democrats are also working to pass a bill removing the deadline.
Photo: Va Lottery
NEWS RELEASE: When Charles Fraley, III, and his wife checked the winning numbers in Virginia’s New Year’s Millionaire Raffle, the Narrows couple kept looking at one particular ticket number. It was their ticket! “We knew we had it locked up,” he said. Mr. Fraley had just become one of five $100,000 winners in the New Year’s Day drawing. He bought his winning ticket at Gobble Stop, located at 2771 Virginia Avenue in Narrows. When asked how it felt to discover he’d won such a large lottery prize, he said he is “awestruck.”
The other four $100,000 winning tickets were bought in Fredericksburg, Clear Brook, Midlothian and Arlington. Three tickets won the $1 million top prize. Those tickets were bought in Chesapeake, Arlington and Portsmouth. An additional 500 tickets each won $500.
Mr. Fraley, who is a retired circuit court clerk, said he hopes to make some home improvements with his winnings.
The Virginia Lottery is good fun for a great cause. Mr. Fraley lives in Giles County, which received more than $1.6 million in Lottery funds for K-12 public education in Fiscal Year 2019. For more information and a complete list of Lottery funds distributed to Virginia school districts, visit the Virginia Lottery’s Giving Back page.
A House of Delegates committee — with its new Democratic majority — has advanced the Equal Rights Amendment. It comes from the committee that killed it last year and setting the stage for General Assembly ratification. More from WFIR’s Evan Jones:
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Virginia moved a step closer to ratifying the Equal Rights Amendment on Tuesday, even as the measure’s future nationally remains in doubt.
A House committee approved a resolution to ratify the gender equality measure, which advocates hope will become the next amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
The 13-9 vote split along party lines, with all Democrats supporting it and all Republicans opposing it.
A Senate committee already advanced a similar resolution. The resolutions are now before the full House and Senate, where floor votes were expected Wednesday. Democrats control both chambers, and their legislative leaders have said their caucuses unanimously support the measure.
“Each action we take to move this resolution forward signals to the country that we’re more than ready to do our part in creating a world where women are treated as equals,” Del. Jennifer Carroll Foy, a sponsor of the House resolution, said in a statement. “I was proud to introduce this resolution and I look forward to voting to pass it in the House tomorrow.”
Each chamber will then need to pass the other’s resolution before ratification becomes final.
ERA advocates say the measure will enshrine equality for women in the Constitution, offering stronger protections in sex discrimination cases. Opponents warn it will erode commonsense protections for women, such as workplace accommodations during pregnancies. They also worry it would be used by abortion-rights supporters to quash restrictions on the grounds that they specifically discriminate against women.
Final passage would make Virginia the decisive 38th state to ratify the ERA, surpassing the three-quarters of states needed to add an amendment to the Constitution.
However, court battles are expected over a long-passed 1982 deadline set by Congress, as well as other legal issues.
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Some top Virginia Democratic senators are expressing reservations about plans to ban assault weapons — a key part of the new Democratic majority’s gun-control proposals and one that’s drawn fierce resistance from gun-rights advocates.
“A lot of people don’t really understand assault weapons and how complicated the issue really is,” said Democratic Sen. John Edwards. “It’s going to be very difficult to figure out a way to do it. But we’re studying it, that’s all I can say.”
He’s one of at least four moderate senators — the others are Sens. Chap Petersen, Creigh Deeds and Lynwood Lewis — who are skeptical of plans to ban assault weapons. None of them has ruled out voting for an assault weapon ban, but all have said they aren’t impressed with any of the drafts of proposed bans they’ve seen.
“I’ve not seen an enforceable bill that makes sense yet,” Deeds said.
Heated debates over guns are set to dominate this year’s legislative session. A failure to pass an assault weapon ban would be a blow to Democrats.
The Senate Judiciary Committee, headed by Edwards, moved quickly Monday to advance several pieces of gun legislation that a Republican majority has blocked for years. Those bills include limiting handgun purchases to once a month, universal background checks on gun purchases, allowing localities to ban guns in public buildings, parks and other areas, and a red flag bill that would allow authorities to temporarily take guns away from anyone deemed to be dangerous to themselves or others.
But a ban on assault weapons was not put on the docket for debate.
“Well, you can read into that what you want,” said Petersen, another Democrat on the committee.
Petersen said that “on paper” he supports an assault weapons ban but said he has concerns about “details that nobody seems to have figured out yet.” Those details include like what technically constitutes an assault weapon or what to do with people who already own them.
Gov. Ralph Northam and Democratic lawmakers have credited their focus on gun control for helping them win full control of the General Assembly for the first time in more than two decades. Guns were a key topic of last year’s legislative elections — particularly after a mass shooting in Virginia Beach claimed a dozen lives — and gun-control groups heavily funded Democratic candidates.
A Democratic-led special rules committee voted last week to ban gun s from the Capitol and a legislative office building.
Republicans and gun-rights groups are offering stiff resistance. Gun owners are descending on local government offices to demand they establish sanctuaries for gun rights. More than 100 counties, cities and towns have declared themselves Second Amendment sanctuaries and vowed to oppose any new “unconstitutional restrictions” on guns.
Hundreds of pro-gun advocates showed up Monday to protest the gun-control bills heard in the Senate committee.
Some of the most vocal opposition has focused on plans to ban semi-automatic weapons such as the popular AR-15-style rifles. Gun-rights advocates have accused Democrats of wanting to confiscate such rifles from current gun owners. Northam has said he has no interest in doing so.
An estimated 8 million AR-style guns have been sold since they were introduced to the public in the 1960s. The weapons are known as easy to use, easy to clean and easy to modify with a variety of scopes, stocks and rails.
George Persinger, 65, a custom home builder, drove about three hours Monday to voice his opposition to the proposed assault weapons ban and other gun control laws.
“The AR-15 is a tool. I can use this to go kill feral hogs. I can use this weapon at home. I can use it to protect myself and my family. My wife can shoot this, my kids can shoot this,” he said.
Edwards noted the popularity and widespread availability of AR-style rifles, saying that makes debates about outlawing them difficult.
“I don’t know how you ban them all of a sudden,” he said.
Democrats have a slim 21-19 majority in the state senate, giving them little margin to lose members on key votes like an assault weapons ban. Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax, a Democrat, casts votes in cases of a tie.
Gun control is only one part of an enormous agenda lawmakers are tackling this year. They have less than 60 days to get everything passed.
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) – The Pentagon says the two soldiers killed Saturday in Afghanistan by a roadside bomb were from Virginia and Illinois. On Sunday, military officials identified the casualties as 29-year-old Staff Sgt. Ian P. McLaughlin of Newport News, Virginia; and 21-year-old Pfc. Miguel A. Villalon of Joliet, Illinois. Both soldiers were assigned to 307th Brigade Engineer Battalion, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division, Fort Bragg, North Carolina. The Pentagon says their vehicle was struck by an improvised explosive device in Afghanistan’s Kandahar Province. Two other soldiers were injured.