Across Virginia
After nearly two decades in the business of getting people the medications they need, one non-profit reflects on what’s changed and what’s stayed the same. WFIR’s Emma Thomas reports on Rx Partnership as they celebrate a special milestone:
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:
Photo: From Andrea Burney, RISE 540 group at a skate party
A local youth program will hit its one year anniversary soon. WFIR’s Emma Thomas reports on the impacts it’s made in that time:
In honor of fentanyl awareness day, a local organization is speaking out about the dangers of the drug. WFIR’s Emma Thomas has more:
From the Vinton Community Garden Facebook page
A up-and-coming community garden aims to breathe new life into a plot of land left untouched. WFIR’s Emma Thomas has details:
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Two Republican state legislators in Virginia who were endorsed by GOP Gov. Glenn Youngkin won their party’s Saturday nominating contests for a state Senate seat, according to results provided by the party.
Incumbent Sen. Bryce Reeves won the Republican nomination for the 28th Senate District, according to an email from Republican caucus spokesman Jeffrey Ryer. Del. John McGuire won the nomination in the 10th District.
Reeves is an Army veteran and former law enforcement officer who now works in insurance and has served in the General Assembly since 2012. He ran unsuccessfully for the GOP nomination for the 7th Congressional District last year, and in 2017 unsuccessfully sought the party’s nomination for lieutenant governor. On Saturday, he beat Mike Allers, a retired police officer who has also worked as a teacher and positioned himself as a grassroots candidate aligned with former President Donald Trump’s MAGA movement.
Reeves’ will be heavily favored in the general election because the 28th District is an overwhelmingly Republican and mostly rural area west of Fredericksburg.
McGuire, a former Navy SEAL who has served in the House of Delegates since 2018, beat three opponents in the 10th District race. McGuire has faced criticism from Democrats since acknowledging that he attended the Jan. 6, 2021, “Stop the Steal” rally, but has said he did not enter the Capitol.
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Like Reeves, McGuire will have an edge in the general election, as the 10th District is heavily Republican. It covers a swath of mostly rural counties between Richmond and Charlottesville.
The rest of this year’s state Senate nominating contests will be settled in a June 20 primary election.
All 140 General Assembly seats will be on the ballot in the fall. Candidates are running for the first time under new maps drawn by outside experts during the most recent redistricting process. The maps were drawn without regard for incumbent protection, which has led to a wave of retirements and a higher-than-usual number of nomination contests.
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Since their wipeout in the 2021 election cycle, Virginia Democrats’ one remaining hold on state government has been in the General Assembly’s upper chamber.
The narrow Senate Democratic majority prides itself on being a “brick wall” against Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s agenda. Operatives from both parties see a roadmap for Democrats to keep that majority in November, when all 140 legislative seats are on the ballot.
But first come the primaries.
Newly drawn legislative maps have led to a wave of retirements and more nomination contests in both assembly chambers than any other comparable election cycle in recent decades. But there’s a sharp discrepancy in the 40-member Senate: There are nearly twice as many Democratic nomination contests as Republican ones.
As the races start to heat up, the imbalance in numbers has sparked some concerns among Democrats that spending in the primaries could diminish their current financial advantage, limiting their ability to help candidates in the handful of competitive seats that will likely determine party control in the fall.
“It’s not a help, that’s for sure,” retiring Senate Majority Leader Dick Saslaw said Thursday, ahead of Friday’s early voting kickoff. “I mean, some of these people don’t have a chance in the world of winning.”
Others argue that the number of challengers — driven in large part by opportunities opened up by the new maps — is a sign of a healthy party and could energize voters ahead of the general election campaign season.
In total, there are 15 Democratic Senate primaries, the majority in blue northern Virginia, compared with seven on the Republican side, plus two GOP nomination contests being settled through party-run processes on Saturday. In a chamber currently split 22-18, 10 Senate Democratic officeholders are facing nomination contests, compared with only two Republican incumbents. In the House of Delegates, where Republicans will be looking to hold onto their majority in the fall, the number in each party is about even.
As the June 20 primary draws closer, campaigns are picking up the pace, with more frequent public appearances, the launch of TV advertisements and the rollout of endorsements.
Some Democratic drama has also spilled out into public view.
In a recent and particularly fiery Twitter thread, Sen. Louise Lucas of Portsmouth accused Sen. Scott Surovell and other northern Virginia senators of conspiring against her in her primary contest against fellow Sen. Lionell Spruill, the chamber’s only incumbent-on-incumbent match-up. After Surovell and other members agreed to appear at a northern Virginia fundraiser with Spruill, Lucas accused her colleagues of wanting to boot her from office in order to prevent her from being in a position — due to her seniority — to serve as the powerful finance committee chair should she win reelection.
“How stupid do they think we all are?” she tweeted.
Surovell said he had not endorsed Spruill and would be happy to attend an event for Lucas. The primaries are “creating more conflict than I think many people would like to see, given what’s a stake,” he said.
Democratic Senate incumbents are facing challenges from a mix of current or former House members, a local elected official and political newcomers. Many are running to the left of the officeholders.
The latest campaign finance records showed Democratic Senate candidates with a nearly $5.5 million cash-on-hand advantage over Republican candidates. But Democrats also face the factor of funding from Clean Virginia, the group formed by a wealthy investor to counter the influence of Dominion Energy at the Capitol. The group, which largely backs Democratic candidates, has already cut big checks to the challengers of three incumbent senators.
Among them is Heidi Drauschak, who said in an interview that she got into the primary race against Democratic Sen. Dave Marsden in part because she saw the new district lines as a once-in-a-decade chance to truly challenge incumbents. Since the new maps were drawn by independent experts without regard to protecting incumbents, current officeholders are having to introduce themselves to many would-be constituents for the first time.
Drauschak, who is campaigning as an outsider eager to take on corporate interests and welcomed her first baby last week, said she’s gotten some pushback for challenging Marsden, who’s been in the Assembly since 2006. But she said voters deserve a choice in the heavily Democratic district — one of many where the people’s representative in Richmond will likely be chosen in the primary.
Marsden said that with seniority comes an increased ability to deliver for a district, an argument being echoed by incumbents in other districts. He expressed confidence he would win the nomination.
“It’s just a question of what I’m going to have to spend to win it,” he said, adding that he’d prefer to be tapping his funds to help other Democrats in tough general election races.
Meanwhile, Republicans — who concede privately that plenty of work went on behind the scenes to avoid nomination contests — have been aiming to project a united front. Statewide officials have started issuing endorsements and hitting the campaign trail, and Youngkin’s PAC recently touted record-breaking finance numbers as well as the hiring of several experienced operatives who will lead a coordinated campaign.
Virginia Democrats are “infighting” and “in complete disarray,” Mason Di Palma, a spokesperson for the Republican State Leadership Committee, said in a statement that referenced Lucas’ tweets.
Saslaw declined to comment on the Twitter dispute but called the RSLC’s overall characterization “not even close to accurate, as usual.”
“I’d much rather be us than them,” he said.
The GOP hasn’t been without its own conflict. A dispute over the nomination method in a Suffolk-centered Senate district led to a lawsuit, and two House incumbents are facing off in a particularly bitter contest. Republicans are also closely watching the primary outcomes in a handful of competitive districts, concerned about the possibility that a win by the furthest-right candidate could create a general election hardship.
Virginia is one of just a handful of states with legislative elections this year. The unusual election cycle and Virginia’s quasi-swing state status mean the races often draw outsized attention as a potential bellwether for future national races.
On Friday May 12, 2023, at 11:00 AM, the City of Roanoke will be holding a kickoff event at Vic Thomas Park to announce Roanoke as a Bee City USA affiliate city. This event will include the unveiling of Roanoke’s first Bee City sign and speakers from local garden clubs.
Bee City USA was launched in 2012 with the goal of promoting healthy, sustainable habitats for bees and other pollinators. In 2022, Roanoke City Council voted to adopt a resolution proclaiming Roanoke as a Bee City USA. The goal of joining Bee City USA is to promote, protect, and provide support for our pollinators by providing healthy habitats free of pesticides, using native plants, and encouraging community participation.
Vic Thomas Park is home to many wildflower gardens with pollinator-friendly species making it an ideal location for the kickoff event. Native pollinators are particularly important because they evolved alongside native plants and in many cases are the most effective pollinators.
LYNCHBURG, Va. – A Salem, Virginia man who was involved in a shootout in Lynchburg during a methamphetamine deal in November 2021, pleaded guilty this week in U.S. District Court to a pair of federal charges.
Jeriwon Lee Taylor, 42, pled guilty this week to one count of distributing 50 grams or more of methamphetamine and one count of discharging and possessing a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime.
“This case is a direct result of the United States Attorney’s Office’s public commitment to prosecute federal crimes involving a discharged firearm. We will continue to vigilantly enforce our nation’s gun laws to hold accountable those individuals who commit violent acts in our community,” United States Attorney Christopher R. Kavanaugh said today. “I am grateful we have collaborative partnerships with agencies like the Lynchburg Police Department, DEA, and ATF to help us continue this important work in helping make our communities safer.”
“It is clear that drug traffickers have no respect for human lives and conduct criminal business in the open public, disregarding the damage they can cause to human life or property. Thanks to the combined efforts of our local law enforcement partners, subsequent search warrants were executed at locations associated with Taylor’s Drug Trafficking Organization that resulted in the seizure of fentanyl, heroin, fake pills, methamphetamine and the retrieval of the firearm used in the shooting. We will continue our efforts aimed at disrupting and stopping these illegal endeavors,” said Jarod Forget, Special Agent in Charge of the DEA’s Washington Division.
“There is no place for this type of behavior in Lynchburg. This case sends a very clear message that the illegal use of firearms and related drug activity will not be tolerated,” Lynchburg Police Chief Ryan Zuidema said today. “We will continue to work with our local, state, and federal law enforcement partners to aggressively investigate and prosecute those responsible for the distribution of illegal narcotics and those who choose to commit violent acts in our community, to the fullest extent of the law.”
“When we as law enforcement professionals collaborate effectively, our communities see tangible results such as this,” ATF Washington Field Division Acting Special Agent in Charge Michael Weddel said. “We will continue to work alongside our partners to disrupt the illegal possession of firearms, distribution of narcotics and other acts of violence that negatively impact public safety.”
According to court documents, on November 21, 2021, Taylor arranged to meet an individual in a Walmart parking lot in Lynchburg, Virginia to sell methamphetamine. When the buyer, Kendall Simonton arrived, he got into Taylor’s vehicle, pointed a gun at Taylor’s face and took the drugs from him.
After the robbery, Simonton left Taylor’s vehicle and began walking away. However, Taylor also got out of his vehicle with a firearm, and the two men began shooting at each other. Both Taylor and Simonton fired multiple shots at each other, ducking behind various cars in the parking lot. Eventually, Simonton ran out of the parking lot and Taylor drove away.
Simonton pled guilty last month to related charges and will be sentenced June 8, 2023.
At sentencing, Taylor faces a minimum sentence of up to 20 years in federal prison. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.
The Drug Enforcement Administration, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and the Lynchburg Police Department, with assistance from the Virginia State Police, investigated the case.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Jonathan Jones is prosecuting the case.