State and National Government
An amendment that would have banned the usage of hand held cell phones while driving failed to pass the General Assembly.While the bill passed in the Senate Wednesday, it failed after House Speaker Kirk Cox said the amendment wasn’t relevant. Advocates say they are disappointed but will continue to argue for increased driver safety.
Photo: Morrissey for Senate
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) – A former Virginia lawmaker who used to spend his days at the General Assembly and his nights in jail after being accused of having sex with his teenage secretary is launching another political campaign. The Richmond Times-Dispatch reports that Joe Morrissey launched a bid for a Richmond-area state Senate seat Wednesday. He’s facing off against incumbent Sen. Rosalyn Dance in the Democratic primary. Morrissey was jailed four years ago after a sex scandal involving a teenager, who Morrissey later married. The couple now has three children. He denied wrongdoing but entered an Alford plea to a misdemeanor, contributing to the delinquency of a minor, acknowledging that prosecutors had enough evidence for a conviction. Morrissey lost a 2016 campaign to be Richmond’s mayor and had his law license revoked last year.
Image: Virginia DMV
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) – Virginia lawmakers have voted to eliminate the suspension of driver’s licenses for motorists with unpaid court fines and costs. The Senate voted Wednesday evening in favor of Gov. Ralph Northam’s proposed budget amendment to reinstate driving licenses for more than 627,000 Virginians who currently have suspended licenses. The House approved the measure earlier in the day. Current Virginia law mandates the automatic suspension of licenses for unpaid court debt. Virginia collects about $10 million a year from people who pay to reinstate their licenses after they’ve been suspended for unpaid fines and costs. The Legal Aid Justice Center of Virginia has sued over the practice, arguing that it unfairly punishes poor people. Supporters of the law say ending the license suspensions would reward criminals.
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) _ The Virginia Senate has joined the House of Delegates in approving increases to truck registration fees and regional gas taxes to pay for improvements to Interstate 81. The House voted Wednesday to accept an amendment proposed by Gov. Ralph Northam that included the tax and fee increases. Supporters said the increases would raise taxes in areas around I-81 by about 7 cents a gallon. They said the extra money would pay for urgently needed upgrades to the highway to improve safety and traffic flow. Opponents said the legislature was rushing through a major tax hike without sufficient public input. A proposal to put tolls on the highway failed earlier this year. WFIR’s Evan Jones has more on the Richmond debate:
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) _ Anti-abortion advocates have held a large rally at the Virginia state Capitol to oppose looser late-term abortions laws. The advocates gathered on the Capitol’s south portico Wednesday as lawmakers returned to Richmond to take up Gov. Ralph Northam’s vetoes and amendments. A push by Virginia Democrats to weaken restrictions on late-term abortions erupted into a fierce partisan clash earlier this year because of a viral video in which a lawmaker acknowledges her legislation would allow abortions up until moments before birth. Critics also accused Northam of backing infanticide because of comments he made in a radio interview describing the hypothetical medical care given an infant who is severely deformed or unable to survive after birth. Democrats said their views have been deliberately mischaracterized by Republicans for political gain.
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Virginia Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax says he’s asked prosecutors in Boston and North Carolina to investigate sexual assault allegations two women have made against him. Speaking at a Wednesday news conference, Fairfax again said the allegations are untrue and the sexual encounters he had with the women were consensual. Fairfax says he’ll cooperate fully with prosecutors in Boston and Durham, North Carolina, where the women say the assaults took place. Fairfax says he’s confident the investigations will reach the same conclusions as a polygraph test he said he’s releasing that shows he’s innocent. During the news conference, Fairfax also noted his accusers came forward when it appeared he would become Virginia’s next governor in the wake of a scandal surrounding a racist photo on Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam’s yearbook page.
Here is Fairfax’s entire statement:
The General Assembly reconvenes today for its annual “veto” session — on a week when two women accusing Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax of sexual assault have gone on national television to present their accounts. Both call on lawmakers to hold public hearings. Republicans generally support such hearings, but Democrats do not. And as WFIR’s Evan Jones reports, there are divisions as to whether Fairfax should resign:
Photo: Huffstetler Facebook page
5th District Congressman Denver Riggleman has been in office for just three months, but he already has an announced opponent in the 2020 election. Charlottesville Democrat Roger Dean Huffstetler used the G.I. bill to graduate from Harvard Business School and later co-founded his own technology startup. The Republican Party of Virginia says Huffstetler is a “multi-millionaire, out-of-touch liberal from California” who has lived in Virginia for only a short time.
News release: Today, entrepreneur and Marine veteran, Roger Dean Huffstetler, officially launched his campaign for Congress in Virginia’s 5th Congressional District, currently held by Denver Riggleman. Huffstetler issued the following statement: “I’m running for Congress because the problems facing our country require a new generation of leadership. Partisan-bickering and special-interest politics have no place in government. We all want the same thing: a chance to provide our children with a better life than our own. This campaign is about everyone, which is why I’ll fight for every family in the 5th District to have a place in a more prosperous, inclusive future.”
The son of parents who struggled with addiction, Roger Dean was the first in his family to graduate from college and used the HOPE Scholarship to graduate from the University of West Georgia. After college, Roger Dean enlisted in the Marine Corps, serving his country in both Iraq and Afghanistan. After using the GI Bill to graduate from the Harvard Business School, Roger Dean went on to work for a high-growth startup and later on co-founded his own technology startup.
Roger Dean lives in Charlottesville with his wife Emily, who works as an OB-GYN at Martha Jefferson Hospital, and his daughter, Alice Sue.
Republican Party of Virginia statement: Richmond, VA – Roger Dean, or RD, Huffstetler is back after a failed attempt to secure the Democrat nomination in Virginia’s Fifth Congressional District in 2018 and throwing his full support behind the virulent anti-Semite nominated in his stead. The San Franciscan millionaire couldn’t win his crowded primary, even though most of his donations came from Massachusetts and California.
- Would he vote for fellow San Franciscan, Nancy Pelosi, for Speaker of the House?
- Does he support AOC’s job-killing Green New Deal?
- Will he back President Trump’s America First agenda that protects American jobs and gets tough on China?
- Will he campaign with or take money from Ralph Northam, Justin Fairfax, or Mark Herring?
- Which accent will he use on the campaign trail?
Meredith Watson (CBS News photo)
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) – The second of two women to accuse Virginia Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax of sexual assault says she has nothing to gain by going public with her allegation. Meredith Watson said in an interview aired Tuesday with CBS that she’s been subjected to intense scrutiny since accusing Fairfax of raping her when both were students at Duke University in 2000. She said she’s faced particular criticism as a black woman because her accusations have tarred the reputation of Fairfax, who also is black. Fairfax says his encounters with both Watson and his initial accuser, Vanessa Tyson, were consensual, and he says a polygraph test proved it. Watson said Tuesday that Fairfax held her down during the attack and that “if you have to hold someone down, it’s not consensual.”