State and National Government
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) – The Virginia State Board of Elections has rejected an effort to put a Republican lawmaker on the ballot after he failed to file his candidacy paperwork on time. The Democratic-led board rejected efforts Tuesday to allow GOP Del. Nick Freitas on the ballot. The decision comes in an election year when Virginia Republicans are fighting to hold onto their narrow House majority. Freitas may have to run an expensive write-in campaign to hold on to a Republican-friendly seat. Freitas withdrew his candidacy last month and was then nominated by local Republicans as a replacement candidate in a failed workaround bid to get on the ballot. Board Chairman Bob Brink, a former Democratic lawmaker, said candidates are responsible for filing their paperwork on time and the board must uphold official deadlines.
The worldwide economic fall-out from Brexit is hard to predict without a deal between the U.K and E.U. but a Virginia Tech professor says there’s at least SOME reason for optimism. WFIR’s Ian Price has more:
Mark Herring
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) – Virginia’s attorney general has decided not to appeal a ruling that struck down a state law allowing police to arrest and jail people designated as “habitual drunkards.” Mark Herring said Friday that he will not appeal the ruling last month by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. In a statement, Herring called the law “strange and regressive” and said Virginia’s General Assembly should have taken it off the books a long time ago. Herring said the state “can find better ways” to address alcohol disorders. The full appeals court found that the law is unconstitutionally vague, reversing earlier rulings dismissing a lawsuit challenging the law.
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) _ Virginia election officials have denied a belated request to put a GOP lawmaker on the November ballot after he missed a filing deadline and submitted incomplete paperwork. The decision comes in an election year when Virginia Republicans are fighting to hold onto their narrow House majority. The state GOP’s 30th District Legislative Committee voted last week to select Del. Nick Freitas as their candidate. Freitas had withdrawn his candidacy for re-election July 18, one day before election officials planned to decide on his request to appear on the ballot despite his paperwork issues. The Washington post reports the move was supposed to allow Freitas to refile as a replacement candidate, but the State Board of Elections denied it. He may have to run as a write-in. Freitas says he’ll appeal.
Photo: AP
JAMESTOWN, Va. (AP) — President Donald Trump’ speech in Jamestown marking the 400th anniversary of the rise of American democracy at the House of Burgesses was interrupted by a protester who is a member of Virginia’s present-day legislative body. Ibraheem Samirah, a Democratic member of the Virginia House, stood up and held signs that read “deport hate” and “reunite my family.” A third message said “go back to your corrupted home.”
Samirah was led out of the speech site as some members of the crowd chanted “Trump, Trump, Trump.” He said in a statement that he was confident his constituents would rather him protest than “passively accept” Trump’s presence. Republican House Speaker Kirk Cox called the protest “inconsistent with common decency and a violation of the rules of the House.”
Photo: AP
President Trump says what Virginia started 400 years ago has had a profound impact opn the entire world. He addressed a commemoration of the hemisphere’s first elected legislative body — a speech interrupted my a member of Virginia’s current General Assembly. WFIR’s Evan Jones has more.
JAMESTOWN, Va. (AP) — President Donald Trump marked the 400th anniversary of the rise of American democracy on Tuesday by celebrating “four incredible centuries of history, heritage and commitment to the righteous cause of American self-government.” His speech in historic Jamestown played out against a backdrop of tension over his recent disparaging remarks about minority members of Congress and was boycotted by black Virginia state legislators.
In his remarks, Trump noted that 1619 also was the year the first enslaved Africans arrived in the colonies, saying, “We remember every sacred soul who suffered the horrors of slavery and the anguish of bondage.”
Trump described the rise of democracy in the New World as “truly a momentous occasion.”
“Self-government in Virginia did not just give us a state we love — in a very true sense it gave us the country we love, the United States of America,” he said.
His speech was interrupted by a protester who stood up and held signs that read “deport hate” and “reunite my family.” The man was led out of the speech site as some members of the crowd chanted “Trump, Trump, Trump.”
Ahead of his speech, Trump said the black legislators who announced a boycott of the event were going “against their own people.”
Trump claimed African Americans “love the job” he’s doing and are “happy as hell” with his recent comments criticizing a majority black district in the Baltimore area and its congressman.
In fact, African Americans continue to be overwhelmingly negative in their assessments of the president’s performance. According to Gallup polling, approval among black Americans has hovered around 1 in 10 over the course of Trump’s presidency, with 8% approving in June.
A last-minute announcement that the president would participate in the Jamestown commemoration of the first representative assembly in the Western Hemisphere injected tension into an event years in the making. Demonstrators gathered Tuesday morning near the site where Trump was to speak.
“The commemoration of the birth of this nation and its democracy will be tarnished unduly with the participation of the President, who continues to make degrading comments toward minority leaders, promulgate policies that harm marginalized communities, and use racist and xenophobic rhetoric,” the black caucus said in a statement Monday.
The boycott follows Trump’s weekend comments referring to U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings’ majority black Baltimore-area district as a “disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess.” A caucus statement didn’t specifically mention Cummings but said Trump’s “repeated attacks on Black legislators and comments about Black communities makes him ill-suited to honor and commemorate such a monumental period in history.”
Black Caucus chairman Del. Lamont Bagby told The Associated Press that the group reached a unanimous decision to boycott the event more than a week ago but that the president has “continued his attacks” since then, including with his remarks about Cummings’ district.
On Tuesday morning, Trump tweeted: “Heading to Jamestown, Virginia. Word is the Democrats will make it as uncomfortable as possible, but that’s ok because today is not about them!”
Caucus members also pledged to boycott the rest of a weeklong series of anniversary events and have instead planned alternative commemorations Tuesday in Richmond, Virginia’s capital.
At an early-morning ceremony, Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam noted that while the ideals of freedom and representative government flourished in Jamestown four centuries ago, a ship carrying African people who would be sold into slavery arrived in Virginia just weeks after that first assembly.
“So today, as we hold these commemorations of the first representative assembly in the free world, we have to remember who it included, and who it did not,” Northam said. “That’s the paradox of Virginia, of America, and of our representative democracy.”
Today’s Virginia General Assembly, considered the oldest continuously operating legislative body in North America, grew out of the assembly that first gathered in 1619.
The anniversary comes at a time of heightened election-year partisanship in Virginia in the aftermath of political scandals that engulfed the state’s top three elected officials, all Democrats.
A blackface photo scandal nearly destroyed Northam’s career. Then, as it looked like Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax might ascend to the governorship, two women accused him of sexual assault. Fairfax, who attended Tuesday’s event where Trump spoke, has vehemently denied those allegations. Attorney General Mark Herring has separately faced calls to resign after acknowledging he dressed in blackface decades ago. All three men remain in office.
A Virginia Tech professor says there aren’t that many similarities between President Donald Trump and new British Prime Minister Boris Johnson. WFIR’s Ian Price has more:
Rep. Denver Riggleman
BOONES MILL, Va. (AP) — A group of Republicans tried but failed to censure a GOP congressman for failing to uphold the party’s values by officiating a gay couple’s wedding. The Roanoke Times reports the 5th Congressional District Republican Committee held a closed session Saturday to discuss reprimanding Rep. Denver Riggleman.Committee member Wendell Johnson then introduced a motion in open session to express formal disapproval of Riggleman’s act for “failing to uphold the Republican Party platform” on same-sex marriage.
Committee chairman Melvin Adams said the motion was out of order. Committee member Diana Shores motioned to overrule Adams, but only four people voted in favor, so the motion and censure effort failed. The Washington Post reported that Riggleman wed two of his campaign volunteers on July 14.
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Virginia lawmakers are sparring after a report that President Donald Trump will attend the 400th anniversary celebration of the first meeting of the state’s legislative body in Jamestown.
Democrats have threatened to boycott the event because they say Trump doesn’t represent their values – a reaction the Republican Senate majority leader calls disappointing and embarrassing.
The Richmond Times-Dispatch reported Friday that Trump will attend the July 30 event, but the White House hasn’t confirmed it to The Associated Press.
The event is commemorating the 400th anniversary of representative government in America with the founding of the House of Burgesses, which was the first representative legislative assembly in America. It is part of a weeklong observance of the state’s colonial past — including the first arrival of African slaves in the former British colonies.
The report sparked statements from lawmakers in both parties. Democrats quipped “send him back,” playing off a chant by a crowd in North Carolina at a Trump rally where he again targeted four minority women Democrats in Congress as being un-American for their political views.
“We will not be attending any part of the commemorative session where Donald Trump is in attendance,” said a statement by the leadership of the Virginia House and Senate Democratic Caucuses. “The current President does not represent the values that we would celebrate at the 400th anniversary of the oldest democratic body in the western world.”
Senate Majority Leader Tommy Norment, a Republican, said it’s sad when elected leaders “make partisan concerns paramount in their decisions.” He described the decision by leading Democrats in the state to boycott the event as “disappointing and embarrassing.”
The controversy comes at a time of heightened partisanship this year in Virginia, which is having elections in November in which Democrats have a chance of flipping control of the statehouse. Earlier this month, Republicans adjourned a special session in less than two hours that was called by Gov. Ralph Northam, a Democrat, on gun-control measures in response to a shooting in Virginia Beach that killed a dozen people in May.
In February, Northam faced intense pressure to quit after a racist picture surfaced from his 1984 medical school yearbook page. He denied being in the picture but admitted to wearing blackface as a young man.
American Evolution, the organization that is putting the Jamestown commemoration together, released a statement Saturday noting that Trump and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi were invited last year by Northam, a Democrat, House Speaker Kirk Cox, a Republican, and Norment.
“Speaker Pelosi’s office declined the invitation within the last two weeks,” the organization’s statement said. “The White House has made no announcement regarding the President’s plans.”