Category Archives: Elections

Rosalyn Dance Can Help Interpret Democratic Election Laws

Rosalyn Dance – courtesy Daily Press

by James C. Sherlock

Governor Youngkin has appointed former state Senator Rosalyn Dance, D-Petersburg, as vice chairman of the state Board of Elections.

As vice-chair, she is the highest ranking Democrat on the board.

She will perform an absolutely vital role.

She will be asked to help interpret the complete overhaul of Virginia’s election laws conducted by Democrats who controlled state government in 2020 and 2021.

While Sen. Dance was not in office for that revolution, interpreting it for the purpose of developing regulations will require experience, a Democratic mindset and a strong stomach.

She qualifies. Continue reading

Meet Abrar Omeish, Exhibit A in the Woke Army

by Asra Q. Nomani

Exclusive: In 2019, Abrar Omeish canvassed for support at a fundraiser for the anti-Semitic group American Muslims for Palestine and said she wanted to change the “narrative” on Palestinians. She was elected to office and launched a tirade against the state of Israel, which she smeared as an “apartheid” nation, repeating the talking points of an anti-Semitic brigade in the Woke Army. Here is the full transcript.

Last month, at Luther Jackson Middle School, parents gasped as a Fairfax County Public Schools board member, Abrar Omeish, stumbled through a clumsy speech and called the historic battle of Iwo Jima “evil,” even though the decisive victory by U.S. Marines led to eventual victory by Allied forces against Japan and Nazi Germany and its leader Adolph Hitler, ending the brutal genocide of Jews in the Holocaust.

In the days after, the remarks sparked a national outcry, even spilling over globally, with Virginia Lieutenant Governor Winsome Sears, a former U.S. Marine, assailing the remarks and a pair of comedians asking indelicately: “How did this clown get elected to a school board?”

Editor’s note: For Asra’s twitter conversation on the event see here.

I know the answer because I witnessed it happen, and the answer reveals an unholy alliance that I expose in my new book, Woke Army, between the Democratic Party and rigid anti-Israel, anti-Semitic establishment Muslim leaders in the United States. These establishment Muslims include activists, politicians, and academics — from Women’s March co-founder Linda Sarsour to Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), University of California at Berkeley academic Hatem Bazian. and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).

What is particularly disturbing is that this Woke Army set its sights on K-12 schools and their children. School board member Abrar Omeish is Exhibit A in this dangerous alliance in K-12.

I saw it first-hand one Saturday night on Sept. 7, 2019, documenting the evening in video shared here for the first time.
Continue reading

Election Musical Chairs

Del. Lamont Bagby (D-Henrico)

by Dick Hall-Sizemore

Redistricting and the death of U.S. Representative Donald McEachin have voters in the Richmond area feeling as if they are in a combination of musical chairs and “Who’s on first?” We need a program to keep track of who is running for what.

For those readers of Bacon’s Rebellion who don’t read the Richmond Times-Dispatch regularly or who have not bothered to keep up, but who enjoy political shenanigans and maneuvering, what follows is a summary of the events so far.

There is one factor that simplifies this narrative somewhat. The election districts involved are heavily Democratic; therefore, whatever the Republicans do does not matter much. Consequently, I will restrict the narration to the Democrats.

McEachin’s unexpected death a few weeks after the November general election in which he had been elected to his fourth term in Congress led to a cascade of special elections. Quickly declaring themselves candidates for the Democratic nomination for the Congressional seat were Sen. Jennifer McClellan (Richmond) and Del. Lamont Bagby (Henrico). Both were strong candidates. McClellan had represented the area, first in the House and then in the Senate, for many years, had been a candidate for the Democratic nomination for governor, and was well respected. Bagby had been in the General Assembly for several terms and had a large public profile as chairman of the Legislative Black Caucus. Continue reading

Soft-On-Crime Va. Democrats’ Offal Proposal

by Kerry Dougherty

Oh look. Another garbage bill courtesy of Virginia’s soft-on-crime Democrats!

Want to see what’s coming our way if Dems regain control of the General Assembly and Governor’s Mansion?

Check out SB1080.

Yep, a gaggle of Virginia’s leading lefties pushed a measure that would classify felons younger than 21 as JUVENILES. Virginia law currently calls those criminals older than 18 ADULTS.

Because that’s what they are.
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Virginia, School Choice and Charter Schools – The National Map

by James C. Sherlock

One of the most curious aspects of discussions about Virginia, school choice, and charter schools is that Virginia progressives attack both as a conservative plot.

And mostly get away with it.

The claim is demonstrably preposterous, but effective so far because Republicans don’t offer an organized response.

I offer a map of the United States annotated with the percentage of public school kids attending public charter schools in 2019.

If Virginia progressives can discern some pattern of red states vs. blue states, they should speak up.

State laws vary, but each of the states with significant numbers of charters has a state-appointed charter authority that is not dependent upon approval by local school boards.

“Conservative” Washington, D.C., had 43% of its public school kids in charters.

Far from being totalitarianism, as goes the progressive line in Virginia, this is the result of popular constitutional amendments in virtually every state shown above in green.

Seems voters in those states wanted parents with kids in their worst schools to have options.

So will the voters of Virginia. Just show them the map during the campaign. Continue reading

Sen. John Edwards Calls It Quits

by Scott Dreyer

In a highly-watched move, Democrat State Senator John Edwards announced this week he will not seek re-election after his current four-year term ends in January, ending his 40-plus-year run as a politician. Edwards, who will turn 80 in October, has been the subject of much speculation as to his intentions. Reportedly, he hosted a fundraiser just this past January and public records show he has a campaign war chest north of $100,000. Those aspects indicate his decision to retire to be somewhat mystifying.

However, with President Biden being less than one year older than Edwards, but with glaring displays of cognitive decline, and Americans increasingly on-edge regarding those gaffes and the president’s ability to function in a time of the Ukraine War, Edwards’ running for re-election as an octogenarian under increased scrutiny may have carried significant liabilities.

A native Roanoker, Edwards was born in the Star City in 1943, the son of the late Judge Richard T. Edwards. Growing up and attending school during the Jim Crow Era, Edwards graduated from the then-all-white Patrick Henry High School in 1962, because the school had not yet integrated.

According to Edwards’ campaign website, which is still up, “he was the first president of the student government [at PH]. He was a record setting pole vaulter and state high-school champion and voted by his classmates as ‘most likely to succeed’.”

Edwards graduated from Princeton University in 1966 cum laude. After graduation, he attended Union Theological Seminary in New York City for a year, and later graduated in 1970 from the University of Virginia Law School. Ironically, at UVA Edwards was a writing instructor assistant to Professor Antonin Scalia, who later became a well-known conservative Supreme Court Justice while Edwards went politically to the left.

Edwards served his country during the Vietnam War in the U.S. Marine Corps as a Captain from 1971 through 1973, as a JAG officer based first in Japan and later in North Carolina.

In 1980, President Jimmy Carter (D) appointed Edwards United States Attorney for the Western District of Virginia.

In 1993, Edwards was appointed to fill a vacancy on Roanoke City Council and was elected in 1994 to a four year term and as Vice-Mayor. In 1995, Edwards defeated a Republican incumbent to win a seat in the Senate of Virginia, representing the 21st District. He was re-elected in 1999, 2003, 2007, 2011, 2015, and 2019. In a few of those races, he faced no or only token opposition.
Continue reading

Putting Victims First. For A Change.

by Kerry Dougherty

Imagine for a moment that you are the victim of a violent crime. The perpetrator has been arrested and you thought he was about to go on trial when you learn that your local prosecutor — one of those squishy soft-on-crime types who was bankrolled by George Soros — already entered into a sweet plea deal with your attacker. You were never notified, so the judge signed off on it.

Now this predator is back on the streets.

It happens. And Virginia has several prosecutors who fall into the criminals-first-victims-second camp.

Well, thanks to bipartisan efforts by the General Assembly, this sort of chicanery is over.

SB 989, a bill that just passed both houses of the state legislature and is certain to be signed by Gov. Glenn Youngkin, requires prosecutors to contact crime victims BEFORE they enter into plea agreements.

Commonwealth’s attorneys are not obligated to do what the victim wants, but they have to listen. Current Virginia law only requires prosecutors to notify victims if the victims ask to be notified.

The best part of this bill? It passed with overwhelming majorities in both houses. Introduced by Sen. Mark J. Peake, a Republican from Lynchburg at the behest of Attorney General Jason Miyares, the measure sailed through the House of Delegates 79-20 and the Senate by a vote of 30 to 10.

Shoot, even Louise “Brick Wall” Lucas voted for it.

Who would vote against such a common-sense, pro-victim bill?

Newly elected Sen. Aaron Rouse, who represents the 7th District that includes part of Virginia Beach and Norfolk, that’s who.

Congratulations, voters of the 7th. You replaced tough-on-crime Jen Kiggans with someone who doesn’t even want prosecutors to speak with crime victims before entering into deals that are favorable to the criminals who hurt them.

What were you thinking?

Republished with permission from Kerry: Unemployed and Unedited.

Richmond’s Skinny Budget: Low Stakes Poker, High Stakes Rhetoric

by Shaun Kenney

Virginia’s General Assembly managed to pass the Richmond equivalent of a continuing resolution to fund the government until Senate Democrats and House Republicans can hammer out a compromise on corporate tax breaks.

One will have to pardon me for not getting terribly wound up about tax breaks for corporations while small businesses and working families are struggling with back-to-back  years of 9 percent inflation from Washington.

Meanwhile, much of the damage done by the Northam administration with regard to Critical Race Theory, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) requirements, gender ideology, and the long litany of progressive efforts to remake Virginia were left both untouched and unchallenged.

Even school choice — the marquee legislation championed by Lt. Governor Winsome Sears — was left to die in committee.

Meanwhile, Senate Democrats are promising a “brick wall” against House Republicans until they get what they want — in other words, reneging on the pledge from conferees to honor a $950 million tax cut. The stopgap fixes the $200 million shortfall snafu created by the Virginia Department of Education’s spreadsheet, puts another $25 million into the Virginia Retirement System, and another $100 million towards cost overruns for existing building infrastructure. What mystifies most is that the Senate Democrats haven’t been precisely clear on what they want beyond platitudes for higher salaries for bureaucrats, public education, higher education, etc. Continue reading

Forget Waldo! Where is ERIC?

by James Wyatt Whitehead, V

In 2012, seven states, including Virginia, formed the Electronic Registration and Information, Inc. (ERIC), with assistance from the Pew Charitable Trusts. Today, ERIC’s membership has risen to 32 states and the District of Columbia. ERIC’s mission is to assist states in maintaining accurate voting rolls.

Every 60 days, states that are members of ERIC send voting roll data to ERIC for analysis. Reports are generated and returned to the states who can then take any necessary action. The data sent appear to be the garden variety of voter information one would expect: who has moved in? Who has moved out? Who has died?

Security of the data seems to be of high importance to the leaders of ERIC. Membership in ERIC requires a one-time fee, plus annual dues. The budget requirements for ERIC are modest. What is not to like? ERIC provides a useful service to state election officials. Accurate voting rolls advance the common interests of all citizens.
Continue reading

Ranked Choice Voting Bills Die in General Assembly

by Ken Reid

All bills in the Virginia General Assembly to allow ranked choice voting (RCV) for town council, school board and constitutional officer elections, plus presidential primaries, were passed by indefinitely Feb. 7 by House and Senate committees, essentially being killed for this legislative session.

Even in the Democrat Senate, the RCV bill was killed unanimously.

I was disappointed: HB1751, to allow RCV in local and school board races was offered by Republican Del. Glenn Davis of Virginia Beach, as there has been widespread opposition to RCV by Virginia Republicans. However, there was some evidence RCV could have helped GOP candidates who lost recent Virginia Beach City Council elections, so maybe that’s why he patroned it. Continue reading

How Parents Can Take a Proactive Role in Their Child’s Education

by Timothy Rarick

In Dr. Seuss’ classic book Horton Hatches the Egg, we are introduced to Mayzie, a lazy bird who is also an expectant mother. She loathes the work and responsibility that come with taking care of her developing baby within the egg. She eventually convinces Horton the elephant to take care of her egg so she can take a short vacation. As Horton nurtures the baby bird through many difficult circumstances, it becomes clear that the lazy Mayzie had no intention of returning any time soon. When their paths crossed again a year later, the egg burst open and — to both Horton and Mayzie’s surprise — the baby appeared to be part elephant and part bird.

On the surface, this story is amusing but unbelievable. An adoptive parent’s influence cannot alter the physical DNA of their child. But if we look deeper, we discover some profound lessons for parents today. These lessons might be put in the form of questions, such as:

— How much influence does a parent really have over their child’s development?
— Who should be the child’s primary educator and influencer?
— What and how is the child being taught from that primary source?

Of course, these ideas and questions did not originate with Dr. Suess. For decades, research and theory have explored similar questions about child development. The eminent developmental theorist Urie Bronfenbrenner, posited that a child is influenced, or socialized, in multiple contexts or sources. The primary influencers being the immediate environment such as the home, schools, neighborhood, etc. In a 1992 interview, Dr. Bronfenbrenner made a profound statement that appears to offer an answer to the first two questions above. “The more we study human development,” he wrote, “the more it becomes clear the family is the most powerful, most humane and, by far, the most economical way of making human beings human.”

His theory was developed at a time when schools and parents were much more in sync with one another. Today, there appears to be growing discord over whether parents or the state (i.e., public schools) should be the primary influencer and educator of children. Although many parents today are not as irresponsible as Mayzie, how a parent answers these questions has never been more critical.

These questions relate not only to parental responsibility but also parental rights. Parental rights expert, Dr. Melissa Moschella, posed the questions this way:

Do the right and the responsibility to educate children belong primarily to parents, or to the state? And who should win when parents and the state disagree over educational content, methods, and goals? Disputes about parental rights are ultimately disputes about authority. Either child-rearing authority fundamentally resides in the political community (which partially delegates that authority to parents), or parental authority is natural and pre-political, based on the nature of the parent-child relationship.

Virginia: Ground Zero

The past decade in Virginia is a model for addressing the tension in these questions. In 2013, a Virginia law was passed that protected the fundamental right of parents to make decisions concerning the upbringing, education, and care of their child. Since the 2021 election of Virginia’s first Republican governor in more than a decade, the push for parental rights has been moving forward. Governor Glenn Youngkin’s efforts, such as allowing parents to opt their children out of assignments that contain sexually explicit material, are an important step in getting parents actively involved in their children’s education to be the influential source that Bronfenbrenner asserted they are. Continue reading

Will McDonald’s Be Leaving Virginia? Not This year, But…

by Chris Saxman

I wish the headline of today’s column was just click bait. It originates from a headline that was pushed across my phone that read “Will McDonald’s be leaving California?”

That immediately made me think that McDonald’s corporate offices might be considering moving their headquarters from California to another state. Given the exodus of companies that have left the Golden State it would be just another news story about another company leaving California.

Quickly remembering that McDonald’s was based in Chicago, not California, I clicked on the article. The president of McDonald’s USA, John Erlinger, had written an open letter dated January 25th in which he lamented the legislative and regulatory reality of California:

Last fall, the legislature passed a bill – AB257, or the FAST Act – almost entirely at the behest of organized labor’s firm grip on many of the state’s lawmakers. It makes it all but impossible to run small business restaurants, but the impacts are far beyond that. Under the FAST Act, an unelected council of political insiders, not local business owners and their teams, would make big decisions about crucial elements of running a business, fracturing the economy in the process. [Emphasis added.]

Continue reading

Free at Last

by Jim McCarthy

Compulsory K-12 education under state law is a fact often taken for granted since its enactment in 1908 in the Commonwealth of Virginia. In 1984, the state authorized homeschooling initiated by an earlier Supreme Court decision in 1972 (Wisconsin v Yoder), providing for a religious exemption from compulsory attendance in public schools.

At present, some 56,000 youth are homeschooled in Virginia. Enhanced empowerment of parents was a principal plank in Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s campaign for the statehouse and continues to be extolled even as he travels around the country in support of GOP candidates. The newly elected Speaker of the House of Delegates, Todd Gilbert (R-Woodstock), enthusiastically proclaimed upon his elevation, “We’re all about empowering parents.”

Under current regulations, homeschooling is authorized where parents demonstrate the following:

1. Possession of a valid high school diploma (or a higher degree, such as can be obtained through a university), which must be submitted to the district’s superintendent (a GED does not fulfill this requirement); or,
2. A valid teacher’s certificate as approved by the state; or,
3. Provide a distance or correspondence curriculum approved by the Superintendent of Public Instruction; or,
4. Provide evidence that they, as the teaching parent, can meet the Virginia Standards of Learning objectives.

Perhaps, under the excitement of the leadership of Youngkin and Gilbert, a newly woke conservative effort is emerging designed further to shed or minimize state control in this area. Del. John McGuire (R-Louisa) introduced House Bill 1454 to eliminate the existing qualifications for homeschool proctors. Evidence of student academic progress remains a requisite at the end of the school year and may be based upon a standardized test on a nationally recognized examination, or an evaluation by a licensed educator, or a report from a distance-learning vendor. Continue reading

Parents’ Rights Under Assault in Richmond

by Kerry Dougherty

HB2091 – SUMMARY AS INTRODUCED:

Parental access to minor’s medical records; consent by certain minors to treatment of mental or emotional disorder. Adds an exception to the right of parental access to a minor child’s health records if the furnishing to or review by the requesting parent of such health records would be reasonably likely deter the minor from seeking care. Under the bill, a minor 16 years of age or older who is determined by a health care provider to be mature and capable of giving informed consent shall be deemed an adult for the purpose of giving consent to treatment of a mental or emotional disorder. The bill provides that the capacity of a minor to consent to treatment of a mental or emotional disorder does not include the capacity to (i) refuse treatment for a mental or emotional disorder for which a parent, guardian, or custodian of the minor has given consent or (ii) if the minor is under 16 years of age, consent to the use of prescription medications to treat a mental or emotional disorder.

Parental rights continue to be under assault by Democrats in the General Assembly. They will never give this up until they are all voted out of office.

Fortunately, the GOP majority in the House of Delegates will be able to kill HB2091, a bill that would create an avenue for “health care providers” to keep information and treatment of mental or emotional disorders secret from parents.

We all know what “mental and emotional disorders” are code for: transgenderism and other associated behaviors. Continue reading

Miyares Reminds Republicans the Difference a Year Makes

by Shaun Kenney

If Virginia Republicans needed a sizzle reel, this was it.

With news that leftist Commonwealth Attorneys are openly refusing to enforce the law in some cases, the threat to the rule of law and the problem of selective enforcement is greater now than ever before.

Which is why a long list of actual accomplishments is enough to lift the spirits of anyone kicking the dirt about what Virginia Republicans might be in future:
Short list?

• Miyares actually reminds us of his constitutional oath (something his predecessor set aside rather quickly);
• Launching Operation Ceasefire;
• Keeping repeat offenders off Virginia’s streets;
• Listening to and working with local law enforcement across Virginia;
• Protecting consumers from bad corporate actors;
• $1 billion in settlements while tackling the opioid crisis, specifically targeting the cheap availability of fentanyl — which is more of a problem than most people realize;
• Protecting Virginia energy ratepayers;
• Touring Virginia public schools regarding school safety;
• Perhaps the marquee issue: investigating Loudoun County Public Schools for their horrific and heavy-handed treatment of concerned parents.

There are also these: (1) Virginia Republicans are moving forward with a focus on process rather than agenda; (2) Miyares knows Virginia like the back of his hand; and (3) Miyares intends to move in coalition. Continue reading