The state has reported 107,421 COVID-19 cases as of Aug. 17, an increase of 6,672 since last Monday, according to the Virginia Department of Health. The state recorded 58 deaths last week, bringing the total number of coronavirus fatalities to 2,385.
These are improvements from the previous week, which saw 7,643 new cases and 109 deaths.
Statewide, the seven-day positivity rate is at 7.0%, an improvement from Aug. 10, which saw a 7.4% rate.
Some communities in the Eastern, Southern and Southwest regions of the state still have higher percentages than the state average. Earlier this month, Gov. Ralph Northam placed restrictions on Hampton Roads localities, limiting alcohol sales to 10 p.m. and not allowing gatherings of more than 50 people.
Here are the health districts statewide with higher than 10% positivity rates:
Chesapeake: 11.3% (down from 12% Aug. 10)
Lenowisco (Lee, Scott and Wise counties and city of Norton): 15.4% (up from 13.7%)
Pittsylvania-Danville: 12.9% (down from 15%)
Portsmouth: 12.0% (down from 13.3%)
West Piedmont (Martinsville and Franklin, Henry and Patrick counties): 17.7% (up from 14.7%)
Western Tidewater (Isle of Wight and Southampton counties, cities of Franklin and Suffolk): 12.8% (down from 14%)
These are the Virginia localities that have seen 400 or more total cases, as of Aug. 17:
Globally, there are 21.7 million reported COVID-19 cases and 776,157 confirmed deaths as of Aug. 17. The United States, which has the most confirmed cases and deaths worldwide, has seen 5.4 million confirmed cases so far, with 170,131 deaths nationwide attributed to the coronavirus since February.
House of Delegates Speaker Eileen Filler-Corn rolled out the House Democratic Caucus’ legislative priorities for the Aug. 18 special session, a slate of coronavirus-related measures and law enforcement reforms.
Filler-Corn, D-Fairfax, announced in a news release Thursday that the following COVID-19 legislation will be introduced next week:
Requiring businesses to grant paid sick leave for workers
Prohibiting garnishments of stimulus relief checks
Establishing a presumption of workers’ compensation for first responders, teachers and other high-risk essential workers
Providing immunity from civil claims related to COVID-19 for complying with health guidance
Combating price gouging for personal protective equipment
Prohibiting evictions during a public health emergency
Creating a “Commonwealth Marketplace” for acquiring PPE
Mandating transparency for congregate-care facilities during a public health emergency
On Friday, Gov. Ralph Northam released several of his priorities, and he said others will be outlined in his speech to the GA’s Joint Money Committees on Tuesday, the day of the special session.
Northam’s proposed legislation includes:
A pause in evictions until at least April 30, 2021 and $88 million in state funding to combat housing evictions; this will include $85 million invested in the Virginia Housing Trust Fund, in addition to federal CARES Act funds.
$85 million to the Virginia Telecommunications Initiative (VATI) for expanding broadband access
$15 million to Virginia’s public historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs), Norfolk State University and Virginia State University, for technology upgrades and support for underserved students
A group of law enforcement bills that will allow the state’s Criminal Justice Services Board to initiate decertification proceedings when conduct is brought to its attention, regardless of written notice from a local law enforcement agency; mandate information sharing between agencies; allow localities to establish civilian review panels; expand the criteria for which an officer can be decertified; diversify the Criminal Justice Services Board’s Committee on Training, including representatives from civil rights and community organizations, and allowing more public input.
The House also will take up more than a dozen pieces of legislation regarding law enforcement, including a ban on chokeholds and other lethal restraints, prohibiting acquisition and use of certain military-grade weapons by law enforcement agencies, expanding the definition of hate crimes to include false 911 calls made on the basis of race, and creating a statewide “Marcus Alert” system.
The alert, which is in developmental stages in Richmond, is named for Marcus-David Peters, a teacher who was killed by a Richmond police officer in 2018 when he was experiencing a mental health crisis. His family and local activists have advocated for mental health professionals to be first on the scene if someone is having a breakdown, with police serving as backup.
The Virginia Senate Democratic Caucus also has a package of justice reforms set for votes next week, including prohibition of no-knock warrants, a ban on chokeholds and strangleholds, canceling supplemental funding of local police departments if they have disproportionate use-of-force incidents, and creating a decertification procedure for officers, among others.
The House Democrats also plan to propose codifying Juneteenth as an official state holiday and allowing localities greater latitude in the process of removing Confederate monuments.
Both legislative bodies will meet away from the Virginia State Capitol due to the pandemic; the House will convene at the Stuart C. Siegel Center at Virginia Commonwealth University, and the Senate will meet at the Science Museum of Virginia.
The U.S. Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration has awarded $13.9 million in CARES Act grants that will let city, state and regional governments in Virginia administer revolving loan funds (RLF) to assist small businesses, the department announced Thursday.
According to a news release, the Virginia Small Business Financing Authority will receive a $10.2 million EDA CARES Act Recovery Assistant grant, which will let the authority capitalize and administer an RLF to provide loans to businesses affected by the coronavirus throughout the state.
The other awardees are:
The city of Newport News, which will receive $1.5 million to assist small businesses in Newport News and Hampton;
The Cumberland Plateau Planning District Commission, which was awarded $770,000 to help businesses in the city of Norton and the counties of Buchanan, Dickenson, Tazewell, Russell, Wise, Scott and Lee;
The city of Lynchburg, which will receive $726,000 for gap financing and loans to businesses in Lynchburg and the counties of Amherst, Appomattox, Bedford and Campbell;
The city of Norfolk, awarded $549,900 for businesses in its city.
“Federal support is critical as America’s small businesses navigate this health crisis,” Gov. Ralph Northam said in a statement. “We appreciate these grants from the U.S. Department of Commerce, which will complement Virginia’s own $70 million small business relief program. Support for these businesses is essential to a strong and robust economic recovery.”
The Virginia grantees are among 850 nationwide that received supplemental funding under $1.5 billion provided to the EDA under the CARES Act.
William H. McLean has been named president and chief investment officer of Spider Management Co., which oversees the University of Richmond‘s approximately $2.5 billion endowment, the university announced Tuesday.
He will start his five-year appointment Jan. 1, 2021. Rob Blandford, the current president and CIO, will serve as CEO of the company until June 30, 2022 to facilitate the transition, according to a news release. Blandford, a Richmond alum, has served as CIO since 2012 and has worked at the university since 1999.
McLean, who served on UR’s Board of Trustees and its finance committee, as well as chair of the Spider Management board for the past two years, is currently vice president and CIO of Northwestern University’s $11 billion endowment, a position he’s held since 2002. He has also held executive positions at the Duke Endowment and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.
A graduate of Davidson College and the University of North Carolina, where he received his MBA, McLean is a chartered financial analyst and has three children, two of whom graduated from UR.
“As a long-standing member of our board of trustees and the parent of two Richmond graduates, Will believes strongly in the wise stewardship of the resources that have been entrusted to us,” UR President Ronald A. Crutcher said in a statement Tuesday. “He also is committed to Spider’s long-term investment strategy, our talented team and our institutional mission.”
Jerry Prevo, a retired evangelical pastor from Anchorage, Alaska, has been on the university’s board since 1996 and chairman since 2003. He oversaw the Anchorage Baptist Temple, one of Alaska’s largest churches and religious schools, for 47 years. Prevo will begin work as acting president immediately, according to a news release from the university, and has stepped down as chairman of the Board of Trustees for the duration of his service as interim president.
Falwell was asked Friday to leave the presidency by Liberty’s six-member executive committee, acting on behalf of the board. The president of the Christian university and son of its founder, the late televangelist Jerry Falwell Sr., Falwell Jr. has overseen gigantic growth of the university’s online enrollment, which surpassed 100,000 in 2019, in addition to its 15,500 residential students. Under his leadership, the university has become one of the largest Christian universities in the world, with reported total assets of $3.13 billion. Its Rawlings School of Divinity is billed as the world’s largest school for religious studies and ministerial training, and the university is the largest employer in Lynchburg.
Falwell has long been a controversial figure, however.
Falwell’s enthusiastic endorsement of Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential bid drew criticism from a Liberty student group that argued that Trump did not reflect Liberty’s Christian values. Falwell has said his endorsement was personal and not on behalf of the school. Nonetheless, the nonprofit, tax-exempt university later drew criticism for selling Liberty-branded Trump hats and T-shirts featuring Trump’s “Make America Great Again” campaign slogan when President Trump spoke at the university in 2017.
Last year, Politico Magazine and Reuters issued reports — based on interviews with anonymous critics and leaked emails — questioning whether the university’s resources were being used for the financial benefit of Falwell friends or family members.
More recently, Falwell held a news conference with West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice in January, encouraging conservative western and Southwest Virginia localities to secede to West Virginia because of the new Democratic majority Virginia General Assembly‘s votes on issues such as gun control. In March, Falwell drew criticism from Gov. Ralph Northam and Lynchburg officials for inviting students back to campus at a time when many colleges were shutting down due to the coronaviruspandemic.
This summer, several Black staff members and students left Liberty, citing incidents of racial insensitivity, including a tweet from Falwell in which he posted a picture of what he said is the only face mask he’d wear. The image depicted a protective face mask decorated with the infamous blackface image from Gov. Ralph Northam’s medical school yearbook.
But Falwell’s support among evangelicals appeared to quickly erode last week after Falwell posted a photo on Instagram of himself and a woman with both of their pants unzipped, as he held a glass with a dark liquid that appeared to be an alcoholic drink. (Falwell wrote in his post that the drink was “black water” and “a prop.”) He took the photo down quickly, but the screen-captured image appeared all over social media.
Last week, in an interview with Lynchburg AM radio station WLNI, Falwell attempted to explain the photo as a joke, taken during a recent yacht vacation in Florida. He said the woman was his wife’s assistant. He apologized during the interview, saying, “I promised my kids I will try to be a good boy from here on out.”
But former Liberty faculty members, students and others criticized Falwell for breaking several rules in Liberty’s strict code of conduct, and some called for him to step down.
The incident follows a series of other controversies this year, including Falwell’s posting on Twitter in May the racist blackface photo that was included in Gov. Ralph Northam’s medical school yearbook. He apologized two weeks later and took down the tweet, but several Black students and employees have left the university, publicly denouncing the tweet and other “racial insensitivities” at the institution. Falwell also received heavy criticism for inviting students back to campus after spring break, just as the COVID-19 pandemic was hitting Virginia and other colleges and universities were telling students to stay home.
“We have a world-class leadership team at Liberty University who will support me in running our operations on a day-to-day basis and fulfilling our spiritual mission unabated: Training Champions for Christ,” Prevo said in a statement Monday. “Please pray for us as well as the Falwell family as we embark on our academic year and so we may continue to be united in our common purpose and our faith in Christ.”
Prevo retired from his Anchorage church in 2019 with a farewell service that drew thousands, including Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy and former Gov. Sarah Palin, according to an Associated Press report. Anchorage Baptist Temple had assets valued at $85 million and built Anchorage Christian Schools, which has about 700 students. Like Falwell and his father, Prevo has had considerable influence on Republican politics from the pulpit.
Falwell has not returned messages asking for comment, and his personal social media accounts have been quiet since Friday.
On Friday, Prevo issued a statement about Falwell’s leave, saying that although the university has “experienced unprecedented success” since Falwell took the reins of the 49-year-old university in 2007, “with this success and the burdens of leading such a large and growing organization comes substantial pressure.”
State Sen. Amanda Chase is running for the Republican nomination for governor.
Updated, Aug. 19
The owners of a Harrisonburg restaurant posted a message on Facebook saying that GOP gubernatorial candidate Amanda Chase refused to wear a mask in their restaurant Sunday and threatened to sue them for enforcing the policy.
“Chase came into our restaurant,” wrote Katharine Nye Pellerito, co-owner of Vito’s Italian Kitchen with her husband, Vito, as well as a second Harrisonburg eatery, Corgans’ Publick House. “She threatened to sue us and insulted us because of our mask requirement. She had a note from her doctor, claiming a medical exemption. She recorded my husband while he was explaining to her our policy and got on the phone with her lawyer while in our restaurant.” Hours after the post went up, it had more than 1,000 shares, and many commenters said they would patronize the restaurant.
Chase, a state senator who lives in Chesterfield County, visited Vito’s after a campaign stop in New Market with rock musician Ted Nugent. Like Chase, Nugent is also a vocal supporter of President Donald Trump. In pictures from the event, no one is wearing a mask, but at other public events this year, Chase has worn a face covering or had one around her neck.
In a statement Monday evening on her campaign’s Facebook page, Chase wrote, “This weekend while touring Virginia … on two separate occasions, store employees initially denied me service because I refused to wear a mask, in spite of me expressing to them that I had an underlying health condition and could not wear a mask. Once I provided a letter from my doctor, I was finally provided service, but not without being harassed and belittled in front of other store patrons.”
Chase did not disclose her health condition but added, “I chose to stand my ground because there are thousands of disabled Virginians who are being victimized and harassed because of this governor’s confusing and ever-changing executive orders. Does this governor truly care about those with disabilities?” Her statement also accuses Gov. Ralph Northam of advocating for “killing babies” in the third trimester and championing “rioters and looters in our communities.”
As the General Assembly reconvened Aug. 18, Chase continued to decline to wear a mask, saying she had a doctor’s note saying she couldn’t wear one. At the Science Museum of Virginia, the state senator sat behind a three-sided glass box around her desk, separating her from other lawmakers, and she had to use a handheld plastic shield in front of her face when walking around the room, according to The Roanoke Times reporter Amy Friedenberger.
Last week, Chase visited Calabash Seafood, a Mechanicsville restaurant that has been cited by the State Board of Health for not requiring its staff members to wear masks and not enforcing social distancing measures. On July 27, the restaurant’s license was suspended, but it has continued to operate, prompting the board and State Health Commissioner Norman Oliver to file for a temporary injunction Monday in Hanover County Circuit Court that would compel the restaurant to close.
Pellerito wrote that the year has been “challenging enough — navigating the uncertainty of [COVID-19] as it threatens our ability to maintain our restaurants has been exhausting, to say the least.” Pellerito says her restaurants have been following the state’s guidelines, including Gov. Ralph Northam’s May 26 mask mandate, which requires people ages 10 and older to wear face coverings indoors, with some exceptions.
Under the order, restaurant patrons can remove their masks while eating, and many restaurants only require masks when people are away from their table or when a waitperson approaches them, which is the case at the couple’s two restaurants. Describing herself and her husband as small business owners and parents of four children, Pellerito wrote that Vito’s offers curbside pickup for people who don’t want to eat inside or can’t wear a mask for medical reasons.
“Whether our policy is the right or wrong approach, the treatment we received and the behavior she demonstrated making sure we knew who she was, was nothing short of appalling,” Pellerito wrote.
In her statement, Chase says that she empathizes with small business owners “who have been threatened with losing their business licenses and aggressive fines if they don’t refuse service to every single person who does not wear a mask, even those with legitimate medical reasons,” and says that Northam’s orders are “unconstitutional” and a “tyrannical overreach of power.”
The state mask mandate, which Attorney General Mark Herring has successfully defended in court over the past two months, notes the following exceptions to the policy: any person who has trouble breathing or is unable to remove a mask without assistance; anyone trying to communicate with the hearing impaired for which the mouth needs to be visible; and people with health conditions that prohibit wearing a face covering. The order says that a person who says they have a medical condition won’t be required to show medical documentation or identify the precise condition.
However, mask wearing has become intensely politicized, with Trump declining to wear a mask in public except on rare occasions and other prominent conservatives questioning the need for such precautions, even as the United States has surpassed 5 million COVID-19 cases, exceeding the second-highest country, Brazil, by 2 million. There also are cards for sale that say the person holding it is exempt from wearing a mask, but Department of Justice officials have said they are fraudulent.
Virginia has seen several instances of protests against masks, from lawsuits against Northam’s order that have failedso far, to a person being removed from a flight at Richmond International Airport for refusing to put their mask on. A few restaurants in the state have been ordered closed by the health department for not following social distancing and mask guidelines, including one in Hanover County that has so far refused to shut down, two weeks after its permit was suspended.
This is just the latest controversy that Chase has been involved with in the past year. Last month, the Northern Virginia Chamber of Commerce rescinded its invite for Chase to speak to its members in an online round table event July 8 because of several comments Chase made that the chamber executive committee considered racially offensive. In 2019, Chase was kicked out of the Chesterfield County GOP for derogatory comments she made about the county’s sheriff, a Republican.
Although Chase is the only Republican who has declared her run for governor so far, former Sen. Bill Carrico of Grayson County and Del. Kirk Cox, former speaker of the House of Delegates, have both said they may seek the Republican nomination in the 2021 governor’s race. Northern Virginia businessman Pete Snyder also is said to be considering a run.
Virginia has now recorded more than 100,000 cases of COVID-19 since it started tracking the coronavirus in February, the Virginia Department of Health recorded Monday. The state has 100,749 confirmed and probable cases, up 7,643 from Aug. 3.
Virginia’s number of deaths went up by 109 last week to 2,327, and the statewide positivity rate is currently 7.4%, a slight rise from last Monday’s 7.1% rate.
The state hit the 100,000-case benchmark just as the United States surpassed 5 million cases, the most in the world, passing Brazil by more than 2 million and India by 2.8 million cases.
Positivity rates are still high in communities in the Eastern region of the state, where Gov. Ralph Northam has placed additional restrictions on restaurants and prohibited gatherings of more than 50 people. Some health districts have seen improvement, but others have seen increases in cases. Here are the most current rates, with comparisons to rates from Aug. 3:
Western Tidewater: 14% (up 1.9%)
Portsmouth: 13.3% (down 4.8%)
Chesapeake: 12% (down 1.9%)
Norfolk: 10.6% (down 1%)
Hampton: 10.4% (up 1.4%)
Virginia Beach: 8.5% (down 1.3%)
Peninsula: 7.8% (up 1.5%)
Southern and Southwest Virginia communities also are exceeding the 10% positivity rate, which Northam and other officials say is a signal for more public safety restrictions:
Pittsylvania-Danville: 15% (up 3.7%)
West Piedmont (Martinsville and Franklin, Henry and Patrick counties): 14.7% (down .9%)
Southside (Brunswick, Halifax and Mecklenburg counties): 13.9% (up from 5.3% July 30)
Lenowisco (Lee, Scott and Wise counties and city of Norton): 13.7% (up from 8.8% July 30)
These are the Virginia localities that have seen 400 or more total cases, as of Aug. 10:
Globally, there are 19.9 million reported COVID-19 cases and 732,284 confirmed deaths as of Aug. 10. The United States, which has the most confirmed cases and deaths worldwide, has seen 5.05 million confirmed cases so far, with 163,100 deaths nationwide attributed to the coronavirus since February.
Liberty University President and Chancellor Jerry Falwell Jr. has agreed to immediately take an indefinite leave of absence from both leadership roles at the private Christian institution in Lynchburg, at the request of the university’s board of trustees Friday.
According to a news release from the university, the executive committee, acting on behalf of the board, made the request. Falwell has been caught up in a series of controversies this year — from inviting students back to campus as many colleges were closing to limit spread of the coronavirus, to posting an embarrassing photo briefly on Instagram before taking it down. In between, the university and its president came under heavy criticism for creating what some view as a hostile environment for Black students and staff members.
Falwell makes about $1 million a year as the university’s president and chancellor.
In a statement Friday night, Liberty Board of Trustees Chairman Jerry Prevo, a retired evangelical pastor who oversaw a Baptist church in Anchorage, Alaska, said that the university has “experienced unprecedented success” under Falwell’s watch, while adding, “Unfortunately, with this success and the burdens of leading a large and growing organization comes substantial pressure. Today, my colleagues and I on the Liberty University Board of Trustees and Jerry mutually agreed that it would be good for him to take an indefinite leave of absence. This was a decision that was not made lightly, and which factored the interests and concerns of everyone in the LU community, including students, parents, alumni, faculty, staff, leaders of the church, as well as the Falwell family.”
The statement concludes with a request that “our entire community lift him up in prayer so he may be able to fulfill God’s purpose for him and for Liberty University.”
Prevo’s statement does not address who will step into Liberty’s presidency or the specific reason the board asked Falwell to step away after 13 years as president of the university.
Falwell is part of the six-person executive committee, which is chaired by Harvey Gainey, founder and former owner of the Michigan-based trucking company Gainey Corp. and a longtime friend of the Falwell family. Other members include Lynchburg businessman Carroll Hudson, CEO of England’s Stove Works Inc.; Alexandria-based Baptist pastor David Rhodenhizer; Gilbert “Bud” Tinney Jr., another Michigan-based businessman; and Prevo.
Falwell’s leave comes after a series of controversies this year involving race and COVID-19. And this week, Falwell posted and quickly took down an Instagram photo of him next to a woman, with both of their pants unzipped and their stomachs sticking out. In the photo, Falwell held a glass containing a dark liquid. (Falwell wrote in his post that the drink was “black water” and “a prop.”) He said the picture — taken during a party held recently on a yacht — was a joke, and said during an interview with Lynchburg radio station WLNI that the woman was his wife’s assistant. In the interview, he also said he had promised his children, “I’m going to try to be a good boy from here on out.”
As some students noted in comments on social media, the president was breaking Liberty’s strict code of conduct, which emphasizes modest and appropriate dress, including one-piece bathing suits for women.
The Instagram post was a step too far for many Christian conservatives, and some called for Falwell to resign in recent days, including a former Liberty instructor, U.S. Rep. Mark Walker of North Carolina.
The incident capped off weeks of high-profile transfers and resignations by Black employees and students at Liberty after Falwell tweeted an offensive image in May mocking Gov. Ralph Northam’s mask mandate. Falwell wrote that he would wear a mask only if it depicted the infamous blackface photo from Northam’s medical school yearbook, accompanied by the image. He deleted the tweet and apologized, but it was too little too late for some members of the Liberty community.
Among the fallout was the public resignation of Liberty’s director of diversity retention, LeeQuan McLaurin, a 2013 Black alumnus who wrote in his resignation letter that he felt it was “morally unconscionable” to remain at the university and ask students of color to stay at a place “that not only does not value their well-being and lives, but actually perpetuates very real and damaging racial trauma against them.” Two football players and a women’s basketball standout also announced they planned to transfer, referring to “racial insensitivities” and uncomfortable moments in class and on campus.
Earlier in the week, Liberty announced it had hired its former football coach, Turner Gill, and 1986 alumnus and former NFL player Kelvin Edwards as executive vice presidents, who both would be part of an effort to expand diversity at the university. According to Ronald Kennedy, Liberty’s executive vice president of enrollment management and marketing, 15.6% of all students enrolled in the 2018-19 academic year were African American, but only 5% of all new incoming residential undergraduates in 2019 were Black, down from 10% in 2007.
Falwell also received criticism from Northam and others earlier in the year for inviting students back to campus after spring break, when most other colleges nationwide were telling students to stay away in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. Recently, the university sued The New York Times for its articles on the university’s policies during the beginning of the coronavirus’ spread.
Falwell, who stepped into the leadership role held by his father, Jerry Falwell Sr., in 2007, has overseen gigantic growth of the university’s online enrollment, which surpassed 100,000 in 2019, in addition to its 15,500 residential students.
Never shy about taking controversial stances, Falwell polarized some at Liberty by throwing his support behind President Donald Trump during his 2016 campaign and then inviting him to speak at Liberty’s commencement ceremony in 2017. Falwell also sparked discussion in February when he and West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice, a Republican, half-jokingly encouraged Virginia counties to secede and join West Virginia if they were unhappy about proposed restrictions on gun ownership.
Referring to the movement as “Vexit,” Falwell seized on a moment when many county boards and city councils in the state were hearing from residents concerned about losing Second Amendment rights, after Democrats took control of the Virginia House of Delegates and the state Senate for the first time in 30 years and promised to pass more stringent gun-control measures.
Falwell’s tenure at Liberty, which his televangelist father founded in 1971 as Lynchburg Baptist College, soon renamed Liberty Baptist College, also was marked by major financial growth and expansion. In September 2019, the university reported total assets of $3.13 billion. Its Rawlings School of Divinity is billed as the world’s largest school for religious studies and ministerial training. And, with more than 6,400 employees, Liberty is the largest employer in Lynchburg.
A graduate of the University of Virginia School of Law, Falwell previously worked as an attorney and the university’s general counsel, as well as a commercial real estate developer. He also served on the university’s Board of Trustees before his father’s death in 2007.
Virginia Business has contacted Falwell for comment but has not been able to reach him as of Friday evening.
A staff member for Virginia Senate Majority Leader Richard “Dick” Saslaw confirmed Friday that the Senate will meet at the Science Museum of Virginia for its special session Aug. 18. In April, for their veto session, senators gathered in a large room at the Richmond museum instead of their usual quarters to avoid spread of the COVID-19 virus.
State delegates plan to meet at the Stuart C. Siegel Center on the campus of Virginia Commonwealth University, Speaker Eileen Filler-Corn announced this week. The session will be closed to the public but will be live-streamed, the speaker’s news release said. The Senate has not announced whether its session will be live-streamed, but its April special session and other meetings during the regular session were available for viewing online.
Del. Sam Rasoul, D-Roanoke, announced in late July he had tested positive for COVID-19 and was recovering in isolation with his family, and Del. Delores McQuinn, D-Richmond, came down with the virus in March but has since recovered.
At the Aug. 18 session, both legislative bodies plan to amend the biennial state budget, in which new spending was frozen in April due to the economic impact of the coronavirus, and discuss reforms to policing and criminal justice following weeks of protest this summer.
The Senate Democrats, which hold a majority of seats, released part of their omnibus police reform bill Friday, including canceling supplemental state funding for any police department if they incur “disproportionate” use-of-force incidents in their jurisdiction.
Update, Aug. 7: The Virginia State Senate will return to the Science Museum of Virginia, a staffer in Senate Majority Leader Richard “Dick” Saslaw’s office confirmed Friday.
Earlier:
Leaving the big tent behind, the Virginia House of Delegates will meet at the Stuart C. Siegel Center at Virginia Commonwealth University at its Aug. 18 special session, Speaker Eileen Filler-Corn announced Wednesday.
The House and state Senate are set to reconvene in Richmond this month to finalize the state’s biennial budget and also address policing reforms, but just as in April, delegates will not meet in their usual quarters at the Virginia State Capitol due to the COVID-19pandemic. In April, delegates met under a giant tent on the Capitol grounds, while state senators gathered in a large room at the Science Museum of Virginia.
The Siegel Center, where the VCU Rams basketball teams play, will not be open to the public during the session, Filler-Corn’s news release says, but the special session will be live-streamed. The Virginia Department of Health advised the House leadership on the location, which will allow enough social distancing.
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