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Del. Torian elected chair of Virginia Minority Business Commission
Del. Luke Torian has been elected chair of the newly organized Virginia Minority Business Commission at its inaugural meeting on Thursday. The commission was created by the 2020-2022 biennial state budget to promote growth and competitiveness of minority-owned businesses in Virginia and evaluate best practices to expand minority[...]
Liberty University sues state over tuition assistance cut for online students
Liberty University, the large, private nonprofit Christian school in Lynchburg, has filed a lawsuit against Gov. Ralph Northam and the director of the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia (SCHEV), alleging that amendments to the 2020 state budget “wrongly exclude Virginia students who access higher education through [...]
Sen. Amanda Chase ‘will absolutely not resign’
UPDATED 4:40 P.M., JAN. 8 Virginia Senate Democrats called Friday for the resignation of Republican state Sen. Amanda Chase, who spoke at the pro-Trump demonstration in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday that turned violent and led to a breach of the U.S. Capitol, but Chase says she “absolutely” will not leave her office. Facebo[...]
Va. National Guard to be deployed in D.C. through at least Jan. 20
The Virginia National Guard and Virginia State Police troopers will be deployed in Washington, D.C., at least through Jan. 20, inauguration day for President-elect Joe Biden, Gov. Ralph Northam announced Thursday afternoon. In a tweet, Northam said, “I’m extending Virginia’s National Guard deployment at least t[...]
Northam sets accelerated goals for vaccinations
In his first COVID-19 news conference of the year, Gov. Ralph Northam said the state is aiming to administer 25,000 COVID vaccine shots per day to Virginians, up from the current 14,000 shots per day. He hopes to get to 50,000 daily vaccinations as soon as possible, although the state is waiting for more doses […]
500K Virginians enrolled in Medicaid since 2019 expansion
The Virginia Department of Medical Assistance Services (DMAS) has announced that more than 500,000 Virginians have enrolled in health coverage since expanded Medicaid eligibility rules took effect in January 2019. Virginia was the only state in nation to experience a reduction in its uninsured rate between 2018 and 2019, the first year of the expanded […]
Off and running
Updated Jan. 29, 2021 Conventional wisdom used to hold that all politics is local, but that’s not really the case anymore. The extreme polarization on display during the recent presidential and U.S. Senate and House races has infected state and local politics, and Virginia’s November 2021 gubernatorial election promises no r[...]
Representing the underdogs
Although it’s hard to think way back to January 2020, a time before a year of social unrest, pandemic and economic peril, that’s when Virginia’s legislature and executive branch became majority-Democrat for the first time since 1993. However, even if some Virginians forgot about this significant shift, Republican lawmakers[...]
2020 Political Roundtable: Trump vs. Biden
The pandemic brought record early voter turnout, stretching official election outcomes for days — but a panel of five statewide political experts resoundingly predicted the day after the election that now-President-elect Biden would be the 46th president of the United States. On Nov. 4, 2020, Virginia Business held its 14th an[...]
Short and … sweet?
Even before the pandemic and ensuing recession took hold in Virginia, 2020 already had the makings for a novel year in the General Assembly. Having won majorities in both houses in the November 2019 elections, Democrats took back full control of the legislature for the first time in a generation. With Gov. Ralph Northam in [&hel[...]
Northam commits additional $20M to economic recovery fund
Gov. Ralph Northam has allocated an additional $20 million in federal CARES Act funding to assist more than 300 small businesses and nonprofits through the Rebuild VA economic recovery fund. The new funding will meet demand for the Rebuild VA program and fulfill pending grant applications for small businesses and nonprofits that[...]
Va. COVID-19 rate passes 12% this week
Virginia recorded 25,285 new COVID-19 cases and 207 more deaths last week, according to the Virginia Department of Health’s Dec. 28 update. The current seven-day positivity rate is 12.3%, up .9% from a week ago. The state has reported 336,175 cases and 4,861 deaths since March, and the current seven-day average number of daily new […]
