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Thursday, 28 December 2017 16:30

Democrats Just Won a Major Victory in Virginia

Democrats Just Won a Major Victory in Virginia

On a night of Democratic victories, one of the most significant wins came in Virginia, where the party held onto the governor’s mansion. Democratic governor-elect Ralph Northam’s victory will enable him to expand voting rights to disenfranchised people and exert some control over the redistricting process.

Published in Let Me Vote - Count My Vote
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Saturday, 17 September 2016 00:00

Virginia Supreme Court slaps down Republicans’ attempt to block ex-felons from voting

Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe during a press conference at the Capitol in Richmond, VA.

The Virginia Supreme Court rejected a petition from Republican leaders on Thursday that sought to hold Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) in contempt for restoring the voting rights of tens of thousands of ex-offenders ahead of the 2016 election.

Published in Let Me Vote - Count My Vote
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Friday, 02 September 2016 00:00

Norment proposes path to voting rights for nonviolent felons; McAuliffe calls it 'step backward'

Norment proposes path to voting rights for nonviolent felons; McAuliffe calls it 'step backward'

Virginia Senate Majority Leader Thomas K. Norment Jr. announced Thursday that he’ll introduce a constitutional amendment to automatically restore voting rights for some nonviolent felons, create new barriers for others, and strip future governors of the power to restore political rights.

Published in Let Me Vote - Count My Vote
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Wednesday, 20 July 2016 00:00

Keep Politics Out of Virginia Voting Rights Restoration

Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe signs an order restoring voting rights to more than 200,000 Virginians on April 22, 2016.

On Tuesday the Virginia Supreme Court heard arguments in a suit challenging Gov. Terry McAuliffe’s (D) April order that restored voting rights to 200,000 Virginians with past felony convictions. While the court proceedings will stick to legal arguments, the public debate has been needlessly rancorous and partisan.

Published in Let Me Vote - Count My Vote
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Tuesday, 26 April 2016 00:00

As McDonnell awaits Supreme Court, another governor watches from prison

As McDonnell awaits Supreme Court, another governor watches from prison

Along with the state officials and law professors who are happy that the Supreme Court this week is reviewing the corruption conviction of former Virginia governor Robert F. McDonnell, add inmate No. 24775-001 at the federal prison in Oakdale, La.

Published in Criminal Injustice
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Tuesday, 26 January 2016 00:00

Virginia Senate passes Equal Rights Amendment

Virginia Senate passes Equal Rights Amendment

The Equal Rights Amendment cleared the floor of the Virginia Senate for the fifth time in six years. SJ1, sponsored by Senator Scott Surovell (D-Fairfax), passed 21-19 on Tuesday on a near-party line vote with most Senate Republicans opposed​.

Published in Constitutional Pay Equity - The Equal Rights Amendment
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Saturday, 09 January 2016 00:00

I GOT THE HORSE RIGHT HERE! 2016 PRIMARY TRACK CONDITIONS

I GOT THE HORSE RIGHT HERE! 2016 PRIMARY TRACK CONDITIONS

If you know Guys & Dolls, you’re already singing the rest of this line: “His name is Paul Revere, and there’s a guy that says, when the weather’s clear, ‘Can do!’” - http://www.musictory.com/music/Guys+And+Dolls/Fugue+For+Tinhorns )

Published in Let Me Vote - Count My Vote
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Thursday, 31 December 2015 00:00

Stuart community members urge school board to change school's name

Stuart High School students who support a name change for the school held a rally in November in front of Stuart

The name of JEB Stuart High School should be changed because “along with the name, comes a history of racism, inequality, and oppression,” Stuart senior Lidia Amanuel told the Fairfax County school board Dec. 17 at a public hearing on a proposal to change the board’s policy on school names.

Stuart is a diverse school with students from more than 70 countries, and “many of us don’t identify with the ideals of the Confederacy that JEB Stuart stood for,” Amanuel said. Changing the name would end the school system’s “tolerance of institutionalized racism.” 

Later that evening, the school board voted unanimously to adopt a new policy on school names. The measure, proposed by board member Sandy Evans (Mason), doesn’t specifically address Stuart High School, which is named for a Confederate general, or any other school, but it does clear the way for such a proposal to be introduced later.
 
Under the current policy, school names can only be changed if the use of the building changes. “This modest revision would permit the school board to change a name if there is a good reason to do so,” Evans said.
 
During the board discussion before the vote, at-large member Ted Velkoff said he supports the goal of eradicating racism and honoring U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, as many of those who support a name change for Stuart recommend, but warned against a wholesale renaming of schools, noting “Civil War history is complicated.”
 
The possibility of having two high schools named Marshall “could potentially be a stumbling block,” he said.  The other one is named for Gen. George C. Marshall. Instead, he suggested naming an elementary or middle school for Thurgood Marshall.
 
“There is no way we’re going to have two Marshall high schools,” said board member Elizabeth Schultz (Springfield). She proposed renaming Stuart for former President Ronald Reagan, citing his leadership in establishing a national holiday honoring Martin Luther King. She also warned against going too far in changing names, although in the end she voted for the policy change.
 
Everyone who spoke at the public hearing urged the school board to change the name of Stuart High School to honor Justice Marshall.
 
Stephen Spitz, a Lake Barcroft resident and retired civil rights and constitutional law attorney, said, “Justice Marshall was not only the leading advocate arguing for the abolition of racial segregation in Brown v. Board of Education, but was also a legendary defender of equal protection of the laws for everyone. He is the perfect symbol of the diversity of the student body at the high school and would be a wonderful inspiration to the students, the faculty, the administration, the staff, and the larger community.”
 
“Make no mistake. JEB Stuart High School was not named to honor a Confederate general’s role in the Civil War,” Spitz said. ”The school was named as part of Virginia’s ‘massive resistance’ to school integration.”
 
After the Supreme Court ruled unanimously in Brown that separate schools for black and white students were inherently unequal and therefore unconstitutional, segregationists who controlled the government in Virginia, “were determined to defy the Brown decision,” he said.
 
During that period, recounted in the new book, A Nation of Nations: A Great American Immigration Story, by Tom Gjelten, Virginia mandated the closure of any school under an integration order and cut off state funding for any school that attempted on its own to integrate, Spitz said. “When the school board in Arlington County dared to propose a modest integration plan, the state board of education rejected the plan and fired the entire Arlington board.”
 
“Fairfax County officials did not merely refuse to comply with the Supreme Court’s order, they defiantly named their next two high schools after Confederate Army generals: JEB Stuart and Robert E. Lee,” he said.
 
Spitz urged the school to rename Stuart High School for Justice Thurgood Marshall “to help Fairfax County move forward into the 21st century instead of continuing to honor its troubled past.”
 
Jessica Swanson, who lives near Stuart, also called upon the school board to rename the school for Marshall, noting he was a longtime foe of segregation, chief architect of the legal strategy to end segregation, argued the Brown case before the Supreme Court, and was the first African American Supreme Court justice.
 
Marshall dedicated his life to bringing us together,” Swanson said, and was not, like Stuart, “dedicated to fighting to tear us apart.”
 
Changing the name of a school may seen a low priority compared to budget cuts and achievement gaps, “but small indignities matter, symbolism matters,” said Tina Hone, a former school board member and head of the Coalition of The Silence, a group advocating for minority students.
 
The anti-integrationists who chose the name Stuart “knew exactly what it symbolized,” Hone said. “Naming the school after the late great Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, who lived in one of the neighborhoods that feeds into Stuart and who through his leadership in Brown v. Board of Education, changed the face of public education in this nation, would be the right symbolism.”
 
While some may say the name should be changed to honor a prominent Latino given the makeup of the school’s student body, Hone said, the civil rights victories won by Marshall “set the precedents on which the rights of nearly every minority community stand.”
 
Mike O’Brien, a member of the board of the Fairfax County NAACP, said a school named for a Confederate general is no longer appropriate in 2015.
 
The only good reasons to name a school for an individual are to honor someone whose values benefit the community or whose accomplishments serve as an inspiration, O’Brien said.
 
Stuart, on the other hand “fought in open rebellion against the government of the United States in support of slavery,” he said. Stuart High School has a significant number of students of color, and the messages they might absorb from the name of their school are,” You are less than equal than your white counterparts here,” and “this county still has a grudge against those who won the Civil War.”
 
The messages that the school should convey, he said, are, “we are all equal here and we are all worthy.”
 
Published in End Racism and Discrimination
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Thursday, 19 November 2015 00:00

Virginia ramps up its war on pot — and the arrests show a disturbing racial divide

Virginia ramps up its war on pot — and the arrests show a disturbing racial divide

As states across the country are relaxing their marijuana laws and federal lawmakers consider doing the same, at least one state is bucking the trend and ramping up its war on pot. Marijuana arrests in Virginia have increased dramatically over the past decade, according to a new report from the Drug Policy Alliance, a group that advocates for drug policy reform. And black Virginians account for the overwhelming majority of this increase, causing the racial disparity in the state's marijuana arrests to widen.

Published in End Mass Criminalization of Black and Brown Youth
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Saturday, 27 June 2015 00:00

Cutting red tape to find housing for homeless veterans

Cutting red tape to find housing for homeless veterans

It's fascinating what a little coordination - and a lot of communication - can do in battling homelessness among veterans.

Published in End Homelessness Now
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