Author
COVID-19 Exposes Deadly Gaps in Our Social Safety Net
By Angela Ciolfi There is nothing like a crisis to expose the cavernous gaps in our systems of support. A few examples among many: Evicting people from public housing for unpaid rent when other affordable housing options are scarce has always increased homelessness and educational instability. COVID-19 just lays bare the naked cruelty of it. […]
7 lessons from ‘Hidden Figures’ NASA mathematician Katherine Johnson’s life and career
By Della Dumbaugh Katherine Johnson, an African American mathematician who made critical contributions to the space program at NASA, died Feb. 24 at the age of 101. Johnson became a household name thanks to the celebrated book “Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians who Helped Win the […]
Something’s rotten in Virginia
By David Daley and Katie Fahey Something’s rotten in the state of Virginia. Legislative Democrats are on the verge of scuttling bipartisan redistricting reform and handing themselves unilateral power over the next decade of state legislative and congressional maps — embracing the same partisan gerrymandering that Democrats have so bitterly complained about when Republicans hold […]
Saving money for whom?
Pharmacy benefit managers are claiming drug prices will go up if Gov. Ralph Northam signs two bills (HB1290 and SB251) that overwhelmingly passed both General Assembly houses. These identical bills would license PBMs under the Bureau of Insurance and address some of their business practices. The most interesting part of the PBMs’ claim is that […]
A tip for Virginia’s legislators: Get your health care priorities straight
By Awesta Sarkash As the Virginia Assembly entered its last week of the 2020 session, I had hoped that state legislators were prepared to make good on their promises of protecting affordable health care for small business and all Virginians. Yet, late in the day on Monday, the General Assembly passed a bill that does […]
Time to deliver on economic policies for working families
As we approach the closing weeks of the 2020 legislative session, Virginia lawmakers are poised to make significant and historic progress on issues that affect the economic opportunity of Virginia families. For too long, the conversation in Richmond has prioritized the needs of big business while working families continue to fall further behind. This year […]
What Pete Buttigieg’s historic candidacy meant for LGBTQ kids
I feel like a jerk. Like a lot of people, I got caught up in the Democratic primary and whose plans I thought would be best for America at this critical time in history, given what Donald Trump has wrought. On one hand, there’s nothing wrong with that and it’s a fine way to choose […]
Clean Economy Act would make Virginia a leader on climate change
By Matthew Burke, M.D. As a doctor, I believe it is the duty of all physicians to stand up to the health challenges of our day. The opening line of the Hippocratic Oath, to which we are all sworn as medical students, is “Primum non nocere,” which means “First do not harm.” This ancient saying […]
A little ‘horse sense’ could go a long way in gambling debate
By Holly Hazard A few years ago, as lobbyists began pressing the General Assembly to resurrect the racing industry in Virginia, many of us were worried about the horses. It didn’t make sense that anyone would be instigating all this kerfuffle about a dying industry. The cost of keeping and breeding horses was rising, the […]
The power of a song in a strange land
By Donna M. Cox, University of Dayton From the moment of capture, through the treacherous middle passage, after the final sale and throughout life in North America, the experience of enslaved Africans who first arrived at Jamestown, Virginia, some 400 years ago, was characterized by loss, terror and abuse. The Abolition of the Slave Trade […]
What Ezra Klein got right (and wrong) about our political polarization
By Bruce Ledewitz Ezra Klein, the editor-at-large and co-founder of of the online news and culture site, Vox, has written a timely book about America’s polarization: Why We’re Polarized. Bruce Ledewitz (Capital-Star file) He aims to explain how we came to this point, even though he feels that not much can be done to change things. […]
Virginia should follow through on ending prison gerrymandering
By Kenneth Donovan In June 1787, shortly after James Madison introduced his Virginia Plan for a legislature under the new Constitution, the deliberations hit a snag. A question arose as to whether slaves were to be counted for the sake of representation. With southerners advocating their inclusion to some degree the convention delegates settled on […]