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Youngkin blocked a battery factory from coming to Va. and an entire economic sector’s potential
By Michael O’Grady Recently, Gov. Glenn Youngkin blocked a deal with Ford Motor Company and Contemporary Amperex Technology Limited (CATL) to bring car battery research and manufacturing to Southside Virginia, an area desperately needing this type of investment. The move is odd given that Youngkin left the Carlyle Group to champion Virginia workforce development. Furthermore, […]
Let’s keep the Shenandoah clean
By Mark Frondorf For years, herds of cattle wading and defecating in our rivers caused pollution and rendered the waters disgusting and, in some cases, dangerous for contact by those seeking recreation and drinking water. That’s why in 2020, Virginia passed legislation providing farmers with increased funding to fence herds of cattle out of streams […]
Protect Virginia’s election officials
By Chris Piper Those who watched the January 6 committee’s public hearings will remember a mother and daughter who served as election officials in Georgia who were relentlessly harassed and received numerous death threats, the result of false information spread about them when they were simply doing their job. As someone who has worked in […]
Utility shut-offs harm vulnerable Virginians
By Rev. Sherman Z. Logan Virginians will continue to face the threat of utility shut-offs as the height of winter approaches, with low temperatures and severe weather events worsened by the negative impacts of climate change. With Del. Irene Shin introducing House Bill 2283 in this year’s General Assembly session, this is a timely opportunity […]
IRA offers big incentives for tax-exempt organizations to invest in renewable energy
By Eric Hurlocker In August of last year, Congress unexpectedly passed the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), after Sen. Joe Manchin, D-West Virginia, got on board with a slimmed-down version of “Build Back Better,” a bill he opposed in its original form due to its size. While it is named the Inflation Reduction Act, in large […]
Game over for the Mountain Valley Pipeline
By Elle De La Cancela The Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) is 0-4 on first down conversions. The red zone is nowhere in sight, and the clock is running out. Why are people still betting on this team? MVP is a monstrous, 303-mile fracked-gas pipeline planned to run through the Blue Ridge and Appalachian regions of […]
Virginia abolished biased, inefficient, botched executions; more states should follow suit
By Dale Brumfield On Dec. 13, just as horrifying images from Iran emerged showing condemned protestors hanged publicly on street-corner construction cranes, Oregon Gov. Kate Brown followed Virginia’s lead and commuted the death sentences of 17 inmates to life imprisonment and dismantled that state’s death chamber. It is gratifying to see another state break away […]
Students, stand up for your rights
By Patrick Brady After the Virginia Department of Education spent over two years dancing around implementing model policies to improve accessibility for transgender youth in Virginia, Governor Glenn Youngkin reversed the increasing flow of LGBTQ+ freedoms by introducing stricter laws concerning transgender youth in public schools. Many Americans think the fight for queer rights finished […]
We can all do more to prevent roadway tragedies
By Pamela Sebesky It’s a sobering fact: 360 lives were lost in crashes on our roads across metropolitan Washington, including Northern Virginia, in 2021. This represents a 12% increase in fatalities from the year prior, and the second year in a row that fatalities have risen. Serious injuries also rose, breaking a years-long downward trend. […]
Let’s not whitewash the racism from American history
By Shirley Ann Higuchi My father grew up on a farm in San Jose that my grandfather had to put in the names of his two oldest sons, because California banned migrants from owning land. The reason behind the state’s Alien Land Law was racism. It was racism that enabled my Japanese American relatives to […]
A warning siren on Virginia students’ mental health
By Keith Perrigan Recently, a tremendous amount of attention has been paid to the decline in student achievement in Virginia since 2019. Simply enter any combination of “Virginia,” “NAEP,” “SOL,” “cut scores,” “higher expectations” and so on, and a plethora of news articles, op-eds and reports will fill your screen. Rightly so. Ensuring our current […]
How gender, race, age and voter ID laws affect whether a voter actually casts a ballot
By Jane Junn, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences; John Holbein, University of Virginia; and Nazita Lajevardi, Michigan State University Who shows up to cast a ballot and who is allowed to mark a ballot and have it counted will determine which candidates take office and what issues they focus on. The Conversation […]