With the halfway point of this year’s General Assembly session already upon us, the days have been getting longer.  While there were some serious disappointments last week – like when a House subcommittee killed every single piece of smoke-free legislation – Friday saw a number of important efforts come to fruition.  Friday afternoon the House Agriculture, Chesapeake and Natural Resources Committee turned the bill that would have gutted the Air Pollution Control Board into a bill that preserves the board’s full power and authority and actually strengthens financial conflict of interest rules for board members.  I expect this revised bill to pass the full House in short order.  This is a significant victory in our fight against the Mirant Plant that could not have been achieved without the hard work of City of Alexandria officials and citizens working together.  Thank you to everyone who played a role.

[Read more...]

After spending Saturday evening in Richmond at the Virginia Democratic Party’s annual Jefferson-Jackson Dinner, David and Shayna, along with Caleb, today welcomed Sen. Barack Obama to Alexandria before he addressed thousands of supporters packed into T.C. Williams High School.  David serves on Obama’s Virginia Steering Committee and first endorsed Obama more than a year ago.

“He energized the crowd in Richmond last night, and he’s here doing the same in Alexandria today,” said David.  “America needs Barack Obama, and I’m confident that he will win big in Virginia on Tuesday and go on to become the next President of the United States.”

Constituents from the Jewish Community Relations Council visited David today as a part of JCRC’s Virginia Jewish Advocacy Day. Governor Tim Kaine joined David and other legislators to greet members of the Jewish community this morning and discuss their broad agenda, including reproductive choice, environmental protection, and Virginia’s proposed divestment from companies that do business with Sudan.

The Arlington and Alexandria Education Associations visited David today to discuss ways to improve Virginia’s public schools. They are working towards salary increases to help attract and retain quality teachers, required planning time for teachers at all levels, and full and fair rebenchmarking of the Standards of Quality.

“I’m proud to stand with our teachers to make public schools a priority,” said David.

My top environmental priority – and my top overall legislative priority – this session is to defeat the effort to dismantle Virginia’s citizen environmental boards. Gutting the authority of these boards would be perhaps the most significant and harmful transformation in our state’s environmental policy in a generation. The good news is that weeks of diligent lobbying and negotiations are finally moving things in the right direction.

[Read more...]