Alexandria – Delegate David Englin (D-45) today launched a web-based telephone campaign to encourage Virginians who support health care reform to urge Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli to abandon his threat to file a lawsuit against the U.S. Government.

“Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli said he will file a lawsuit to block health care reform ‘as soon as the ink is dry’ on President Obama’s signature. This is an egregious waste of taxpayer dollars that could stop Virginians from enjoying the benefits of health care reform,” said Englin. “He claims he’s received nothing but positive feedback from Virginians, but I have constituents call me every day asking what they can do to oppose Cuccinelli’s efforts. This online campaign will help them make their voices heard.”

The online campaign is powered by Advomatic’s Click-to-Call tool, and can be viewed here: http://bitly.com/cuccinelli

A graduate of the United State Air Force Academy and Harvard University, Delegate David Englin is Vice Chairman of the House Democratic Caucus and is serving his third term in the Virginia House of Delegates, where he represents the 45th District, which includes parts of the City of Alexandria, Fairfax County, and Arlington County. He serves on the Finance Committee, the Health, Welfare, and Institutions Committee, and the Agriculture, Chesapeake, and Natural Resources Committee. For more information, visit http://www.davidenglin.org.

Now that David is back from the legislative session, we have lots of work to do to update constituents on what their General Assembly got up and to keep empowering people to get involved and make change.  Can you please join us on Thursday, April 8, from 6-9 p.m., for Team Englin’s first Volunteer Night of 2010?  We have three different mailings to get out, so we really need all the help we can get. As always, we’ll fuel the evening with pizza and beverages, and it all takes place at our home (a.k.a. “Campaign Central”) at 1505 Wayne Street, Alexandria (map).

Contact us at 703-549-3203 or gro.nilgnedivadnull@ofni to let us know you’ll be there on April 8.  Thank you for everything you do to support our ongoing fight for a progressive future!

Alexandria – Starting on or about March 19, the Woodrow Wilson Bridge Project will embark on a new phase of construction that is anticipated to cause periodic significant delays for motorists traveling the Inner and Outer Loops of the Capital Beltway I-95/495, Telegraph Road and Eisenhower Valley area.  When completed, three new ramps will improve traffic flow by providing direct access from Telegraph Road North to Eisenhower Avenue, from the Outer Loop to Telegraph Road North, and from the Outer Loop directly to Eisenhower Avenue, and will include a bike and pedestrian path.

 ”While I’m pleased to see the Woodrow Wilson Bridge project coming down the home stretch, this important phase of construction will be a real challenge for our community, so I urge drivers to be well informed and plan accordingly,” said Delegate David Englin (D-45), who represents the area most affected by the construction.

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The 2010 General Assembly session came to a close Sunday evening just one day later than scheduled, which is actually a record compared to the past several years.  At the eleventh hour, House and Senate budget negotiators presented us with a final budget that appears to be less bad than the budget House Republicans passed Feb. 25, but which still balances the books on the backs of children and the poor and includes a fiscally irresponsible shell game with the state pension trust fund.

The good news is that we won some key concessions from House Republicans, making the final overall budget less bad than the House version of the budget hey passed Feb. 25.  For example, the original House budget contained a plan to lump preschool, early reading intervention, and services for at-risk children into a lottery-funded block grant and then change the distribution formula to literally take money away from poor students and give it to students who are not poor.  We soundly defeated this proposal, saving Alexandria and Arlington a combined $3.6 million in public education funds for poor and at-risk students.  [Read more...]

Richmond – Delegate David Englin (D-45) issued the following statement regarding his vote this evening against the final version of Virginia’s two-year state budget:

Budgets are moral documents that express our values as a Commonwealth and determine whom we lift up and whom we leave out. While the final version of the budget is less bad than the initial House version, I still cannot justify supporting a budget that balances the books on the backs of children and the poor and that includes a fiscally irresponsible shell game with the state pension trust fund.

Thanks to strong, unified, vocal opposition from House Democrats, the final budget is less bad than the budget House Republicans passed Feb. 25. For example, the final budget rejected the Republican plan to take money away from poor students and give it to students who are not poor, and it rejected the Republican plan to redirect federal Medicaid enhancement money from health care for the neediest Virginians to non-health care programs.

However, these concessions do not make up for the fact that the final budget cuts billions of dollars from public education, health care for the poor, public safety, and aid to localities, with no serious attempt to mitigate these cuts with revenue and no serious attempt to give localities the power to mitigate these cuts in their own. Even worse, the final budget still includes a risky, $800-million scheme to divert state contributions from the state pension trust fund, which will put Virginia’s triple-A bond rating at risk and threaten our ability to meet our pension obligations to teachers, fire fighters, law enforcement officers, and state and local employees.

Delegate David Englin is Vice Chairman of the House Democratic Caucus and is serving his third term in the Virginia House of Delegates, where he represents the 45th District, which includes parts of the City of Alexandria, Fairfax County, and Arlington County. He serves on the Finance Committee, the Health, Welfare, and Institutions Committee, and the Agriculture, Chesapeake, and Natural Resources Committee. For more information, visit http://www.davidenglin.org.

Below is video of David’s remarks Wednesday, as he and fellow House Democrats kept up the pressure on Governor Bob McDonnell and House Republicans to stand up to Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli’s anti-gay crusade against faculty, staff, and students at Virginia’s public colleges and universities.  McDonnell bowed to pressure from legislators and grassroots protesters late Wednesday and issued a nondiscrimination memo.  While the memo does not have the force of law, and legislative action is still urgent and necessary, moving McDonnell to this point from the virulently anti-gay statements of his past represents a small but tangible victory for pro-equality Virginians.

David joined other members of the House Jewish Caucus yesterday to welcome a diplomatic contingent of from the Embassy of Israel to discuss ongoing issues of importance to the relationship between Israel and Virginia.

Ralph Robbins, Executive Director of the Virginia Israel Advisory Board, Galit Baram, Counselor for Public and Academic Affairs, and Ben Sack, Senior Officer for Public Affairs, represented the Embassy of Israel.  They were joined by Ralph Robbins, Executive Director of the Virginia Israel Advisory Board.  The group discussed Virginia’s progress divesting the Commonwealth’s pension trust fund investments from companies providing military support to Iran, as well as the Virginia Israel Advisory Board’s ongoing success at creating jobs in Virginia by partnering with high-tech companies in Israel.

“The strong relationship between Virginia and Israel continues to reap economic rewards, and I am pleased to be a part of its success,” said David.

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Richmond – Delegate David Englin (D-45) issued the following statement today in response to the memorandum Gov. Bob McDonnell issued yesterday addressing employment nondiscrimination:

We have had much discussion on the House floor this week about whether our great Commonwealth will be a place where workers are judged on the job they do and not the families they go home to. Late yesterday, Governor McDonnell responded to our calls for employment nondiscrimination with a memo stating that he will not tolerate discrimination based on sexual orientation or other non-merit factors for the state employees under the supervision of his office. I want to thank Governor McDonnell for responding to our outcry against anti-gay bigotry, and to the demands of Northern Virginia’s business community, with this small step forward. Moreover, I think it says something important about the progress we have made as nation when a conservative politician with national political aspirations feels the need to move a bit closer to the right side of history on this issue.

While a product of national ambition and political necessity, this is still a step in the right direction. However, it’s very important that we understand that Governor McDonnell’s directive does not carry the force of law. Therefore, now that Governor McDonnell has shown new openness on this issue, I hope he will work with us to send down a bill or support our other legislative efforts so together we can make employment nondiscrimination the law of the land in Virginia.  [Read more...]

Richmond – For the third consecutive day on the floor of the House of Delegates, Virginia Democrats stood against the anti-gay efforts of Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, who issued a letter to Virginia’s public colleges and universities March 4 advising them to repeal nondiscrimination policies protecting gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender faculty, staff, and students.

Urging Republicans to join their effort, Delegate David Englin (D-45) offered the following remarks:

Mr. Speaker, Ladies and Gentlemen, as you just heard from the Gentleman from Henrico, Delegate Morrissey, at public colleges across Virginia, students, faculty, and tuition-paying parents share the outrage you have heard expressed on this floor about Attorney General Cuccinelli’s demand that Virginia’s colleges remove sexual orientation from their nondiscrimination rules. They share our outrage, and they want action. We have tried multiple times in this House and on the floor to fix this problem. Sadly, the General Laws committee chose to cancel its Monday meeting rather than work to move forward with the Senate nondiscrimination bill. That’s especially unfortunate, because I believe there are good people on both sides of the aisle in that committee who should be willing to do what’s right on this issue. Yesterday, we tried the extraordinary measure of a discharge motion to bring up that bill, but that, too, was defeated. [Read more...]

Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli pushed his anti-gay agenda front and center in the General Assembly this week with his March 4 letter to Virginia colleges and universities asking them to remove language dealing with sexual orientation from their nondiscrimination policies.  Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence that the purpose of government is to secure the equal and unalienable rights of all people to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  For Cuccinelli to use the finite resources of his office to seek out and target policies protecting gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender faculty, staff, and students at Virginia’s public colleges and universities is a shocking abuse that flies in the face of the very reason our government exists.

Even if one is willing to set aside the moral outrage that is an attorney general working to hinder and revoke equal protection under the law, his actions are destructive to Virginia’s economic future.  Businesses throughout Virginia understand that employees should be judged solely on their merit and not on other unrelated factors.  The ten largest corporate employers in Virginia have active nondiscrimination policies.  Northrop Grumman, whose corporate headquarters we are trying to lure here in competition with Maryland and D.C., consistently wins perfect marks from the Human Rights Campaign for equal treatment of its gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender workers.  The quality of Virginia’s public colleges and universities is a key factor in our continued ranking by Forbes.com and others as the Best State for Business.  By sullying the reputation of our system of higher learning and hindering the ability of our top universities to recruit and retain the very best faculty and staff, Cuccinelli risks our future status as Best State for Business.

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