Awkward (presumably harmless) end to House Select Committee on Stds of Conduct as Del Austin repeatedly pats Chair @candimundonking.bsky.social on the arm & references regular hugs that he thinks were mutual, saying how much he respected her as a legislator & wishes her well in executive.

House Select Committee on Standards of Conduct hears from @NCSLorg on how Virginia's standards of confuct compare to those of HI, UT, WA, and WI. Chair @candimundonking.bsky.social says this isn't the same legislature Thomas Jefferson rode his horse & carriage to; it's a modern legislature.

Saving this outstanding and riveting presentation to the Joint Finance and Appropriations committee by the Secretary of Finance (I almost fell asleep just writing that!!) for the next time I have insomnia. 🫩

I really respect @abigailspanberger.com for not rolling her eyes even once during that ridiculous presentation to Joint Finance and Appropriations Committee by Youngkin today.

Today at Joint Fin. & Approps, Youngkin talks about how strong Virginia's economy is, ignoring that it's most likely headed into a recession as we've lost thousands of federal jobs, and face SNAP and healthcare crises. Hopefully the last time we'll have to see his lame duck face.

Citizen (former legislators) appointments at Joint Rules Committee to Legislative Compensation Commission: former Senators Saslaw and Vogel; former Delegates Avoli, Bourne, Jeff Campbell, Joe Lindsey. Perhaps they'll finally figure out how to pay legislators more appropriately!

I know this is a great opportunity for @candimundonking.bsky.social and congratulations and all that...but I'm really gonna miss that 🌶️🌶️🔥 on the House floor!!

Glad they made this (bad) decision in time for the start of Virginia's legislative session. And double glad Virginia's Democrats had the foresight to be a step ahead. ♟️♟️

DANG! This is how many people may be eligible to have their criminal records sealed automatically or by petition, enabling them to get a fresh start! (Not all will ultimately qualify, but still.)

Presentation to Crime Commish: Here's the potential impact of "one bad apple" in the prosecution system. One criminal forensics tech, Mary Jane Burton--who may have tampered with the evidence--touched THIS many cases. Note how many are incarcerated, and eight who were EXECUTED.

The Virginia-Israel Advisory Board (the only other country with which we seem to have such a board) has a meeting scheduled now on LIS, but there's no agenda anywhere, it's not streamed, and it's not listed on the VA studies webpage. studies.virginiageneralassembly.gov/studies/163

Better idea: stay on as GOP Chair, and step down from the Senate! It's not like he passes any bills anyway--or even patrons anything actually meant to solve the problems his constituents face.

Heck yeah!!

Also: UVA mgmt threw a longtime "shared governance" policy away so they could negotiate with the feds in secret without offending the feds by giving faculty any voice in the deal they cut.

TL;DR of UVA testimony at Senate Finance Ed subcommittee: it was too expensive, too scary and might have taken too long to fight Trump and the DOJ in court against accusations they were discriminating (i.e. considering DEI in any way), so they caved to the whims of the dictator.

Yesterday: Autism Advisory Council voted 👍 Sen Pekarsky bill to add Blue Envelope program info to Driver's Ed curriculum; & @laurajanecohen.bsky.social leg. facilitating high school (IDEA std)->college (ADA std) transitions, and to study a pilot 4-year college program akin to Mason Life.

Sadly, I suspect VA voters who elected a Youngkin 4 yrs ago don't support ending RTW. VA may not be there ideologically. Legislators may not want to have to all vote on this. But a smart governor will work w legislature to at least chip away at RTW & find labor wins through this.

I've been "educated" over on *that other site* that this change is something experts in education support, but my main point re: the timing and how headlines next year will scream about scores plummeting under Gov Spanberger is still correct.

The tl;dr is that Youngkin put in place a new (untested and nonstandard) way to measure--just in the future--how well Virginia is educating her children that will make it look like Governor Spanberger isn't doing well. virginiamercury.com/2025/11/14/h...

Nothing to see here from the "pro-life" folks, right? virginiamercury.com/2025/11/07/c...

Seemed pretty obvious when they nominated a terrible candidate for the top of the ticket (and then national and VA GOP only dumped money into Miyares for months) that GOP delegates had been thrown under the bus. Not sure Kilgore's to blame for most of that.

No words for how vile and disgusting this is. And dangerous, frankly, to rile up a MAGA mob about not wanting *those kind of people* in this state. Where have we seen this before? 🤔

Oh, don't worry, @abigailspanberger.com IS going to pack up and go home--just as soon as Youngkin moves out of it!

Democratic colleagues Simon, Ebbin, Watts and Locke wrote in their letter to OSIG that they are “deeply concerned” Miyares may have pressured VADOC “to adjust its practices in ways that advantage” his campaign. “If true, this would represent a profound breach of the public trust,” they wrote.

Sen Mulchi speaking passionately and heart-breakingly about domestic violence and how many victims of domestic violence are re-victimized in court, labeled as having mental illness. And I can't help but think about how Miyares did that to this victim: vanow.org/news/article...

@ssurovell.bsky.social before Virginia Senate passes redistricting amendment: What do you do when one side refuses to play by the rules? Do you continue to play by the rules and concede defeat? Or do you take actions, even if unsavory, to protect the principles of democratic government?

@senatorlocke.bsky.social points out that the GOP keep saying "We don't react to things happening elsewhere," but all year long we've been responding to Executive Orders coming from DC, whether they follow the law or constitution or not. While other states are fighting back, Miyares is not.

Weird how it's the "death of our democracy" here in Virginia to offer the voters a chance to engage in mid-decade redistricting. So do we all agree that Trump's actions are the death of democracy?

We keep hearing occasional peeps from VA GOP members during this redistricting discussion insinuating-sometimes downright stating-that Trump's coerced mid-decade redistricting in TX & elsewhere to rig Congress's majority is wrong. But none of them said a single word before this.

GOP Senator Peake says something good was said down the hall from someone "we rarely hear good things from, [GOP] Delegate Lee Ware" OUCH!

It's cute for the Senate GOP to argue about what constitutes an intervening election and whether voters have a chance to oust legislators if they don't like how they vote on this amendment when it ISN'T THE SENATE THAT IS UP FOR ELECTION. So there's no risk to them either way.

Oh goody, we're going to have a constitutional law duel on the Senate floor on this Friday morning. 🫠

@ssurovell.bsky.social on early voters: They voted before the shutdown, before the East Wing of the White House was torn down, before they knew whether the government would extend the health care subsidies, lots of things people were unaware of but made up their mind to vote early anyway.

Senate rejects GOP floor changes to redistricting amendment that'd undermine the intent of this plan, which is to give Virginians the opportunity to ask legislature to respond to unfair redistricting taking place in other states, watering down their representation in Congress.

Probably wouldn't matter, but the Senate GOP kinda hamstrings themselves by not all showing up to work. They're missing 3 members when the majority has a one vote margin.

If they love redistricting comissions show much, why have they never rebuked trump's efforts to "find me more seats?" Why have they never demanded federal legislation prohibiting mid-decade redistricting? Of course, the answer is they don't care about process, they care about power.

It is RICH to hear these GOP Senators fervently singing praises of the Redistricting Commish. @creighdeeds.bsky.social & others drafted redistricting commish amendments for YEARS, and the GOP rejected every single one of them UNTIL they were in minority & could no longer draw own districts.

Sen Obenshain says that the decision on how many Republican-leaning and how many Democratic-leaning Congressional seats Virginia has shouldn't be one of those "cats and dogs issues" that Democrats and Republicans aren't supposed to agree on. Huh?

The Virginia Senate has a Charlie Kirk memorial resolution on the floor this morning. I will not be reporting any further on it.

Senate Privileges and Elections reports out redistricting amendment resolution to the floor.

@aaronrouse.bsky.social: Speaking of unprecedented, it has been five weeks since the US House has convened to seat a duly-elected member from Arizona. What happens when that becomes Virginia? Do we ignore what happens at the federal level?

@creighdeeds.bsky.social says doing Congressional redistricting with a bipartisan commission when other states don't do the same is like unilaterally disarming, and says that this resolution probably doesn't go far ENOUGH, but it's an important start to responding to Trump's power grab.

@russetperry.bsky.social: "If they don't want it, they can say so!" But I think the concern, and you're right to be concerned about that, I think they're going to decide that too, is that voters will want to take this action. It'll be the voters decision--that's the foundation of democracy.

@scvanvalkenburg.bsky.social points out that early voting is defined in the code as voting 45 days "prior to the election." Meaning that "the election" is not defined as the broad time period over which people vote, but rather the Tuesday in November that is Election Day--words matter.

"Who's to say the next President won't be even worse?" Senator Travis Hackworth (GOP).

By 51-42 vote, the Virginia House votes to pass a resolution that would allow a mid-decade redistricting. This must pass the Senate and then pass both bodies once more after the upcoming election, and then the voters of Virginia will weigh in.

These GOP members just keep saying over and over how the voters have spoken on redistricting, five years ago, etc. If they are so sure that the voters don't support this, what do they care if it's put before the voters? Put your money where your mouth is and trust the voters.

@delciaprice85.bsky.social goes OFF! "As if basic civics knowledge does not tell us that what happens at the federal level can affect is here." Example: NC redistricted and went from 7-7 to 10-4 that gave Congress the 218 majority.

Del. @marcussimon.com: We're here bc a) we asked the Governor on a bipartisan basis to call us into this special session & gave ourselves authority to decide what business we could take up; b) to give voters the ability to push back against Trump's power grab in other states if they want.

House P&E reports redistricting resolution. @delciaprice85.bsky.social says "the threat to our FEDERAL democracy, the threat of the fall of the Voting Rights Act are an unprecendented threat to Virginians. 5 years may not seem like a long time, but not when your democracy is under attack.