Vote ”yes“ on VA’s redistricting constitutional amendment.

Gerrymandering persists because it’s the rational choice for elected officials. The way electoral districts are drawn in most of the U.S. is that state legislators decide what they want their districts to look like. The majority party that controls the legislature draws their own districts to allow them to cruise to reelection, using fancy redistricting …

Truth, earned credibility, and a publisher’s responsibility.

I spent much of the ’00s as a political blogger. I wrote here, mostly about state politics. When I decided to start writing about state politics, in 2003, I sought out other political blogs in Virginia. There weren’t many, maybe a half-dozen. I added them all to my blogroll, made a point of reading those …

What’s wrong with Puckett’s resignation?

Further to the matter of Sen. Phil Puckett’s retirement, I want to play out the shades of inappropriateness here. While what he has done clearly feels wrong (allegedly quitting his seat in the Senate of Virginia in exchange for a job running a state-chartered organization and a judgeship for his daughter, all done immediately prior …

Ethics and tobacco meet again in Richmond.

This evening, the Washington Post’s Laura Vozella covered big political news: Republicans appear to have outmaneuvered Gov. Terry McAuliffe in a state budget standoff by persuading a Democratic senator to resign his seat, at least temporarily giving the GOP control of the chamber and possibly dooming the governor’s push to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care …

Déjà vu.

I’ve watched the drip-drip-sploosh of revelations about Bob McDonnell’s with a sense of recognition. As the charges become more serious (daughter’s wedding yields to Rolex yields to $50,000 to McDonnell’s wife yields to $70,000 to McDonnell’s business), it’s feeling a lot like the financial improprieties that accompanied his 2005 campaign for attorney general. In 2005, …

Bullshittery and bad candidates.

There’s something about an election that turns people into liars. Once upon a time, there was a relatively small cohort of people who had a public stake in an election. Those people would insist that their candidate was great—totally perfect, if the truth be told—no matter how lousy that they really thought that the candidate …